EDC to rope in IT, start-up stalwarts as advisors

PANJIM: An EDC Ltd team lead by its chairman, Sidharth Kuncalienker met founder of Mastek Ltd, Ashank Desai recently in Mumbai to seek his expertise in the field of start-up and innovation. 

The EDC team consisted of vice chairman Santosh Kenkre and managing director, Surendra Vernekar. The team discussed various aspects of incubation and acceleration for Goan youth and EDC’s efforts to set up its own incubation centre. Mr Desai assured his full cooperation and also assured to be part of mentoring team for the incubation centre as well as Goan youth.

Ashank Desai is a first generation entrepreneur from Canacona and has established a successful and renowned IT company ‘Mastek Ltd’ headquartered in Mumbai. He is also the vice chairman of the Start-up Council of Maharashtra and is closely associated with tech incubator at IIT Powai, Mumbai.

EDC Ltd recently announced that the Corporation had generated revenue of Rs 102.73 crore for FY 2016-17 and earned a record profit before tax amounting to Rs 61.26 crore. 

“We first collated the data by launching Chief Minister’s Start-Up Challenge and now we are going to put this profit money into good use, which will ultimately help Goa and its youth. We are now making efforts to bring for them the most qualified and best minds for mentoring of start-ups in the State. We have already met Narayan Murthy and T Mohandas Pai of Infosys fame and now Ashank Desai. We will be glad if they play their advisory role for development of start-ups and innovation in Goa. Mohandas Pai will be in Goa in mid-December and we will take our talks forward with him,” Kuncalienker told Herald.

Vice chairman of EDC, Santosh Kenkre told Herald, “Mr Desai is originally from Goa and he is also a board member in the Goa Institute of Management and he is doing very well in the start-up sector. He can advise us. We have recently visited Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai and met lot of people in this sector. Narayan Murthy has also shown his keen interest in Goa.”

Meanwhile, the EDC senior officials assured that the progress in setting up of Incubation Centre cum Co-working Business Centre on the 4th floor of EDC House, Panjim, which will house around 35 Incubation cum co-working units/spaces, was good. EDC is planning to partner with established companies in industry to manage the proposed Business/Incubation Centre.  EDC shall invest in providing infrastructure for the centre and its upkeep.