Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday said Andhra Pradesh emerged as the gateway to digital transformation of the country throwing up several opportunities for startups to explore.
He was speaking after inaugurating the Vizag Fintech Festival being held by the Fintech Valley Vizag here. The festival, touted as the largest fintech festival in India, attracted nearly 2,000 delegates from 15 countries. The highlight of the festival is the awarding of $1 million as prize money to the winners at Demo Day, the grand finale wherein global startups will pitch their innovative ideas.
On seeing a good turnout, a visibly elated Mr. Naidu, who earlier held a closed-door meeting with CXOs, said the government was taking several initiatives to make Andhra Pradesh an innovation valley on the lines of Silicon Valley of America.
He said efforts were on to transform ‘people’s capital’ of Amaravati into a knowledge city and Tirupati and Chennai and Krishnapatnam into tri-junction for electronics and hardware sector.
While Amaravati would have separate clusters for development as media city, tourism city, sports city and education city, Visakhapatnam would become one among top three or four fintech destinations in the world in a few years owing to availability of a sustainable ecosystem for startups.
Startup challenge
Claiming credit for instituting $1 Million Startup Challenge to attract global startups to launch operations in Fintech Valley Vizag, Mr. Naidu said several investors were coming forward to set up facilities in Visakhapatnam and other parts of the State due to pro-active policies of the State government.
Earlier, Mr. Naidu symbolically launched the operations of FedServ, a fully owned subsidiary of Federal Bank, rural employment programme by DXC (a $25 billion American company) and a proposal to set up a facility at Vijayawada by IT major Deloitte.
IT Minister Nara Lokesh said Andhra Pradesh had been turned into a launch-pad for startups though the State was also a four and half-year old startup. Deputy Chief Minister N. Chinarajappa, HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao, IT Principal Secretary K. Vijayanand and Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor J.A. Chowdary were present.