Sharjah plans tech centre at Kochi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sharjah, an emirate of the UAE, has announced the setting up of a science and technology innovation centre at the Infopark, Kochi. The Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) has signed an MoU with the Infopark Kochi, for the initiative.

The centre is envisaged to be a platform to provide access to Sharjah-based businesses to top-end talent and knowledge-based resources in Kerala across world-class companies and reputed universities catering to conventional and emerging technologies.

SCCI chairman Ahmed Mohammed Al Midfa said the main objective of setting up the centre was to help small and medium enterprises in Sharjah to help conduct research and development work to bring to market innovative products and services in a cost-effective manner.

He said India had been a major trading partner of the UAE and thus an ideal choice for a venture of this sort, and that Kerala was home to a number of leading research institutes working in areas like space technology, biotechnology and engineering sciences.

Kerala IT principal secretary Ajay Kumar said the centre would help Sharjah-based firms to directly collaborate and set up partnerships to commercialize the benefits of research happening in the state.

Infopark CEO Siddhartha Bhattacharya, said the presence of the Sharjah Science and Technology Innovation Centre would help produce business development opportunities and establish new alliances between organizations on either side. The centre is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2010.