The Kerala Literature Festival 2019 hosted a session called 'Rebuild Kerala: Start Changes, Repeat' at stage 2, Aksharam. The session was moderated by Mr Rajesh Nair who works at Ernst and Young, a consulting company which has a phenomenal presence in Kerala. The major attraction of the session was Dr. Sethumadhavan and Mr Jithin V.G. Dr. Sethumadhavan with his extensive experience in various areas of entrepreneurship, skill development and policies and Mr Jithin, a young entrepreneur based out of the US with his wide experience in lock-chaining made the session rich and resourceful.
The session officially began with Rajesh Nair raising a question on Kerala's future on start-ups and bringing a fitting ecosystem for the young creators. Both Dr. Sethumadhavan and Jithin answered the questions with the same perspective that suggests that Kerala lacks skill-specialisation. Mr Jithin suggested that countries like the US promote skill-developing educational system from their early stages. They also have better Venture Capitals (VC) as in the form of businessmen, large companies, etc. altogether called as 'Angel Networks'. For a better vibrant ecosystem, Dr. Sethumadhavan opined to fulfill the four E's Ease of Education, that are Expansion, Excellence, Equity and Employability. He pointed out the huge gap prevailing between available skills and required skills. He also suggested that a sustainable atmosphere in Kerala can lead to an increase in start-ups. The works of KSUM (Kerala Start-Up Mission), the emergence of Swiggy, Uber-eats, etc. are the symbols of existence of sustainability.
The start-ups that began in the late 2009 and early 2010 in Kerala with its markable failures at early stages is now witnessing a high on their graph. The whole panel agreed that the true support from family and society is highly crucial for the young entrepreneurs. Towards the end of the session three of them concluded that kickstarting start-ups do not means following other ventures of different countries but means to bring out new innovations that are focussing more on social causes. Mr Benjamin, one among the audience shared his experiences on setting up a start-up for a social cause and how he was badly affected by the failures. The session concluded by Advocate Sudheesh complimenting the panel.