Blackberry Lab likely in Vizag

By SNV Sudhir

 Visakhapatnam, Jan 17, 2014:  Canadian handset maker, Blackberry is likely to set up its innovation lab “Rubus Labs’ in Vizag on the lines of a similar one at Kochi’s Startup village. The centre will be set up in partnership with the Andhra Pradesh government.  

According to sources in department of of information technology and communications (IT & C), a team of officials from state IT department and union minister of state for IT office visited Kochi and interacted with Blackberry team and offered AP’s value proposition.

State government also invited the team to Vizag to see the facilities available here in the city. It will be a joint venture of state government and Blackberry.  The Rubus Labs engage student developers converge and brainstorm app ideas to solve real world problems.

The Canadian handset giant’s Kochi facility is its first innovation zone in Asia Pacific.  Rubus Labs are to nurture a substantial number of young entrepreneurs to work on mobile technology.

Through Research in Motion (RIM) of Blackberry students will get great support through training sessions under Blackberry Apps under students entrepreneur scheme. It is an effort to showcase the latest in BlackBerry technologies to inspire future entrepreneurs.

 Blackberry is looking at localised apps through various centres across India to develop applications relevant to the local community.

Currently, Blackberry has close to 46,000 registered developers. “Blackberry team also met state IT minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah and the department secretary last year during their visit to Valuelabs in Hyderabad. We have interacted with the Blackberry team and understood the model of their proposed labs and invited them to visit Vizag.  We have given our value proposition from our side. At present they are busy with issues related to change in the management at the company,” said source at state’s IT & C department told this correspondent.

 Vizag Development Council (VDC) and Rushikonda IT Park Association (RITPA) president, O Naresh Kumar said that Vizag needs to be promoted as the next IT destination in the state to attract more companies both big small and medium that provide more employment to local youth.