Thiruvananthapuram, July 2  2019: Kerala has the potential to become another Israel, a country having the third most powerful startup ecosystem in the world,  feels Sajan Pillai, former CEO of IT major UST Global. He has offered to launch a venture fund in association with the Kerala Startup Mission for accomplishing this mission.
“In the next decade I would like to be part of a journey in which I dream of Kerala startup ecosystem becoming the next Israel. With the help of all my associates I would like to achieve this goal. I would like to work with startups, government and mostly private entrepreneurs to accomplish this mission,” he asserted. 
Earlier in the week, Mr. Pillai, was selected for the coveted Employees’ Choice Award instituted by the US-based Glassdoor, one of the world’s largest job and recruiting sites ( see our story).
 “There are thousands of seasoned executives from Kerala, who have not got a chance to contribute to the state’s startup ecosystem. Why can’t we assemble them to harness the strength to build a startup ecosystem here?” queried Mr. Pillai, whose exceptional vision and expertise played a stellar role in UST Global’s phenomenal strides.
Revealing his plans in association with KSUM, he said: “In the first week of September, we will launch a venture fund to scale up startups in Kerala. Apart from extending them support, the idea is to assemble senior level executives of Kerala and they will be directly on the board of the startups. We are going to create a relationship with the government to get an impetus to the drive. We will create a window to Israel and increase access to technology.”