Founder President of Goa Technology Association, Mangirish Salelkar delivered the key address themed ‘Goa Emerging IT Ecosystem – Sun, Sea, Sand and Software’ at the Digital SMB Summit virtual conference. As he elaborated on the journey of Goa’s Information Technology, Mangirish asserted that ‘IT will be the future of Goa.’
Mangirish, who founded UMANG Software company back in 2009, hailed the present times as the best to set up IT ventures in Goa.
“Goa’s IT and Startup Policy is one of the best in India. There are benefits under various schemes like land rebate, power subsidy, internet subsidy, salary subsidy and many more.Till date, 49 Goan units have benefited approximately amounting to Rs 4 crores,” emphasised Mangirish.
Mangirish stressed on ‘Software’ as Goa’s upcoming industry. “There aren’t many large IT firms in Goa like one typically finds in IT hubs like Bengaluru, Pune or Hyderabad. However, we find a lot of medium and small firms involved in a variety of fields like software development, business intelligence, IoT, AI, shipbuilding, animation, creative designing and many more,” said Mangirish, who is also the chairman of IT Committee of ASSOCHAM.
Giving a further idea of the scale of progress achieved by the IT industry in Goa, the UMANG Group CEO revealed that Goa today has over 250 IT units, Goa’s IT industry has 65 to 70 percent of startups. There are more than 10 incubation centres and accelerators in the State. Goa Government Startup Promotion Cell also helps in facilitating and mentoring startups. He also pointed out that the attrition rate in Goa is low at 10 percent unlike in the big cities where the average rate is 21 percent. For those looking to work by the beach, there are ‘Sea Hubs’ co-working spaces being planned and thus Goa will have a distinct flavour to its IT industry unlike anywhere else in the country.
