Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 6 (IANS): Startups, entrepreneurs, and youth from Kerala must get the opportunity to be at the starting line of India's transformation in semiconductors, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said here on Wednesday.

Announcing that the upcoming Bharat Semiconductor Research Centre (BSRC) will have a regional centre at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) here, the minister also facilitated an MoU between tech major IBM and C-DAC, with an aim to accelerate India’s processor design and manufacturing capabilities for high-performance computing.

"We are finally living at a time when a semiconductor engineer is also a superhero, that itself tells you how far our country has come, how far we have progressed in the age of technology under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi," he said at the "4th Semicon India FutureDesign Roadshow".

The minister also inaugurated the new Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) centres in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.

During his interaction with S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the minister said that there is tremendous opportunity for Thiruvananthapuram to be a great catalyst for the growth of India’s "Digital Economy".

"Despite having one of India’s first technoparks set up in the city back in the 1990s, it is a shame that today, Thiruvananthapuram is not even in the top 20 of the startup innovation economy," he added.

"The government under the leadership of PM Modi is making rapid strides in this very critical and strategic area," noted Dr S Unnikrishnan Nair, Director, VSSC and IIST, Thiruvananthapuram.

Dr V. Narayanan, Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at ISRO, said that for the nation to become ‘Viksit Bharat,’ multiple sectors and areas need to develop in a big way and "electronics and semiconductor development is a key sector in this regard".