Kochi, May 30 (IANS): The manufacturers of BlackBerry, Research in Motion (RIM), will Thursday open an innovation zone for BlackBerry technologies with a view to motivating young Indian entrepreneurs.

'Rubus Labs' will be opened at Startup Village here in the presence of senior officials of BlackBerry, including its global vice-president Alec Saunders and India managing director Sunil Dutt.

It is for the first time that RIM is setting up such an innovation zone in the Asia-Pacific region and Kerala has been selected to be part of this momentous collaboration that would ignite the imagination of students, potential entrepreneurs and tech-savvy people.

Sijo Kuruvilla George, CEO of Startup Village, said the village would be the powerhouse of the future telecom technology revolution in the country by incubating over 1,000 startups over the next decade and transform Kerala into 'Silicon Coast'.

"RIM, the global game-changer in the mobile industry, will give pre-launch access to its latest devices and operating systems, apart from technological assistance. Rubus Labs will host regular activities like BlackBerry Hackathons and Bar Camps, besides training sessions for student entrepreneurs. The lab will also be open to school students to expose them to innovative technologies," said George.

As an alliance partner, Startup Village would get stock devices of the BlackBerry family, including handsets and playbooks, from RIM. The partnership will also facilitate Startup Village to work with BlackBerry partner funds to co-invest in the startup firms.

Startup Village was set up jointly by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the central government and the Kerala government-run Technopark, in collaboration with MobME Wireless.