visakhapatnam andhra pradesh innovation society apis the nodal agency for the startup ecosystem in the state is planning to set up several centres of excellence in various niche technologies a top tech company has agreed to work as a knowledge partner for a coe planned in a latest technologyapart from designing the curriculum the tech company will provide key modules of this domain to apis at free of cost to extend this initiative to a select few colleges in the first phase the apis has initiated talks with the andhra pradesh state council of higher education apsche to rope in various colleges similarly the apis is also pitching to get an accelerator from a multinational tech conglomeratespeaking to toi apis ceo anil kumar tentu said that andhra pradesh is planning to roll out several new centres of excellence in emerging technology areas like green energy artificial intelligence blockchain drone technologies etc for instance the proposed centre of excellence in a particular technology will be the first such initiative in the country the students who would complete the course curriculum would be equipped with such skills to launch a startup in this domain area on hisher own the colleges may have to initially provide some space and investment for these technology cells on their campuses said anil kumarthe apis ceo added that the society will seek support from different stakeholders to establish the proposed coes they will come up in apis incubators or in the incubators or other such facilities established by academic institutions and industry organisations a coe in green and sustainable energy is being planned at the indian institute of petroleum and energy a coe on 5g technologies and use cases has been proposed at iiitdm kurnool similar proposed coes in blockchain metaverse cybersecurity etc are in discussion stage added anil kumarseveral recent startups incubated at apis have achieved business volumes worth crores of rupees we are organising workshops in collaboration with the apsche across the state to set up entrepreneurship innovation startup cells in colleges said anil kumar