India is hardly known for its scientific innovations but new initiatives providing space and support for start-ups promised to change this.
India’s score in innovations has not been much to talk about, especially when it comes to scientific innovations. A World Bank report last year pointed out that of the top 50 applicants for patents in India between 1995 and 2005, 44 were foreign firms, while only six were Indian. It said that only 16 per cent of Indian manufacturing firms offer in-house training compared with 92 per cent in China and 42 per cent in South Korea.
Recently, a conference on innovations organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi concluded that education did not encourage students to innovate or take risks, and there were no funds to cushion innovators from risks.
There are small efforts here and there. In the private sector, Tata Consultancy Services is linking industry, research & development, major academic institutions and fund providers. STEPS, or the Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Parks, initiated by the Department of Science and Technology, is another instance. These are laboratories set up in engineering colleges, both public and private, to enable students to experiment with applications of science and technology and to launch start-ups.
At Noida’s private engineering college, JSS Mahavidyapeetha, one of the 38 STEPS, grooms students to try different applications of what they learn. “We have centres that focus on innovations as well as those dedicated to entrepreneurship,” says the CEO of the institute, Raghunandan Rajamani. He does not believe that India is lagging. STEPS and business technology incubation centres are being set up fast and India now has the advantage of having had them for over a decade. All it needs to do is to expand them, he says.
The Department of Biotechnology has now started a Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme (BIPP) to support research and enterprise in biotechnology. Dr Renu Swarup, who heads BIPP, says the programme will bridge the gap between scientific innovations and industrial applications.
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BIPP, which has sought the first set of research proposals from industry, is already flooded with applications from small as well as big firms that have research institutions.
These would lead to a government partnership with industries for public support (on a cost-sharing basis) for research in technology having economic potential. The patents would be owned by industry and collaborating scientists.
The areas covered are agriculture, health, bioenergy, green manufacturing, protecting new crops against drought and salinity, and discovering vaccines and drugs against infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, influenza and dengue as well as chronic diseases like diabetes and stroke.
Yet, how many science graduates set up their own start-ups? At the STEPS in Noida, Rajamani can recall only two alumni who have settled down with start-ups.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a non-profit research institution into the subject, points out in its annual report for 2008 that many start-ups are launched but discontinued, mostly for want of money. The survey does not even list India among countries driven by innovation.
Padmaja Ruparel, vice-president of the Indian Angel Network, feels that things are not so gloomy as far as India and funds for start-ups are concerned. She says her network of angel investors, the first in the country, has so far funded 16 innovations in the last two years and this may be the positive side of the slowdown.
She brushes aside the view that students are not groomed to take risks and innovate. Entrepreneurs have to chalk out their own path, and so training is not as necessary as many like to believe, she says, adding that during the slowdown, start-ups are the trimmest and most sturdy enterprises around. For when the going gets tough, is it not the tough who get going, she asks. If pink slips could translate into a few entrepreneurs, then Ruparel anyway is not willing to shed tears over them.