Indian industries and work force need to innovate in all areas of life to achieve 9 or 10 per cent GDP growth, said Sam Pitroda, chairman of National Knowledge Commission.
“If India needs to grow at 9 or 10 per cent, then we have to innovate in all areas and it should not be left to engineers alone,” said Pitroda speaking at an entrepreneurship awareness programme organised by The Indus Entrepreneurship (TiE).
And for innovation, India needs to replace the age-old processes that are not valid anymore. The country needs to create proper ecosystem for better investment and it must identify drivers to propel the growth momentum, he added.
“We have identified 40 industrial clusters in the country and we will plant the seed of innovation in these clusters. We will bring universities closer to these clusters”, said Pitroda, who also heads the National Innovation Council.
Pitroda said the council will spend one billion dollar for innovation in next 10 to 20 years. The seed capital for the fund will be provided by the Government of India.
“There is no major fund available for R& D (research and development) in India. But if somebody has a better idea, there are a lot of venture capitalists sitting in the US who would love to invest. They do not find any good ideas these days,” he said.
India may spend up to $20 billion in building infrastructure to provide next level of broadband in the country, said Pitroda, who pioneered the telecom revolution in the country in eighties.
“In next 10 years, we will tag every building in the country by giving IP (internet protocol) address to them, we will digitise all government documents and create an application that will have all government schemes online. We will do this because we want to create 10-15 million jobs in next 10 years,” he said.
