The sleeping giant of invention and innovation, if there is any in the country, continues to sleep. However, where an effort is being made to identify and support innovators, results are yet to be seen.
One such effort is the India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP), initiated three years ago by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) in partnership with aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas. The goal was to take innovative Indian technologies to the global markets and, in their words, to bridge the gap between the mind and the market.
The Department Of Science And Technology and the Indo US S&T Forum also came on board from 2009. And, in three years, an investment of Rs 10 crore in the project has seen deals worth Rs 350 crore struck by innovators from across the country.
Young Nelvin Joseph and his partners at Artin Dynamics in Techno Park, Thiruvananthapuram, are involved in a unique affair with Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is today a hot favourite with not only buyers in India, but in the UK and many other countries. It is a hardware-cum-software bundle, which is capable of saving up to 47 per cent of power from electronic and electrical devices using AI-based algorithms.
After setting shop in Techno Park in Thiruvananthapuram, Joseph and his friends got awarded by IIGP. Harkesh Mittal, advisor and head, National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (under the Department Of Science And Technology), says, “When you leave the computers on at night, you lose a lot of electricity. This is reduced up to 90 per cent by the AI tool that they have made. So, now it is being lapped up by everyone, as there are servers that have to be on 24 hours a day. They have got orders worth Rs 121 crore from the UK government.”
Another IIGP winner Aninda Sircar’s innovation is a technology that utilises the untapped captive energy available in compressed auto LPG fuel to provide cooling or air conditioning and refrigeration inside LPG vehicles. The joint initiative of Ficci, the Indian government and Lockheed Martin has meant hand holding innovators and helping awardees (60 so far) get training, sponsors and markets. Ficci’s Centre for Technology Commercialisation does this, but the government and Lockheed Martin provide the necessary funds.
The annual investment in the scheme is $1.2 million, of which the government pays half. It is about Rs 3 crore a year. The scheme started from 2007 and in the last three years, with an expenditure of about Rs 10 crore, the 60 award-winning innovators have signed deals worth Rs 350 crore, Mittal says with pride.
The IIGP applications are increasing each year. From 2007-2010, IIGP received a total of 1,112 applications from innovators across the country, with the pharmaceutical and health care sectors recording the highest number of innovations (13 per cent), followed by energy and utilities.
Starting with 112 applications from innovators in 2007, IIGP received 394 applications in 2010, for which the awards were given recently. About 15 get awards every year.
But, this is just the tip of the potential for innovation in the country, which is yet to be tapped. A national innovation policy has taken too long in coming. Sam Pitroda’s National Innovation Council (NIC) is expected to come out with it. The council is, meanwhile, implementing small programmes similar to IIGP. One of these is the innovation clusters started with the Department of Science and Technology. The latter already has the technology business incubators programme.
Mittal says the coming together of the market and the innovator has already begun. While these initiatives are few and far between, he believes innovation would gather momentum under NIC.
