The National Innovation Foundation has recorded nearly 2 lakh innovations in the country over the past three years, Union Minister Jaipal Reddy said today.
"The National Innovation Foundation has recorded nearly 2 lakh innovations. These provide a useful insight into how solutions developed from the bottom-up approach in some of the most challenging public service environments can better meet the needs of our citizens," Reddy said.
The Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Science was speaking at the 101st Indian Science Congress here.
He said the government has taken several initiatives to promote and foster innovations in the country.
"A new plan for scaling innovation which would serve the needs of common man is being launched. Special overseas scholarships for bridging national gaps in critical and frontier areas of scientific research are also being launched.
"The Ministry also proposes to mount joint virtual institutes in areas like advanced manufacturing, climate change science," Reddy said.
He said the National Innovation Council has set up at a pilot 'Tod Fod Jod' programme in schools and colleges in Delhi, Vadodara and Karnataka to foster an enquiring mind set and creativity.
The Human Resource Development Ministry is establishing 1,000 National Innovation Fellowships for children, he said.
The minister said over 5,000 patents were being filed from Bangalore, considered to be the fourth-largest technology cluster in the world, and these innovations were coming from both research organisations and MNCs.
"I am told Infosys ranks second after Accenture, among IT Services Company, in US patents filing. Similarly, Hyderabad alone contributes 20 per cent of the development activities of SAP," Reddy said.
He said it was necessary to create an ecosystem for propelling India to the top 10 to 15 nations in innovation sector.
"This would call for trust among the inter-institutional linkages, risk bearing potentials in our financial appraisal systems, application mindset in educational sector, venturing mindset among our investors, entrepreneurial spirit in the industrial community and leadership focus in the country," he said.
