Great push in innovation over last 5 years: Govt official

: There has been a greater push in innovation in the last five years, and there are about 15,000 startups out of which 5,000 are deep technology-based startups, secretary to Department of Science and Technology (DST) professor Ashutosh Sharma said Thursday.

We have 15,000 startups, but a country like India needs 1.5 lakh startups or 15 lakh startups which need to come up not only from IITs and universities, but also from the grassroots-level," he said.

"Hence, we started the MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge) programme and the aim is to reach five lakh schools in the country this year with competition on innovative ideas," Sharma said addressing the DST-FICCI 'Global Research and Development Summit 2019' that began he.

 

The department of science and technology has a very active partnership with 45-plus countries and MoUs with 100- pluscountries, he said.

"Our R&D expenditure in the last decade has tripled and the per scientist investment in science and technology is comparable to many countries of Europe and the US, he said.

Sharma further there were about a dozen MNCs that set up R&D in the country and they provide solution to global problems, and "we want Indian industries to ramp up their investment in technology."

He said, "India and Africa can come together also on locally relevant grassroots innovations and technologies in agriculture, health among other domains where we learn from each other and work together and deliver."

The future of engagement with Africa looks extremely bright and FICCI is playing important role in taking those technologies to African partners, he added.

He further said the department of science and technology recently launched a mission in cyber physical systems that would create human resources in the country, infrastructure and intensive R&D in areas of artificial intelligence (AI), machine-learning, robotics, sensors etc.

This is a significant mission worth Rs 4,000 crore, he said.

I would invite all our African partners to partner with us in all kind of technologies from agriculture to AI. And by working together we can effectively address many of our common problems," Sharma said.

Referring to scientific publications, he said the country is expected to reach third position in terms of number of scientific publications in about seven years overtaking Germany and the UK.

India's scientific publications are growing at 14 per cent every year, compared to the globalaverage of 4 per cent, Sharma said, addressing the DST-FICCI 'Global Research and Development Summit 2019' that began here.

"India has very deep strength in science and technology. We're number five in the world in terms of number of scientific publications. In a few years, we would be number three," he said.

So, publications in science and technology are an indicator of the basic strength and the basic problem- solving capacity which exists in the country, he said.

Later speaking to reporters, Sharma was asked as to when India was likely to reach third position. He said, "My rough estimate is about seven years from now. China, US, Germany and the UK are ahead of us.