India’s innovation potential and initiatives

 

India’s innovation potential and initiatives

Recognizing the innovation potential of India, the government is putting in place a framework of collaboration, simplification, and regulation to lift the innovative ecosystem of India.

What is the realistic potential of India’s Innovation ecosystem?

• The Indian innovation system is very multifaceted in terms of user segments and income gaps. However, the central government is trying to boost innovation in the country through several schemes.
• Innovation in India is being planned around the triangle of collaboration, facilitation, and responsible regulation. It is advanced by cross-disciplinary collaboration.
• India is the fastest-growing country in terms of Internet usage, with over 700 million users and the number projected to rise to 974 million by 2025.
• The JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) trinity has 404 million Jan Dhan bank accounts with 1.2 billion Aadhaar and 1.2 billion mobile subscribers.
• There is a potential to add over $957 billion to India’s GDP by 2035 with artificial intelligence (AI).
• The realistic potential of technology for India echoes in the ‘Amara law’ named after Roy Amara, a Stanford computer scientist, who said that “People tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, but to underestimate it in the long run.”

What are the Initiatives of the Government of India to boost innovation?

• hips in innovation: Global innovation partnerships need to be strengthened by enhancing public-private partnership mechanisms and increased public funds should be earmarked for joint industrial R&D projects.
• Idea-to-market challenge:  Government needs to create special funds to help Indian innovations to advance their start-ups during difficult times.

Source: The Hindu

Recently, the Indian government organized two events to boost innovation:

• Vaishvik Bharatiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) summit: Numerous overseas Indian-origin academicians and Indians participated to form ideas on innovative solutions to several challenges.
• Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE) 2020 summit: It grants a course to efficiently use AI for social empowerment, inclusion, and transformation in key sectors such as health care, agriculture, finance, education, and smart mobility.
• Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scholarships: Attract youth talent to the study of science at an early age and thus build the required critical human resource pool for the Science & Technology system.
• Ramanujan Fellowship: It is meant for brilliant Indian scientists from outside India to take up scientific research positions in India.
• Knowledge Involvement in Research Advancement through Nurturing (KIRAN) scheme: Providing avenues to women scientists and technologists for capacity building.
• Smart India Hackathons (SIH): To provide students a platform to solve some of the pressing problems of society.
• Atal Innovation Mission (AIM): To promote innovation and entrepreneurship across India.
• Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) scheme: Largest early-stage biotech funding program in India. Aims to encourage researchers to take biotechnology closer to the market through a start-up.
• Future Skills PRIME(Programme for Reskilling/Upskilling of IT Manpower for Employability) capacity building platform
• Triad of Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences(STARS), Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC), and Impactful Policy Research in Social Science (IMPRESS): Common objective is to boost India specific research in social and pure sciences.
• National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems: Aims to catalyze translational research across Al, IoT or the Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Big Data Analytics, Robotics, Quantum Computing, Data Science.
• The Reserve Bank of India, Securities, and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India allow for regulatory sandboxes for channeling new ideas.
• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently introduced recommendations for regulating cloud services in India, suggesting a light-touch regulation in collaboration with industry, balancing commercial freedom and principles adherence.

What are the steps to be taken?

• Increase R&D spending: Government should frame a policy to increase total GERD (Gross domestic expenditure on R&D) to 2% of India’s GDP.

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