Mera Bharat Innovative

detaa

na dashamalav bhaarat to



yuun chaand pe jaanaa mushkil tha


dharatii aur chaand kii duurii ka


andaaz lagaanaa mushkil tha 

(If

India had not given the world the decimal, it would have been difficult to

estimate the distance between the earth and the moon)



(lyrics from the 1970 movie Purab aur Paschim) 

Was it

pure coincidence that someone was playing this song in the office during my

interaction on innovation with a Nasscom official?



It seems strange that India, which has had a history of innovation (at least
that's what our history books and the Amar Chitra Katha comics told us), is

trying hard to make a name for itself as the innovators paradise. The big

question: Is innovation happening in India? And I will restrict myself to the IT

domain, for obvious reasons. The answer to the big questions is just a simple

word-Yes.  But... it's not so

simple, obviously.

While innovation might

involve a lot of things from patents to process innovation to new products, I

will like to put it to a single benchmark called patents, as this is easily

quantifiable. And, while a large number of patents are being filed out of India

(that's the good news), a majority of these come from MNCs (the not so good

news). As per DQ Top20, MNCs like TI, ST Micro, Cisco, and Intel head the list

of companies filing plus 100 patents, while Sasken seems to be the only Indian

company filing more than 50 patents over a period of time. While I am not

against MNCs filing a majority of the patents as they are developing the

necessary eco-system, and it will sooner or later spread to other

companies/startups. My concern is that the solutions/products that come out of

these centers are usually for problems specific to Western countries and may not

benefit India, with nearly one-fifth of the global population. Also, if the

solution has an India market component, it will usually be developed with a

similar outlook.

For instance, take our

aspiration of taking the PC to the people: one of the most talked solutions, the

Low-cost PC. Affordable but not useable and, hence, dud. Why can't we look at

a 3-5k device, which can connect to TV and also be used as a PC? Incidentally,

Prof Jhunjhunwala is experimenting such a device in his campus.

So, what is stopping us

becoming an innovator's paradise; not only solve global problems but also

local issues? Is it culture? Or do we blame lack of regulations for this? Hey

what about no market potential? Is funding the culprit?



I think it is a mix of all. Look at the culture issue. I think this is the key
and related to other issues like regulation. So, unlike the US, where there is a

clear regulation for technology transfer from research institutes to corporates,

in India, technology transfer is still in the grey area realm. Also, companies

with high R&D culture have embedded practices which gives a further fillip

to R&D. Apparently, in one of the leading mobile company's R&D

department, a person who has filed more than 30 patents gets a gold plated edge

on his/her ID card. And more of these measures are practiced in other companies

with a high R&D culture. In academic institutes where such culture exists,

touch with reality is an issue. While intellectual property is being developed,

lack of industry participation ensures that such technologies do not move beyond

the campuses. However, in recent times, academia-industry participation has

started to happen, but it's still a long way to go.

Finally, I think we, as

media, are also partly to blame. A TCS, Infosys and Wipro is certainly more

exciting news rather than few startups in the IITs. Even if a story is done

about interesting innovative companies, it is usually a one off event and then

conveniently forgotten till the next year.

DQ has started an

innovation section and will do regular coverage of innovative companies. Do let

me have your feedback on innovations around you, either companies doing exciting

work or innovative practices being followed by companies, and your suggestions

on how we can make 'Mera Bharat Innovative'

Yograj Varma, associate editor, Dataquest





yograjv@cybermedia.co.in