32. Disparity - Rich & Poor - Urban & rural - Educated & Uneducated Demography - 550 million below 25 years - Health, Nutrition - Education, Jobs Development - Expedite the process & create new methods & new models
Innovation involves thinking differently and creatively to create solutions that have an impact in terms of social and economic value. Innovation can also enable solutions to problems which are not being met in the conventional way of doing things. Innovation should also go beyond formal R&D parameters to mean new things: process innovation, organisational innovation or new applications of old knowledge
India has to focus on innovations that meet the need of people at the bottom of the pyramid- for them, in which they participate and which they can own. These should be affordable, without compromising quality. They should also use frugal processes and resources to ensure sustainability
While India has a tradition of improvisational innovation, this has to be scaled to a system of frugal engineering which can have tremendous benefits for solving challenges unique to our country. Some examples
Five Pronged approach to Innovation
Provide a broader platform for defining and understanding innovation to include: …. The multiple Councils will play a pivotal role in providing this broader platform for innovations both in terms of the breadth of ideas and the experts involved
Our Innovation strategy has to focus on inclusion with a special emphasis on parameters such as affordability, access and sustainability… This is crucial to meet the needs of the Bottom of the Pyramid
Creating an innovation culture in the country requires a robust eco-system. An eco-system in the form of institutions, incentives, policies and the right tools such as ICT can spur innovation activities in the country at all levels.
Innovations are driven by a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach, disruptive ideas, and parameters such as durable vs. disposable; need vs. demand etc.
Finally, room for discourse is critical to accommodate alternative views and voices and create a culture of questioning. We want to create the right avenues for discussion and debate to get the right inputs from outside the system as well.
The NIC will formulate a Roadmap for innovation for the nation for 2010-2020 with a focus on big ideas and interventions. It will create a framework for evolving an Indian model of Innovation, give appropriate policy inputs and promote innovations at State and Sectoral levels
NIC will write to CMs of States to create State Innovation councils to drive innovations in respective states to leverage their strengths and mitigate shortcomings
Domain experts will be co-opted in multiple sectoral councils to provide focused recommendations for enhancing the innovation capacity in a particular sector.
A National Innovation portal is being created as a gateway for innovation resources and as a platform for idea exchange. A snapshot of the same will be shown later.
Creating a robust innovation eco-system requires spurring and incentivising innovation among the multiple players such as Government, firms, universities, innovators, users, NGOs and civil society. NIC will act as a CATALYST for stimulating the innovation eco-system by: Empowering people to innovate, Providing a collaborative platform for existing innovators, Providing Policy Direction, Applying innovation to address social and development challenges, Identifying knowledge/ innovation flows and gaps, Stimulating innovation at National/ State and Sectoral levels.
Aim to create an Inclusive Innovation Fund to be structured as a Fund of Funds to invest directly in ventures, but primarily invest in intermediate funds or institutions. This would especially focus on generating solutions for the BoP. One suggestion that we have received is that it can fund innovations by inviting innovative ideas and proposing specific challenges for inviting innovative solutions. A presentation on the same will be made by Mr Srivastava shortly.
NIC would also identify and propose creation of innovation clusters as hubs of innovation. CII and FICCI will give more details on this.
NIC will propose to create innovation centres in universities to spur young innovators. Dr. Dhande will elaborate on this concept further.
Systems of training and collaboration will be crucial in this endeavour and all our efforts will be geared to ensure this – from the Councils, clusters, Fund and portals..
Policy recommendations will be provided in the form of Multiple Roadmaps at the National, State, Sectoral Councils
Outreach strategies will be critical to create an innovation movement in the country. Mr Mashelkar will give us his inputs on the this.
The Council will also have to devise platforms and avenues for international collaborations in the form of inter ministerial exchanges, bilateral exchange forums or other linkages.