Innovation goes East

Innovation has become increasingly global, and over 75% of new research and development (R&D) sites planned over the next three years will be established in China and India, according to a recent survey on global R&D networks jointly conducted by INSEAD, a leading business school, and management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Traditionally R&D by MNCs in India was for technology adaptation to meet local conditions.Now it is going to be different-it will be for dev of global products & services. Still there is long way to catch with advanced countries, no one is planning to set up R&D in India to access knowledge in local clusters, the attraction is low cost of highly qualified engineers and scientists.
For full story: http://www.boozallen.com/home/services/services_article/3220998?lpid=66005

NASA space settlement design contest

This year 2006 NASA received 96 submissions from 547 students sponsored by 33 teachers. Entries came from Belgium, Hong Kong, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Romania, Turkey, The United Kingdom and 17 states of US.Winners include students from India:
Tejas ,Ryan International School, New Delhi, India. Literary Merit
EDEN, Ispat English Medium School, Rourkel, Orissa, India. 10-12 Team
Kalpana-2, Delhi, India. 10-12 Team (tie)
Khalsa, Amritsa, Punjab, India. 10-12 Team
Ankit Sharma, N.K. Bagrodia School, New Delhi, India. Artistic Merit
See : http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/Contest/Results/2006/index.html

VC circle

The weblog is written by Sahad P.V., a business journalist based in New Delhi, India. He was an assistant editor with Business Today, India's leading business magazine, and had also previously worked with Business Standard and India Today Group Online. For those seeking information on VC funding this site is a virtual treasure house. Click at http://www.vccircle.com/blog

eKALAVYA eguru scheme

The e-GURU scheme is designed to help the students of BE/MCA programs in carrying out their final year/semester projects. Such help will be made available by expert volunteers who are willing to offer about two hours per week of their free time. These volunteers will be working professionals, teachers from academic institutes and post graduate students including Scholars pursuing their Ph.D level research.
This service is provided by IIT Bombay, an initiative by Prof. Deepak B Phatak of KReSIT.
see: http://ekalavya.iitb.ac.in/index.jsp

GLOBAL INDUS TECHNOVATORS AWARDS

The Indian Business Club @ MIT invites nominations for the GLOBAL INDUS TECHNOVATORS AWARDS, 2006.The Global Indus Technovators Awards have been instituted by the Indian Business Club at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA, to recognize and encourage the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of talented and enterprising young South Asians.

Nominations are invited for people of Indian / Pakistani / Sri Lankan / Nepali / Bangladeshi origin who have made significant contribution, in either research or entrepreneurial capacity, to the advancement of technology in areas including, but not limited to, information technology, biotechnology, materials and devices, healthcare and medicine, developmental work, and energy.

Eminent personalities on previous awards judging panels have included Gururaj Deshpande (Sycamore Networks), Prof. Robert Langer (Institute Professor, MIT), Meyya Meyyappan (Director of the Centre for Nanotechnology, NASA's Ames Research Center), N.R. Narayana Murthy (Infosys Technologies), Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland (Media Labs, MIT), and Prof. Phillip Sharp (1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine), Prof. Subra Suresh (Department of Material Sciences and Engineering, MIT) and Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras).

Nominees must be of Indus (Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lankan/Nepali/Bangladeshi) origin, that is, they or their ancestors should be (or should have been) citizens of one of the aforementioned countries. Nominees must be born no earlier than 1st January 1966.
The nominations webpage is available at: http://technovators.mit.edu/info_nom.php
The call for nominations is open until midnight (EST), May 31, 2006.
For more details, please visit the awards website at:
http://technovators.mit.edu

Technology day awards 2006

Technology Day awards were bestowed upon the following on 10th May 2006, celebrated in India as Tecnology Day.

Bharat Biotech International limited, Hyderabad and Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi received the Nation award for the succesful commercialisation of indigenous technology , for manufacture of human Epidermal Growth Factor (rhEGF) under the brand name REGEN-D 150 for diabetic foot ulcers and REGEN_D 60 for burns and skin grafts.SEC industries Private ltd, Hyderabad and Eagle Engineering Works, Chennai received awards under SSI for successful development of Stretch Forming Machine and for development of Custom Mega Prosthesis respectively.

universal solar earth lunar (USEL) watch

A new watch is invented by Dr. M.L. Agrawalof Jaipur with a different concept altogether . This internationally patented watch denotes :-
1. Rotation of Earth on its own axis in 24 hours (a Solar day)
2. Revolution of Earth around Sun in 365'242190 days(a Solar year)
3. Revolution of Moon around Earth in 29.530589 days(a lunar month)
4. Revolution of Moon around Sun in 354.367055 days (a lunar year)
and manay more.

See : http://www.uselwatch.com/index.htm

Creative Future programme

Creative? Got a great business idea? Want to know how to develop it into a real business proposition? Then apply today to take part in the Creative Future programme.

Twenty young people with a business idea in the creative sector will be selected to take part in the Creative Future School at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore in August. There they’ll learn how to structure their business proposition, develop their networking skills, understand what an investor is looking for and hear from successful creative entrepreneurs about how they have built their businesses. The faculty will include senior academics from IIMB, leading figures from creative businesses in India and the UK and other experts.

In October 2006 three lucky finalists will visit the UK and meet with leading industry figures from within their sector. Whilst in London they will have the chance to pitch their business idea to a group of potential investors.In January 2007, the three finalists will have a chance to reprise their London experience in Mumbai, this time pitching to potential Indian investors. At the end of this process, our panel of expert judges will also decide which one of them should be declared our overall winner - India’s Creative Future 2007.If you have the right idea then it could be you. Being creative and being an entrepreneur have one thing in common - understanding when to take a risk. If you take one risk today, download the application form (MS Word 180 KB) - it’s a potential passport to success, a life changing experience - you just have to apply.

http://www.britishcouncil.org.in/creativefuture/

Romeo and Juliet

Modern Romeo and Juliet are far from the romantic characters of Rome & Hollywood. Romeo is a RFID reader held by farmer to read data stored in electronic tags of particular cow. This data from Romeo is transferred to Juliet, a desk top device. Patni developed this RFID based solution for the traceability of meat from the farm to the plate. For details see:
http://patni.com/downloads/RFID_Animal_Traceability.pdf

eGranary Digital Library

The eGranary Digital Library provides millions of digital educational resources to institutions lacking adequate Internet access. Through a process of garnering permissions, copying Web sites, and delivering them to intranet Web servers INSIDE our partner institutions in developing countries, we deliver millions of multimedia documents that can be instantly accessed by patrons over their local area networks at no cost.

In India the service is provided by RMK Engineering college.Cost is Rs 10,000/-per year.
Web page: http://www.widernet.org/digitallibrary/

contact person in India, Dr A. Jagadeesh at :a_jagadeesh2@yahoo.com

Chinnamma

Chinnamma, a dalit women from Karnataka was on front pages, when she received Citigroup Micro Entrepreneur national Award 2005.Read her story at:
http://www.indianngos.com/issue/microcredit/award/chinamma.htm

Maleehabad’s Kaleemullah Khan

How many varieties of mangoes can be grown on single tree- 315. Meet the record holder- Maleehabad’s Kaleemullah Khan and he is not a trained horticulturist.Read his story:
http://www.islamicvoice.com/august.2000/features.htm

private IIT in A.P

AP state govt wanted an IIT in the state as nearly one third of the IIT qualifiers are from that state (perhaps this claim includes post graduate students). It passed a resolution in the assembly, acquired over 1000 acres and approached the centre. With the centre turning down the proposal, now it is planning to launch the same with support from private industries. Dr Reddy Labs was the first to chip in with support.
Will it exceed? Naidu brought ISB in competition with govt owned IIMs. Can Reddy bring a privately funded IIT in competition with IITs?

Prof Narendra Krishna Karmakar

Prof Karmarkar a product of IITM, working at TIFR completed the basic design of the supercomputing system with funding from Mr Tata and the Infosys Chairman, Mr N.R. Narayana Murthy. His project for dev of a system with a budget of Rs 400 crores, however could not be supported by TIFR which has an annual budget much less than that.
Ratan Tata comes as saviour- he agrees to pump in Rs 400 crores. CDAC had done it before when super computers were denied to India , now it is more commercial to take on IBM.
See : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/05/06/stories/2006050604270100.htm

Mani Bhaumik

Mani Bhaumik was the coinventor of the Lasik Laser, which was developed at Northrop, initially for military application and later found universal acceptance for eye surgery for sight corrections.
Read his fascinating story at : http://www.indianlifeandstyle.com/ILS-Sept-Oct05/looking%20glass.htm

Bio-Diesel

One of the largest technology mission undertaken by GOI is on Biodiesel.Under the demonstration project for cultivation of non-edible oil-bearing plants and tree for production of bio-diesel, the rural development ministry has released an amount of Rs 4,900 crore to the nine states identified under the project. These states are Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura and Assam.This allocation is for plantation of Jatropha curcas in 200,000 hectare forest land and 200,000 hectare non-forest wasteland over a period of five years. The allocation is also meant for technology development, technical support to growers through training, capacity building and other facilitating arrangements.

See news item at : http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=125318
A lucid presentation on bio diesel at : http://www.ficci.com/media-room/speeches-presentations/2005/nov/r&d/Tech4/mandal.ppt
and gaps on R&D at : http://www.nandinichemical.com/online_journal/feb06_nandini_chemical_journal.htm

Arsenic free drinking water

In West Bengal and in north east states of India, the problem of high arsenic content in drinking water is accute. CGCRI ( The Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute),Kolkatta developed Ceramic Membrane technology based iron removal plants. Under sponsored program of DST, two plants are installed in each of the 8 states in north eastern part of India.
Get full picture on water treatment:
http://www.teriin.org/events/docs/smallpdf/Band2.pdf

Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

SINE is a business incubator where ideas from IIT Bombay students, professors, and alumni can be developed and commercialized. Today there are 15 companies at SINE, all of them hoping to become new India's next big phenomenon.

Perhaps the most exciting is called Webaroo. The company offers a service that lets you search for and download Web pages -- with, say, tourist information about London, or the latest news from several different sites -- to your PC, cell phone, or handheld. Then you can quickly access the content without being online. About 75 of Webaroo's 100 engineers are from the IITs, and all of them work in cramped quarters at SINE.

Read more:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2006/gb20060501_279377.htm?chan=globalbiz_asia_today%27s+top+story