Comprehensive Showcase of 400 Indian Innovations Across Global Sectors

See the list:

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/comprehensive-showcase-of-400-indian-innovations-across-global-sectors/287375125

Top 100 Indian Innovations (2025)

Innovation yearbook series 2025- Top 100 Indian innovations formally launched in Goa on 13th November 2025. The book is available at Amazon in paper back, Hard copy and kindle versions.

Link-

https://www.amazon.in/Top-Indian-Innovations-Innovators-Association/dp/B0FX524XR8

MIT Solve 2024–2025 Annual Report

 95 Open innovation challenges received 26,000+ solutions submitted from 180 countries, addressing global issues from decarbonizing supply chains to improving rare disease care.

Read the report-info.solve.mit.edu/hubfs/MIT Solve - Annual Report 2025.pdf?\

who is leading the critical technology race?

ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: the global race for future power – can be found on ASPI’s website here. 

ASPI research reveals that China has built the foundations to position itself as the world’s leading science and technology superpower, by establishing a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains. China’s global lead extends to 37 out of 44 technologies that ASPI is now tracking, covering  a range of crucial technology fields spanning defence, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials and key quantum technology areas. The Critical Tech Tracker shows that, for some technologies, all of the world’s top 10 leading research institutions are based in China and are collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country (most often the US). China’s technology lead is a product of deliberate design and long-term policy planning, as repeatedly outlined by Xi Jinping and his predecessors. We also see China’s efforts being bolstered through talent and knowledge import: one-fifth of its high-impact papers are being authored by researchers with postgraduate training in a Five-Eyes country.

The US comes second in the majority of the 44 technologies examined in the Critical Tech Tracker. The US currently leads in areas such as high performance computing, quantum computing and vaccines. Our dataset reveals that there’s a large gap between China and the US, as the leading two countries, and everyone else. The data then indicates a small, second-tier group of countries led by India and the UK: other countries that regularly appear in this group—in many technological fields—include South Korea, Germany, Australia, Italy, and less often, Japan.

Global Innovation Index 2021- India status

 In the GII 2021 India is ranked 46 and moved 2 levels high. Five Asian economies feature among the top 15 – the Republic of Korea (5th) and Singapore (8th) are in the top 10, followed by China (12th), Japan (13th) and Hong Kong, China (14th).

India ranking by pillars:

Institutions-62

-Political environment -66

-Regulatory environment-71

-Business environment-62

Human Capital and Research-54

-Education-102

-Tertiary education-64

-Research and development (R&D)-35

Infrastructure-81

-Information and communication technologies (ICTs)-86

-General infrastructure-52

-Ecological sustainability-98

Market sophistication-28

-credit-56

-investment-45

-Trade, diversification, and market scale-7

Business sophistication-52

-Knowledge workers-83

-Innovation linkages-50

-Knowledge absorption-34

Knowledge and technology outputs-29

-Knowledge creation-51

-knowledge impact-51

-knowledge diffusion-13

Creative outputs-68

-intangible assets-61

-Creative goods and services-55

-online creativity-105

India's best

Graduates in science and engineering, %-12

Global corporate R&D investors, top 3, mn US$-15

QS university ranking, top 3*-23

Government online service-24

E Participation-29

Gross capital formation, % GDP-28

Ease of getting credit*-23

Microfinance gross loans, % GDP-25

Market capitalization, % GDP-19

Ease of protecting minority investors*-13

Domestic industry diversification-12

Domestic market scale, bn PPP$-3

Joint venture/strategic alliance deals/bn PPP$ GDP-35

Intellectual property payments, % total trade-27

High-tech imports, % total trade-26

Citable documents H-index-21

Labor productivity growth, %-17

ICT services exports, % total trade-1

Global brand value, top 5,000, % GDP-28

Cultural and creative services exports, % total trade-18

Creative goods exports, % total trade-24

Tokyo–Yokohama is the top performing S&T cluster once again, followed by Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Beijing, Seoul and San Jose–San Francisco. The U.S. continues to host the highest number of clusters, followed by China, Germany, and Japan. Bengaluru is ranked 62 in the S&T cluster, downgraded by 2 ranks in 2021.

The top five R&D spending economies in 2019 were the United States (+10.9 percent), followed by China (+11.1 percent), Japan (−0.4 percent), Germany (+2.3 percent) and the Republic of Korea (+4.8 percent). These five economies have consistently been the world’s major R&D spenders since 2011. Business R&D expenditure – the largest component of total global R&D – grew by 7.2 percent in 2019, up from 4.6 percent in 2018. 

A new growth formula for manufacturing in India-McKinsey paper

From fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2012, India’s manufacturing-sector GDP grew by an average of 9.5 percent per year. Then, over the next six years, growth declined to 7.4 percent. In fiscal year 2020, manufacturing generated 17.4 percent of India’s GDP, little more than the 15.3 percent it had contributed in 2000. (By comparison, Vietnam’s manufacturing sector more than doubled its share of GDP during the same interval.) 

In this article the writers identify 11 value chains....

 Recommended article from mckinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/advanced-electronics/our-insights/a-new-growth-formula-for-manufacturing-in-india?

Unleashing creativity of students

 A common misconception today is that innovators are innately creative people. In fact innovators aren’t born, they’re made. So we can learn the attributes that leading innovators share.

1. Risk- take risks. The real fun in life is taking risks and trying something new. To try and fail is at least to learn. To fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.

2. Try-try lots of ways.There cannot be a thing called “good habit” in the context of innovation. Anything that becomes a habit cannot produce something new, cannot bring in some changes. The mind is programmed to function in the same way and to expect the same outcome. So there is no question of innovation.

3. Flip-flip yr plan from the end. Start with end in mind. A problem statement should end up with an interrogation mark. The question also should be an open-ended question which will lead to several answers. ‘Population Explosion" in India’ is a simply a statement. “Can we do anything for the population explosion in India?” is still not a problem as this is a close-ended question leading to known number of sure answers such as “Yes”, “No” or “May be.” It becomes a problem only when it is phrased like “How can we control the population explosion in India?”

4. Solve – solve a simple ordinary problem everyday. Moving from ‘yes, but’ to ‘yes, and’ is in fact moving from the limited left brain to the fertile right brain.

5. Grow- grow with each approach. SCAMPER is a ‘mnemonic’ that stands for: • Substitute •Combine• Adapt• Modify• Put to another use • Eliminate• Reverse. By asking questions about existing products, services or strategies, using each of the seven prompts of SCAMPER, one can come up with creative ideas for developing new and for improving the existing ones.

6. Inspire-find what inspires you.Inspired people seed the problems in their subconscious minds and at the unexpected moment, bout of ideas spring up. The subconscious mind is the storehouse of all our knowledge, which we have gained from our childhood.

7. Learn-learn more about the failures.

8. Explore- continue to explore wherever you are are.

9. Think- Take time to think.Sleeping on a problem is a common strategy successful people use for finding solutions. Unconscious mental processing, called incubation, has provided some greatest breakthroughs in history.

10.Ask- ask random people about things. Dissidents are the people who help us see things, which we fail to see, or are not able to see. Of course there are several of them doing this for various reasons.

11.Open- be open to Ideas. You cannot see something new by looking harder in the same direction.

12.Express-boldly express ideas.

13.Press- Press into an idea, Draw it out, share it, rework it.

14.Change-embrace change with an excited heart. Each day is a great opportunity to try something new and push yourself into areas that test your capabilities as well as widen your horizons. If you fancy taking on something extra special, start with the following personal challenges: Run a marathon, Volunteer for charity work, Exercise your brain by learning a new language or to play a musical instrument.Surprise yourself by doing things which you said to yourself, ‘I could never do that.’Get a new job. Overcome fear by doing exactly that. Join a sports club.

15.Raise funds for charity.

16.Act- act on innovation when the ideas come.act on it.The major issue in implementing an idea is the mindset. Five point strategy, 1) Persistence 2) Influencing people 3) Back to the drawing board 4) I’m in charge and 5) Taking systems view.

17.Search-search for another way.Treat it like a maze.

18.Process- be open to the process.

19.Challenge- find people who will challenge you.

20.Dream-Dream, record your dream, put it into action.

21.Share- share your idea with others, work together.

22.Draw- Draw out what the problem is – Draw out the solutions.

23.Pursue- Pursue innovation. Do not wait for it to come.

24.Reach- Reach beyond your own abilities.

25.Improve- Identify ways to improve every aspect of your life.

26.Dare- Dare to challenge the accepted. Create a challenge book.A challenge book reflects curiosity and curiosity is the mother of innovation. Sometimes curiosity is triggered by necessity. Increasing energy costs, necessitates one to look for alternate sources.

27.Create- Create an environment of innovation.Make it the norm.

28.Share- share ownership of innovation.Knowledge is available everywhere: Knowledge today stands distributed. So it is now crucial to identify promising ideas from anywhere before others do so.

Reading:

1. Who is Creative?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1142469

2. 101 Ways to Create and Innovate, Annamalai Natarajan ,

https://www.flipkart.com/101-ways-create-innovate/p/itma8d5522bb4fd9

3. Video : https://youtu.be/ke8nFuG_FZw

Identifying Inventions in the Public Domain- WIPO Guide

A public domain invention is a publicly disclosed invention not covered by any enforceable patent rights in a specific country, at a defined time, such that anyone may freely use that invention in that country at that time, without liability for patent infringement. Using this conceptual framework, the guide teaches you a three-stage process for searching and analyzing published patent documents using the tools of freedom to operate (FTO) determination.

DESCRIBE (Module II)  – Gather information from the client about the invention: · What is the invention and what does the client plan to do with it? · Where does the client plan to use the invention?  When does the client plan to use the invention? – Describe the invention and its planned use. 

SEARCH (Module III)  – Break down the invention into parts and identify features to search. – Choose search parameters and resources: keywords; patent classification symbols; databases; countries; year(s); language(s). – Search for patent documents with claims that might cover the invention or one of its essential features, and identify potentially relevant documents to analyze.

 ANALYZE (Module IV) – Analyze each potentially relevant patent document: · Analyze claims to determine the scope of patent rights. Could a claim be interpreted in such a way that it might be found to cover the invention or one of its essential features? Yes/No/Cannot determine. · Determine the legal status of each analyzed patent. Is it still in force? If so, where is it enforceable and for how long? If not, is it expired, abandoned, invalidated, disclaimed or revoked? Is the legal status ambiguous or unsettled?

Download guide.

Improving Technology Commercialisation- strategy papers from India and USA

Towards close of 2018, we see two important strategy papers. NITI Aayog released paper titled- Strategy for New India. NIST released paper titled- Return on Investment Initiative forUnleashing American Innovation. Commercialisation of technology developed in universities with public funding is one of the issues.
What India says
“Lab to Land” time is too long. Renowned public funded institutions like the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) etc., along with prominent universities across the country, have developed many frontline technologies. However, the rate of transfer of these technologies to industry and for societal benefits is low. The major weaknesses of public funded R&D and technology institutions like CSIR, DRDO, BARC, ICMR and ISRO are their poor marketing skills and information dissemination. Some measures for enhancing technology commercialization by public funded institutions are provided below: 
1. Value addition centres may be set up in each of these institutions for (i) up-scaling technologies, (ii) improving technologies from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 to TRL 6/7, (iii) demonstrating industrial scale pilot production, (iv) coordinating with investors to incubate entrepreneurs, (v) bridging the gap between industry and technology development teams, (vi) enabling formal technology transfer, (vii) enabling commercialization and marketing and (viii) providing technology support during production. 
2. DST should create a National Technology Data Bank in coordination with all publicly funded R&D institutions. This will provide a central database for technologies that are ready for deployment or under development. 
3.Public funded research institutions should consider shifting their focus to the development and deployment of socially relevant technologies in areas such as clean drinking water, sanitation, energy, affordable healthcare, organic farming, etc. These technologies have large potential for commercialization.
What Americans say:
Measures of technology transfer in the U.S. from 1996 to 2015 demonstrate over $1 trillion in economic growth and millions of new jobs. Critical technologies such as life-saving drugs, vaccines, and medical devices, the internet, global positioning system or GPS, and countless other innovations underpinning every aspect of the American way of life are traceable to groundbreaking work at Federal Laboratories, federally funded universities, and private sector R&D organizations. Removing impediments to effective technology transfer and collaboration will accelerate economic value creation. The PMA includes the Lab-to-Market (L2M) cross agency priority (CAP) goal, which aims to improve the transfer of technology from federally funded R&D to the private sector to promote U.S. economic growth and national security. The L2M CAP Goal is organized around the five strategies, which also serve as the organization for the chapters in this green paper: 
1. Identify regulatory impediments and administrative improvements in Federal technology transfer policies and practices; 
2. Increase engagement with private sector technology development experts and investors; 3. Build a more entrepreneurial R&D workforce; 
4. Support innovative tools and services for technology transfer; and 
5. Improve understanding of global science and technology trends and benchmarks.

Discussion
Indian strategy document is silent on engaging private sector. Can government funded institutes scale up technology from TRL 4 to TRL 6 without involvement of private sector?

IS INDIA READY FOR 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION? (part1)

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that the DoT will set up test centre for 5th generation telecom technology with IIT Chennai. As per budget document, the FM has proposed to allocate Rs 134.48 crore for setting up of the "5G connectivity Test Bed".  Further the minister said the government would invest in research in new areas such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics as it looks to prepare the country for the technology of the future. "Technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and others are the technologies of the future and NITI Aayog will establish a national programme to conduct research and development in these areas,".  These new generation technologies are associated with 4^th Industrial revolution. Are we getting ready for the Factories 4 ?

The term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee to describe Britain’s economic development from 1760 to 1840. It witnessed the emergence of mechanization, a process that replaced agriculture with industry as the foundations of the economic structure of society. Mass extraction of coal along with the invention of the steam engine created a new type of energy that thrusted forward all processes thanks to the development of railroads and the acceleration of economic, human and material exchanges. Other major inventions such as forging and new know-how in metal shaping gradually drew up the blueprints for the first factories and cities as we know them today.

The first Industrial Revolution and most technological developments preceding it had little or no scientific base. It created a chemical industry with no chemistry, an iron industry without metallurgy, power machinery without thermodynamics. Engineering, medical technology, and agriculture until 1850 were pragmatic bodies of applied knowledge in which things were known to work, but rarely was it understood why they worked. The second Industrial Revolution accelerated the mutual feedbacks between these two forms of knowledge `science’ and `technology’. Historians have labeled the years from 1870-1914 as the period of the Second Industrial Revolution. While the First Industrial Revolution caused the growth of industries, such as coal, iron, railroads and textiles, the Second Industrial Revolution witnessed the expansion of electricity, petroleum and steel.

The Third Industrial Revolution, or the Digital Revolution, refers to the advancement of technology from analog electronic and mechanical devices to the digital technology available today. The era started during the 1980s and is ongoing.  Advancements during the Third Industrial Revolution include the personal computer, the internet, and information and communications technology (ICT). The first industrial revolution used water and steam to mechanize production, the second used electric energy to create mass production and the third used electronics and information technology to automate production.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution builds on the Digital Revolution, representing new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the human body. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, The Internet of Things, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles.

The fourth revolution is unfolding before our eyes. For India, the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings tremendous opportunities to leapfrog many stages of development, hastening its journey towards becoming a developed economy. In many ways, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a leveller. The technologies being used in India will be the same as those in use in the developed world. Robots, AI, IoT are all technologies transforming industry in the West and are ready to do the same in India.

We missed the first and second Industrial revolutions but IT manpower gave us a strong foothold on the global platform in digital era.  Along with lure of opportunity, there exists threat of `premature industrialization’.  De-industrialization sets in for developed economies after they reach high level of economic prosperity.  Manufacturing as a share of total employment peaked at 45% in the UK before World War I, while in the US, it peaked in the range of 25-27% in the 1970s, before dropping off in both cases. But the UK and the US were both prosperous economies at the respective point in times at which this deindustrialization occurred. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik sees what he called “premature deindustrialization” as manufacturing shrinks in poor countries that never industrialized much in the first place. Manufacturing as a share of employment peaked at about 15% for Brazil in the late 1980s, and has been declining ever since. In India, manufacturing peaked at 13% in 2002 and has been in decline since then. We have a thriving service sector but need jobs in manufacturing too.

Analysis by World Economic Forum `Readiness for Future ofProduction’ analyses strengths and weakness of India. Of the 100 countries we are ranked 30 for structure of production but lower at 42 for drivers of production. The focus thus has to be on improving the areas where we are week. Our weakest area is Technology & Innovation. To understand this we need to reflect on Intellectual Property. We will address this in next part- are there patents in 1^st Industrial Revolution?

Book Summery

Patent IPR Licensing-

Technology Commercialisation-

Innovation Marketing

This is a guide book for researchers and innovators from IFIA member, Indian Innovators Association. The Author in his long association with innovators noticed that more often benefits from creative endeavor elude the researcher/ engineer. The point of vexation arises when they notice that there are no buyers for their innovation.

One remedy for this heart burning experience is to start preparation for commercialization early in the development phase with clarity on the fundamentals of relevant market. The market is different for Patent license, Technology Commercialization and Innovation. Understanding characteristics of the market you are jumping into is a pre-requisite for non-business savvy innovator. This guide book takes the reader to each of these markets giving a basic view of each market.

Message from Alireza RASTEGAR, IFIA President:

Intellectual Property protection, licensing, commercialization and innovation marketing are the required steps for developing an innovative idea into a marketable product. Having knowledge about these concepts ensured the successful exploitation of the innovative technologies in the industrial sectors.

The community of idea owners needs to know how to prepare a well-drafted patent application, generate wealth from the patent, create physical products to help the brand

thrive and license their patents without the need to write a business plan, develop a marketing strategy, spend money on advertising, or find distribution.

Thanks to the efforts made by the Indian Innovator Association, IFIA Full member and representative in India, such information has become available. The inventors and innovators all around the world are encouraged to benefit from the wealth of knowledge

included in the book "PATENT LICENSING TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALISATION INNOVATION MARKETING" and become familiar with a variety of new concepts.

The book is available at , Flipkart, Amazon, Kindle, iBook, Google Play etc.

Patent IPR Licensing- Technology Commercialisation – Innovation Marketing : Guide Book for Researchers, Innovators

My new book:
The guide book by Indian Innovators Association will help researchers and innovators to clearly understand the difference between patent licensing, technology commercialization and innovation marketing. Everything is important but each one is different. Intellectual property is a common thread and the reader is taken through the fundamentals of IPR before explaining each of the three. topics.

Available at:
Flipkart
Amazon
infibeam
notionpress

World Intellectual Property Report 2015

Published every two years, the report looks at trends and interesting topics in IP. 2015's theme is 'Breakthrough Innovations' and examines key technologies that have had transformative economic effects.The report's concept is to gain better understanding of how breakthrough innovations come about and the relationship with IP. The report develops six case studies -- three past and three current breakthrough technologies -- to trace their economic impact and the factors which facilitated their development. 
The three historical are airplanes, antibiotics and semiconductors; the three current are 3d printing, nanotechnology and robotics. Each of these case studies is detailed from a historical perspective, complemented with statistical analysis of related patents and patent mapping, and an analysis of the relationship between the innovation and IP.The six case studies included in this report point to a number of well-known elements of success:

• Governments have been the main source of funding for scientific research that was often instrumental in inventive breakthroughs. In many cases, governments have also played a crucial role in initially moving promising technology from the laboratory to the production stage – often motivated by national defense and industrial policy interests.
• Competitive market forces and efforts on the part of firms were equally crucial, especially in commercializing promising ideas and engaging in follow on innovation that facilitated scaled-up production, cost reductions and wide-scale adoption of new technologies.
• Linkages between the various innovation actors mattered. They ranged from informal knowledge exchanges, professional networks and worker movements to formal university–industry licensing frameworks and R&D collaborations. They promoted the sharing of knowledge among researchers and connected the upstream and downstream activities that helped transform promising ideas into commercial technologies.

China emerges as an important origin of patents in 3D printing, nanotechnology and robotics. In particular, looking at first patent applications filed since 2005, Chinese applicants account for more than a quarter of first filings worldwide in the case of 3D printing and robotics – the highest share among all countries. In the case of nanotechnology patent filings since 2005, Chinese applicants make up close to 15 percent of fillings worldwide – the third largest origin of patents. 

Sadly India does not figure anywhere, neither in patent generation nor as destination for patent protection. 

Business Accelerator in a Stock Exchange

I was intrigued with the news of a Canadian University launching a business accelerator in a stock exchange. Then I dig on to find more. The university is Ryerson University, Toronto incubating over 70 start ups in their Digital Media Zone (DMZ). Their model called DMZ Model has certain unique elements.

Linking Education to Ideation is the novelty. 
BSE Institute is subsidiary of BSE offering several specialized programs. See details.
A rare mix of skills and one that promises to uncover new pathways to groom global talent.  

The Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2013

India is all set to embrace a new STI policy, salient features of new policy are:
Objective:

• The policy seeks to focus on both people for science and science for people and combine the benefits of excellence and relevance.
• India’s STI system needs to deliver solutions to address the pressing national challenges of energy and food security, nutrition, affordable health care, environment, water and sanitation and above all employment .
• Change ratio of public to private sector investments in R&D from the current 3:1 to 1:1 within the next five years.
• India should aim to increase its share of scientific publications from the current 3.5% to over 7% and quadruple the number of papers in top 1% journals from the current levels by 2020. Citation impact of Indian publications must improve and match at least the global averages.
• within the next five years the total number of FTE ( Full Time Equivalent) of R&D personnel must increase by at least 66% of the present strength.

HOW

1. A National Science, Technology and Innovation Foundation will be established as a Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative for investing critical levels of resources for innovative and ambitious projects.
2. The focus of the policy environment will be:

• Facilitating private sector investment in R&D centres in India and overseas.
• Permitting multi stakeholders participation in the Indian R&D system.
• Treating R&D in the private sector at par with public institutions for availing public funds.
• Bench marking of R&D funding mechanisms and patterns globally.
• Aligning Venture Capital and Inclusion Innovation Fund systems.
• Modifying IPR policy to provide for marching rights for social good when supported by public funds and for co-sharing IPRs generated under PPP.
• Exploring newer mechanisms for fostering Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) and science-led entrepreneurship.
• Providing incentives for commercialization of innovations with focus on green manufacturing.
• Prioritizing critical R&D areas like agriculture, telecommunications, energy, water management, drug discovery, material science including nano technology, climate change and space technology and promoting interdisciplinary research,
• Promoting innovations through mechanisms including “Small Idea-Small Money” and “Risky Idea Fund” to support innovation incubators
• Supporting STI driven entrepreneurship with high scaling coefficients and viable business models,
• Investing in young innovators and entrepreneurs through education and training.

WHAT IS NEW

Treating R&D in the private sector at par with public institutions for availing public funds.

This idea giving in-house R&D units, SIROs and MNC R&D centers equal opportunities would be a game changer. Hope Secretary DST and DSIR would take this as a major challenge and implement it on priority. 

Second International Conference on Creativity and Innovation at Grassroots (ICCIG’2012): Dec. 3rd –5th at TUFE, Tianjin (China), and, Dec. 7th - 8th, 2012 at IIM, Ahmedabad.

Pursuit of inclusive innovations today is considered not only essential but also inevitable for sustainable development. However, the role of grassroots innovators in achieving such a process of development has remained less appreciated except may be in India, China and to some extent Malaysia, Indonesia and a few other countries.

Including the excluded in the process of development has become a worldwide concern because the patience of the excluded is running out. The need for harmonious or inclusive development is being articulated by the major Asian economies like China and India. Other countries including the OECD ones are also debating different ways of harnessing the creative potential of masses to make the process of development more participatory and also innovative. The concept of the national innovation system has undergone complete transformation in India by incorporating the knowledge and innovations of common people in the formal S&TI system. There is a need to bring about such a transformation everywhere. No more is the formal R&D system considered equivalent to the innovation system. Even the large corporations have begun to look for ideas from strangers, users, observers, supply chain members and other people outside the organisation. There is no way that national governments can ignore the role grassroots innovations can play in the redesign of policies, institutions and social interactions to make society more fair and just.

Persistent efforts by numerous volunteers of the Honey Bee Network around the world over the last two and a half decades have considerably expanded the global understanding of the potential of grassroots innovators in alleviating poverty and generating sustainable development. However, a lot more remains to be done and understood. The second international conference on Creativity and Innovations at Grassroots [ICCIG] follows up the recommendations of the first ICCIG held at IIMA in collaboration with SRISTI in January 1997. The impact of the first conference was witnessed in the form of founding GIAN (1997) and later NIF (2000). Another international workshop on Building a Global Value Chain around Green Grassroots Innovations (GRI) and Traditional Knowledge [May 31st – June 2nd , 2007, TUFE Tianjin University of Finance and Economics] was organised to provide mentoring, incubation and online support to innovators and entrepreneurs in China, Brazil and India through a project supported by infoDev at SRISTI. The Tianjin Declaration for Promoting Green Grassroots Innovation for Harmonious Development was issued on the occasion [see annexure]. It commemorates the international solidarity for harmonious and inclusive development to support merging of grassroots, scientific, technological and institutional innovations and traditional knowledge. SRISTI had also organised capacity building workshops in six south-eastern countries in collaboration with APCTT and DSIR, GOI to trigger GRI movement during 2007-8.

It is therefore  the second ICCIG Conference is organised from December 3rd – 5th (noon) at TUFE, Tianjin City, China and December 7th – 8th , 2012 at IIMA to discuss:

a) How open and collaborative innovation platforms can be used to generate reciprocity between the formal and informal sector,

b) How the pursuit of innovation as public good can be blended with the protection of intellectual property rights of grassroots innovators,

c) What kind of eco-system interventions are needed to reduce transaction costs of innovators, investors and entrepreneurs, and regulators;

d) How policies favoring scouting, spawning and sustaining GRIID can be negotiated at national and international level providing incentives for disclosure by local communities,

e) How the youth can be engaged to overcome persistent inertia at different levels and in various sectors and spaces in various countries,

f) How to replicate emerging models of supporting grassroots innovations such as the micro venture innovation fund [MVIF], Grassroots Technological Innovation Acquisition Fund [GTIAF] and the social initiative, innovation and entrepreneurship [SIIE] fund for creating public goods based on sustainable knowledge systems,

g) How the goals of sustainable conservation of biodiversity, other natural resources and local institutions can be blended with the goals of rapid economic growth being pursued by most countries despite current economic slowdown.

. 

Conference on Innovation and New Product Development, Mumbai, 5-7 September, 2012

Indian Innovators Association (IIA) is pleased to partner together with Marcus Evans for an event in Mumbai on Innovation and New Product Development.

Date:          5-7 September 2012

Venue:       Novotel Mumbai Juhu Beach, India

Time:          9.00am – 5.30pm

Organiser: Marcus Evans

This interactive conference will offer the latest views and insights by highly rated speakers in the fields of Innovation, R&D and marketing, as well as providing invaluable networking opportunity for professionals and key decision makers from leading organizations.

The event also features key topics on Innovation in Emerging Markets, Frugal Innovation to Mass Market, Open Innovation, Establishing a Proactive and Sustainable Innovation Culture, Disruptive Innovation and afew innovation case studies in demonstrating what and how they have achieved in their product development, lessons learned, and future outlook.

Please click here for event details and list of key speakers. Marcus Evans and IIA are pleased to offer IIA members with 10% discount on the event fees. 

For further inquiries and registration, please email Catherine Foo at catherinef@marcusevanskl.com or call +91-22 4231 7750. 

German machine builders lose seven billions of euros due to Chinese product piracy

In March 2008, the Association of German Machine Builders (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbauer) complained of the notorious Chinese product piracy: “More than half of the German machine builders discover illegal replicas at exhibitions. Three quarters of these replicas come from China. Unfortunately, China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 has not improved the legal protection of intellectual property rights of foreign firms. The resulting loss of German mechanical engineering is about seven billions Euros per year. 

Now roll back the clock.

In 1897, the periodical American Machinist observed: “In going through the shops of a prominent German machine-tool builder who has been in the United States and got a good many ideas there from, as well bought a good line of the best standard machines from which to copy or vary, in the production of its own line, I notice that every solitary American machine, whether from Providence, New Haven, or Cincinnati, had had the name chipped off and the place painted over.”

 

Prof. Dr. Jochen Streb in his article ` Catching-up and Falling Behind. Knowledge Spillover from American to German Machine Tool Makers' brings these snippets to make the point imitation is common in catching-up.

 

Free flow packaging machine

Innovator, Pramod Chaurasia developed a free flow packing machine for retailers. Bulk packaging of products like chips, salt is done at manufacturers end. Several loose items are packed at retail end. Large retail shops pack and seal the material manually. This innovation by Pramod facilitates automatic, packing, sealing and weighing of free flowing material by the retailer. Another innovation for BOP (Bottom Of Pyramid) market.

Contact for partnerships:
Sri Pramod Chaurasia,
pv_chaurasia2001@yahoo.co.in

Nature's 100 best innovations

With support from UNEP and many other bodies, Anine Benyus and Gunter Pauli shortlisted one hundred technologies that are all inspired by proven design systems from Nature. For details of book and list see: http://www.n100best.org/