Process calculator

Innovator Kuldeep Verma, converted all this knowledge of process industries into a process calculator. Check the calculator at http://www.processcalculator.com/index.aspx
The innovator also has technologies for biodiesel from Simarouba, Hydrogen by electrolysis of salt water etc. Business people looking for new technologies can contact:
Kuldeep Verma, Kuldeep Varma .

Solar powered GSM base station

Start-UP VNL promoted by several telecom professionals came with low cost solutions to take GSM network to rural areas. Innovations called `Microtelecom' include solar powered base station.

Elephantversity Institute of Innovation

A masters degree in innovation is offered by Elephantversity. The Master of Innovation is a 26 weekend program for executives and professionals from all spheres, such as management, engineering, finance, HR and others.This (first time in the world) program has been developed to allow practicing professionals to up skill while working and is conducted every alternate Saturday-Sunday.The first batch of 30 participants will start this journey on 6th September 2008.

Contact Details:
Hrridaysh Deshpande - hrridaysh@elephantversity.com, Mobile - 9922402750
Elephantversity Institute of Innovation
13 Kumar Srushti, Survey No. 1 Pashan NDA Road, Pune 411 021
Tel.: +91 - 20-22951055/59, 22951160 / 61
Web: www.elephantversity.com

India Innovation Pioneers Challenge

Indo-US S&T Forum in association with Intel and Department of Science & Technology has been organising Innovation competitions since 2006. In this series, India Innovation Pioneers Challenge was held on 18th July 2008. Participants and Jury can be seen in the photo. Winners will be announced soon.

Indian Innovators Association planning Bangalore Chapter

Indian Innovators Association is planning to open a chapter in Bangalore to facilitate closer interaction among stakeholders with physical meetings on regular basis. Innovators and stakeholders residing in Banaglore may contact:
Ms Anuradha Goyal on 98862 01103

Morpheus Venture Partners

Morpheus is a venture firm focusing on early stage startups. They desire to engage with startups in the most crucial phase of their life-times, the first twelve months, the phase that is also known as valley of death . It is a new venture firm, based in Bangalore. Interested firms can write to Sameer Guglani, Partner, at sameer@morpheusventure.com

dhanaX

Start-up dhanax information services pvt ltd is promoted by entrepreneur Siva Prasad V Catiplli. dhanax is a forum for social lending , bringing borrowers with small but pressing demands ( for amounts like Rs5,000/-) and willing lenders (individuals). The take off was smooth with several professionals based in Bangalore lending small amounts providing large relief to borrowers.

Speech Recognition Technology from SPREC

SPREC is a start-up promoted by Prof Ajay Raina of IIT, Kanpur along with serial entrepreneur Sharad Agagarwal , banker VR Srinivasan and IIT alumni Nitin Janwar. The firm offers Indian language speech recognition tools and solutions .
Demo at http://sprecin.com/index.php

National seminar on Pheromone technologies

Insect pheromones are an emerging tool for monitoring, mass trapping and mating disruption among insect pests of crops. In particular, they offer good potential for use as safer technologies for preserving the biodiversity in agro-ecosystems as well as for ensuring pesticide residue free produce so to be safe for human consumption. The Asthagiri Herbal Research Foundation, Chennai and The South Asia Society for Advancement of Pheromone Technology(SASAPT) will be co-hosting this seminar.
Venue: Vel's College Auditorium,Pallavaram, Chennai, Date: 25th – 26th SEP, 2008.
Contact:

Narasimhan,Organising Secretary ,Asthagiri Herbal Research Foundation,
7/1, Thirumazhisai Street, Sundaram Colony,East Tambaram, Chennai – 600 059
Email ID: narasimhan_s@yahoo.com

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle from IIT Kanpur start-up

Aurora Integrated Systems Pvt ltd is a start-up from students of IIT Kanpur. With initial funding from TePP they developed UAV,caught the attention of Sri Ratan Tata and are all set to roll out a series of UAVs.

Top 100 clean energy technologies

New energy Congress is an association for the purpose of reviewing the most promising claims to up-and-coming clean, renewable, affordable, reliable energy technologies, in order to come up with a weighted list of recommendations of the best technologies. See their top 100 clean energy technologies.

Firestarter workshops on Innovation

The FireStarter is the prime mover in Erehwon’s mission to build an innovation movement, to create a million FireStarters in India by 2011.Erehwon is opening out these workshops in a open workshop format across 6 locations.Firestarter Workshop Schedule: 2008

Location	Dates	Register by
Mumbai	19-20 August	31 July
Bangalore	21-22 August	31 July
New Delhi	4-5 September	15 August
Pune	9-10 September	15 August
Hyderabad	16-17 September	20 August
Chennai	18-19 September	20 August

Contact: jaideepg01@gmail.com

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

Breeding Entrepreneurs at IIM Ahmedabad

Every one knows IIMA graduates end up as top class CEOs all across the world. But that is not the complete story-IIMA is breeding ground for several hundreds of successful entrepreneurs. Rashmi Bansal captures some of them in her book `Stay Hungry Stay Foolish'.The book was released on 29th by CIIE.

DSIR invites proposals for National awards in R&D

The Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR) had instituted National Awards for outstanding R&D achievements of Indian Industry in the year 1988. These awards, in the form of shields, are presented along with citations at the Inaugural Session of the ‘Annual National Conference on in-house R&D Efforts in Industry’. During the past 20 years, 171 such R&D awards have been presented by DSIR.
For National awards 2008, applications are invited in 6 categories:

• Physical & Biological sciences
• Electronics & ICT based industries
• Engineering Industries
• Clean Energy & Climate change
• Award for successful commercialisation of technology
• Best Invention Award

Application proforma can be downloaded from http://www.dsir.gov.in/
Contact person: KVSP Rao, K V S P

For a wider view of Indian R&D system, read Raj Mitra's paper `India's emergence as a global R&D center'.

Pope gets India made 3 wheeler

Roberto Colaninno, Chairman, Piaggio Group and Ravi Chopra – Chairman and Managing Director (CMD), Piaggio Vehicles Pvt. Ltd. (PVPL) the Indian subsidiary of the Italian two and three wheeler major presented two (2) "Made in India" ape - Calessino 3-wheelers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican recently to mark the 60th anniversary of the production start-up of the Piaggio's ape´. The two vehicles have been especially customised for His Holy Father.
source: indiainfoline

SparkIP

Patenting shifted from end of (research) pipe activity to a precursor for initiating research. Instead of a typical patent search, corporates now look for patent spaces that can be (profitably) occupied by directed research. Software tools creating patent landscapes, clusters make that task easier. One such a tool is Spark IP built on visual landscape of more than 40,000 clusters. Try out the demo at:
www.sparkip.com/demo

support to reserach institutes

DBT issued calls for proposals on several subject areas-the recent is for establishing centers of excellence at research institutes. see http://dbtindia.nic.in/oldwebsite/proposals/proposalmain.html

Ministry of Micro, Samll & Medium Enterprises also invited proposals from institutes for setting up incubators. see
http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/schemes/

Indian innovators get awards but not rewards

The history repeated with IMD placing order for Doppler Weather Radars (DWR) on Chinese firm. The loser is consortium of Indian organisations BEL and ISRO that have developed competing technologies. Read the news item in MINT or tendering and history of disconnect between development and procurement in India from PRAGOTI.

Jail for exports to India

Indian newspapers carried this news that CEO of Cirrus electronics has been sentenced for 35 months jail for illegally exporting high technology electronic parts for ultimate use by Indian space, Indian air force etc. Are they really such high technology items? Ravi Visvasvraya Prasad elaborates on this in Asia Times. The so called high technology items were Intel i960 microprocessor , already long obsolete during the time of the alleged exports and capacitors that are Commercially-available, Off-The-Shelf (COTS) items which are widely used in civilian applications all over the world.

Ashden award 2008 for Svati Bhogle

The Ashden Awards prize of £40,000 was presented to Svati Bhogle, Chief Executive of TIDE, by Kenyan Nobel Prize laureate Wangari Maathai.Many of South India’s small businesses rely on wood as their main source of fuel, which causes pollution and deforestation, not to mention uncomfortable and dangerous working conditions when boilers and stoves are badly designed. Building on the excellent track record of stove design at the renowned Indian Institute of Science, TIDE commercialises their designs to provide efficient woodstoves and kilns which save at least 30 percent of fuel and are tailor-made for specific small industries. To date 110,000 workers enjoy better conditions thanks to the 10,000 products TIDE has supplied, saving around 43,000 tonnes of wood each year.

Designs from IIT, Mumbai

Design Degree show 2008 exhibits several industrial designs created by of IIT, Mumbai industrial Design students, 44 of them. See them on the net at:

http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/~dds/

green oorja

The “Green Oorja” Initiative is a major programme of Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) that facilitates the exchange, adoption, development and commercialisation of key renewable energy technologies and those that improve energy conservation.The pilot program is launched first in India to be followed byMalysia, South Africa, Nigeria.
Parties interested can register at:
http://greenoorja.com/CEpages/FeedBack.aspx

Free Patent lessons from TMP Searchers

TMPsearchers http://www.tmpsearchers.com a Patent and Trademark Services website is

offering a Free Patent Training Course online to all registered members. The course lessons are sent by email one per day for 125 days. Membership is also free and only requires a simple registration step. Please check

http://www.tmpsearchers.com/patents/free-patent-training.html?a=tr&cid=4751

This free service is offered as tribute to Sri NR Natarajan by Mrs Janaki Natarajan. A very touching incident narrated by Mrs Janaki Natarajan ... must read.

International Conference on `“Global Water Solutions: Sharing Innovations”

Conference on Global Water Solutions-Sharing Innovations is organized on 19-20th June 2008 at PHD House, August Kranti Marg, New Delhi. For details:
http://www.thegii.org/gii/

Contact person:
Aparna Deshpande
Admin. & Events Manager
Society of Chemical Industry
where science meets business
D-514-516 Crystal Plaza
Andheri Link Road
Andheri (W)
Mumbai- 400053.
T:+91-22-26734845 / 46
F:+91-22-26734847
W: www.soci.org

Patenting activity

Both Economic Times and Mint have come with their analysis of patenting activity in India. Shantanu Nandan Sharma identified increased innovation activity in manufacturing whereas Viswanath Kulkarni saw surge in MNC patenting. Both are true- MNCs are entrusting more and more product development work to their Indian development centers and patenting traditionally associated with Drug & pharma now has a wider base. Nano takes the cake with 40 patents and can be credited for associating `new product' with `patent position' in corporate board rooms.

My e-Books from Corporate Tool Box

Corporate Tool Box has brought out 3 E Books authored by me:

1. Value Creation from Technology Licensing
2.Knowledge-the basis of Competition
3.Globlisation and Value creation

For details see:
http://www.thecorporatetoolbox.com/c_standard.asp?cid=-1822717345

India Innovation Pioneers Challenge 2007-8

This competition organised byIndo-US Science & Technology Forum in partnership with Intel and DST attracted over 250 proposals. Finalists include:
Neuragreen Corporation , a start-up incubated at NCL, Pune, founded by Dr Sarvesh Kumar coming to market proprietary mixture of optically pure metal chelators to reduce memory decay. Researchers Rajmohan and Anish has plans to take to market Polyskin developed at National Institute of Immunology.
Geographical Instruments incubated at STEP-Trichy , founded by engineering students Hema Nandhini patented their products in India, Chian, Japan and looking for big bang market entrt.
Orthograft a start-up incubated at IIT Kanpur, comes with nano-crystalline synthetic bone graft substitute, founded by Tapendu Mandal. Medical instruments get a Diomas Coat with start-up incubated at IIT Kharagpur promoted by Gobind Singh Bisht.
N Mobile by Pawan start-up from VIT, Vellore and Digi-touch incubated at PSG College , Coimabtore by Murali wants to develop non invasive technology for reading blood pressure, glucose level etc.
Another medical innovation is Prosthetic arm developed by entrepreneur Kumar , first model donated to MUKTI.
MBAs from ISB, Pankaj Singh and Saurabh Khedekar offer Graphology to recruiters to identify personality traits. Another tool for recruiters is Vita Peracta, with Sindhu offering game based methods to profile job seeker.
To prevent accidents on highways, Students Saurav kumar & Ashish Kumar from IIT Roorkee are developing InTramate collision prevention system.
One can cover stadiums will retractable roofs, a product from Adriot structures.

Local innovations - water & sanitation

Asoka's change makers announced winners for the competition `Tapping Local Innovation: unclogging Water and Sanitation Crisis' organized jointly with Global Water Challenge.winners are:
Himanshu Parikh Consulting Engineers
Naandi Foundation
Swayam Shikshan Prayog

Ten disruptive technologies 2009--2012

Gartner identified 10 disruptive technologies for the next 4 years. They are:

• Multicore and hybrid processors
• Virtualisation and fabric computing
• Social networks and social software
• Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
• Web mashups
• User Interface
• Ubiquitous computing
• Contextual computing
• Augmented reality
• Semantics

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/

Triple Helix VII conference

The Triple Helix is about innovation systems based on university-industry-government relations. The biennial Triple Helix conferences started twelve years ago to analyze the interaction between University, Government and Industry, and its influence on the economic development of specific regions.The Seventh International Triple Helix Conference (Triple Helix VII) to be held from 17-19 June 2009 at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

Innova Materials

Innova Materials is a materials technology company spun out of the University of Pennsylvania. At Wharton Business Plan Competition
Innova wins 3 of 5 prizes awarded in competition, including 2nd Place, the People's Choice Award, the Gloeckner Award, and nearly $30,000 in cash and services. Innova Materials lets manufacturers impart the surface of polymer products with new properties and functionalities via conventional spray-painting equipment.Innlay requires no changes to existing manufacturing processes and allows manufacturers to cost-effectively incorporate nanoscale or microscale active materials into the surface of their products.Alex Mittal, Priyanka Agarwal, Arjun Srinivas are promoters.

Technology Day awards 2008

Dr APJ Kalam gave away Technology day awards on 11th May 2008. TDB gave 3 awards, National award for Natco Pharma ltd, awards to SSI units went to Lifecare Innovations Pvt ltd, and Prime Telesystems ltd, Delhi.Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma Limited was conferred the National Award for developing and commercialising five innovative anti-cancer drugs.Lifecare Innovations Pvt. Ltd. received the national award for commercialising highly economic formulation for treatment of systemic mycosis and Kala Azar.Prime Telesystems Limited, Delhi received the award for developing and commercialising the High Definition Video over Subscriber Line standard and supporting technology stack for the delivery of interactive video over emerging cable, telephony and internet networks. DBT gave award to Dr Banwarilal of TERI for developing Microbial enhanced oil recovery .
Click to read inspiring speech given by Dr Kalam.

Where Are India’s Innovative Companies, Products and Solutions?

Thought provoking article from Mark Fidelman. Must read for all stakeholders of Indian innovation system.

Any comments?

Too many funding programs

Earlier there was paucity of funds from government for research & innovation, now many complain there are too many windows and what is needed is a single window. Well, this single window may never emerge as American experience shows. I got a mail about `The American Grants and Loans Book' priced at $149.95 containing list of about 1700 financial programs, subsidies, scholarships, grants and loans offered by the United States federal government. Is it a pointer to future in India?

Technology Pioneers 2009

World Economic Forum invites proposals for Technology pioneers 2009. The categories for Technology Pioneers are:
1. Biotechnology and Health
2. Information Technology
3. Energy and Environmental Technologies
Innovative company can self nominate or it can be nominated by others. Last date 30 June 2008. Companies seeking nomination can contact me for guidance. See details at :
http://www.weforum.org/en/Communities/Technology%20Pioneers/Nominations/index.htm

TiE-ISB connect 2008

The TiE-ISB Connect '08 will be held on November 5th, 6th and 7th, 2008 at the ISB campus in Hyderabad. Important dates:
Executive summaries due : 15th June 2008
Mentoring sessions: 1st August 2008
Business plans due:15th October 2008
Business plan presentation:5th November 2008

Lockheed Marting innovation awards 2008

The 2008 Winners of Lockheed Martin India Innovation growth program were announced on May 2nd. Gold medal winners include Kranti Vistakula, a MIT researcher who decided to promote a start-up in Hyderabad to develop Clima Gear, temperature regulating apparel, currently incubated at NID, Ahmedabad and supported under TePP. Slow release micro nutrient fertilizer by Dr Chandrika Varadachari, novel extendable pedal crank mechanism by Prof Manoj Kumar Mandal of IIT Kharagpur, Surya Kiran of Col JJ Singh were some of the other winners.
This program will continue for another 2 years and all finalists will be mentored at ICsquare Institute

TiE Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008

Applications are accepted for TiE Cannan Entrepreneurial challenge 2008. Last date 12th May 2008. At least one finalist will be invited to join the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program where they will get access, guidance and support on the Microsoft Platform as well as market development support from Microsoft. A representative from each of the winning teams will be invited to attend a course pro bono at the Center for Executive Education at the Indian School of Business (ISB).The Winners would be mentored by NASSCOM, Canaan Partners, and Jury Members for three months after the event.

`Women Invent' from author Susan Casey

This is one of the most reader friendly book I ever read on Innovation yet very informative. Why did she write on this topic? To quote her:

"I was talking to my friend’s father about how he invented Bounce, the anti-static tissue for the dryer. He explained his inspiration. His wife couldn’t gauge when to put the liquid softener in the washer so she kept running up and down the stairs to check. That gave him, his name was Conrad Gaiser, the idea to invent something that would serve the same purpose but be used in the dryer. I thought his story was interesting so talked to a magazine about writing an article about the stories of the invention ordinary household items, like Bounce. The editor suggested I also find out about inventions by women. By the time I finished the research for the article I was so interested in the stories of women inventors that I kept on going."

INFOSYS prize for mathematics

Infosys Technologies Limited (Infosys) and the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore announce the establishment of a new prize in mathematics: the INFOSYS Prize for Mathematics.

The prize will be awarded to a person who has made outstanding contributions — fundamental or applied — in any field of mathematics including in the areas of pure mathematics, mathematical foundations of computer science and applied mathematics in natural, life and social sciences.The prize will consist of a cash prize of one million Indian rupees (US$25,000) and a medal.

Last date -April 30, 2008

Biopreneur-E Magazine

First issue of Biopreneur- a quarterly E Magazine is now available for download.
URL: http://www.biopreneur.org/images/E_mag_Biopreneur.pdf
The initial issue contains basic information for transition of researcher into an entrepreneur and useful information o patent protection, business plan tips, Bio-business in India and Asia.

e-tendering software from TOSPL

Start up firm, Trans Online Systems Private Limited, indigenously developed a fully secure and IT ACT 2000 compliant end-to-end web based tendering solution with inbuilt unique features. Unlike other software products their unique pay as you use ASP model allows departments to adopt electronic tendering system without any upfront investment.They are looking for partners/ associates to promote our products/ services in other regions. The start-up secured 3rd place in the Impresario 2008 competition held at IIT Kanpur. Interested parties can contact:
Sukant Bhattacharya
CEO
Trans Online Systems Private Limited
Mobile: +91 9826156395
Phone: +91 761 3295667

2008 Millennium Technology Prize

Trailblazing technologies that improved high-speed long-distance communication, provided the blueprint for mobile phone networks, introduced DNA fingerprinting, and created new drug delivery systems were announced Tuesday as finalists for Finland's 2008 Millennium Technology Prize.Randy Giles, director of optical subsystems and advanced photonics at Alcatel–Lucent's Bell Labs in New Jersey; Emmanuel Desurvire, director of Thales Corporate Research & Technology's physics research group in France; and David Payne, director of the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Center in England, each earned finalist spots for their contributions to telecommunications through the invention of the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA), which made possible the global high-capacity fiber-optic network that serves as the Internet's backbone.Andrew Viterbi, president of investment and advisory firm Viterbi Group, LLC, and co-founder of telecommunications provider Qualcomm, Inc., won finalist recognition for his development of the Viterbi algorithm, a technique that has advanced the design and implementation of modern wireless communication systems. Mobile phone networks rely on the algorithm to eliminate noise. Computer disk drives, MP3 players and systems that cull information received from deep space also use the algorithm. Without the Viterbi algorithm, "we would not have cell phones'.

i-Runway

iRunway , locate din Bangalore provides technology&IP due diligence, Innovation Management services and Litigation support services. See details at: http://www.i-runway.com/index.html
Contact person: Kunal Sharma, Co-Founder, kunal@i-Runway.com

Mechartes Researchers Pvt.Ltd

Mechartes Researchers Pvt.Ltd is a successful start-up engineering firm incubated at FITT, IIT, Delhi. Promoted by faculty and students of IIT Delhi,, Dr CV Ramakrishnan, Dr MR Ravi, Shishir Gupta, the start-up offers services like Flow and thermal analysis using CFD , Vibration Isolation system design and also products like Triami, a tool to manage enormous engineering data using open source platform, needed for firms periodically updating products along with assortment of assembly information.

Green Energy and Green Livelihoods Award

Sierra club announced $100,000 "Green energy and green livelihood award" for NGO's. The purpose of the award is to build public support for community organizations in India that are helping the country leapfrog past polluting and inefficient technologies in order to create green jobs and a green economy. The award will be given annually to one exemplary environmental or environmentally-related organization that satisfies predetermined criteria for constructive community-based work. Deadline:September 2008.

Ojas Venture Partners

Ojas is one of the few early stage funds ( $35M corpus) for start-ups. It was backed by Mr. Raghavan S. Nadathur (NSR), the co-founder and former JMD of Infosys. NSR has been an active player in the early stage ecosystem in India since 2000 helping with mentorship and guidance through NSR Center for Entrepreneurial Learning at IIM – Bangalore as well as with financial capital from Nadathur Holdings and Investments. NHIL (www.nadathur.com) is a private wealth management company with assets under management in excess of $500 M.
Contact: Avniel Dravid,Senior Associate, avniel@ojasventures.com

non enzymic detergents from MDU

This report from merinews covers research from a lesser known research body- Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak. As per this report, Dr Chander Shekhar Pundir , Dean Life Sciences and his students, Sarita and Sandhya Arya developed a process for non enzymic detergents.
According to research carried out at biochemistry department, an enzyme, lipase is immobilised onto the inner wall of a plastic beaker with the help of some specific chemicals, which provided the reuse of enzyme. This enzyme can also be immobilised onto the inner wall of washing chamber of a washing machine, which is generally made up of plastic. By immobilising this enzyme onto the lower part of sidewall or onto the bottom of washing chamber, if the clothes are washed with an ordinary and cheapen detergent (non enzymic detergent), the results are even better than those by costly detergents.

Financial suport to international patenting

Department of Information Technology invites applications for the scheme titled “Support International Patent Protection in Electronics & IT (SIP-EIT)”. Under this scheme SMEs and Technology Start-Up units will be reimbursed costs incurred in filing international patent applications in Electronics & ICT domain for their indigenous inventions. This Grant shall be disbursed to applicants on a reimbursement basis and will be limited to 50% of the total expenses in actual cost incurred by the applicant on filing International Patent to a maximum of Rs. 15 lakhs per application.

Smt. J Khurana / Dr. A.K.Garg
Patent and IPR Division
R&D in IT Group
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
Department of Information Technology
Electronics Niketan
6, C.G.O.Complex
New Delhi 110003
Phone: 24301284/24301398

Incandescent lamp with two filaments

Innovator Prakash Urs from Bangalore developed an incandescent lamp with two filaments. When one filament fuses, other one can be connected with simple act thereby doubling the life. Manufacturers interested in licensing can contact him at:
prakashurs@gmail.com

One hour design challenge

How much time is needed to come with a new design???
Core 77 organised a contest for bike safety design - the time available is 60 minutes.
Can we see something similar to happen in India?

Designs for Bottom of Pyramid

Looking for an expert to evaluate designs for BOP market. Niti Bhan is confounder of Perspective 2.0, an engineer from Bangalore, product designer from NID and rich haul of experience at HP, Adobe etc. Read her post at Core77.

Video on work of KR Dayte

Under Atul Pethe Productions, director Atul Pethe is all set to launch a series of films -Aivaj, that will showcases extraordinary work done by various people in their own fields.Urjechya Shodhwata, the first film of this series features K R Datye, an 82-year-old civil engineer who has utilised his engineering ingenuity for the betterment of the society. The film throws light on the various energy conservation projects that Datye has handled.

India Innovation Pioneers Challenge 2008

Department of Science and Technology (DST), Indo-US Science andTechnology Forum and Intel have partnered to bring this program IIPC 2008. Winners of the competition get an opportunity to showcase their plan at Intel + UC-Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge at University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Last date 30th April 2008.

IndAc'08 at IIT Kharagpur

On 5th and 6th April 2008, Technology Transfer Group, a student initiative of IIT Kharagpur is organising this exposition IndA'08.
On display will be 59 technologies ready for transfer. Foods & Beverages (13), Agricultural engineering & Farm machinery (5), Chemical (3), Medical devices & Biotechnology (23), CSE, Electronics & IT (7), Metallurgy & Materials (8).

Stanford-India Biodesign program

Stanford-India Biodesign program is aimed at training, mentoring and funding innovators in medical technology. Fellowship is for one year and second year is for developing technology invested in first year. Application dead line is May 8 2008.
Indian innovators can avail TePP grants for prototype development in 2nd year.
For details of program see: http://biodesign.stanford.edu/bdn/india/aboutbiodesign.jsp
For details of TePP see: www.dsir.gov.in

5th Asialics International Conference 2008

A major event organised by IIM, Bangalore from 2nd to 4th April 2008, this conference will discuss changing role of innovation system from manufacturing to services. For decades innovation was confined to manufacturing, from innovation models to disruptive innovation, from fuzzy front end to JIT and cases from Xerox to Toshiba. This conference will herald a fresh thinking, reinventing innovation system for service. Contact person;
Prof Rishikesh T Krishnan, rishi@ERNET@IIMB.IN

Threatening technlogy- turning food into biofuel

Indian Finance Minsiter, Chidambaram, takes on countries like USA for turning food into biofuel. Many analysts fear that this technology converting food crops like Corn, maize, Soya, into biofuel to run cars can cause more harm to humanity than Atomic bomb and the poor here are as hapless as the Japanese at the receiving end several decades back.
Read story at BBC...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7315308.stm

Doshion- water management services

Ashit Doshi, Managing Director of Doshion, the water management company, was awarded `The Bharti Entrepreneur of the year (2007)' by EDI. The firm is setting up a 20 MLD brackish water desalination plant at Kasnau-Matsukh lignite mines in Rajastan. Another notable sucess was setting up sea water RO plant at Ramanthapuram in Tamilnadu.

Challengers from RDE( Rapidly Developing Economies)

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) listed 5o local dynamos giving a run for more established MNCs. The list includes 11 from India. Rapidly Developing Economies, India, China, Russia and Brazil are now perceived as incubators of business dynamism. The consultants identified 6 key success factors as:

• customizing to local needs
• devising innovative business models
• leveraging latest technologies
• benefiting from lost cost/ skilled labor
• scaling up fast
• sustaining long term hyper growth.

Read on....http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/The_BCG_50_Local_Dynamos_March2008.pdf

Open Source in Drug Discovery (OSDD)

Spicy IP carried an interview with Prof Samir Brahmachari, DG, CSIR, on OPDD, which throws light on many aspects of this revolutionary concept.... Read on

Innovation for India awards 2008

Marico Innovation foundation presented awards on 19th, the winners are:
MICO- Bosch India , confined to most of the period, for local adaptation of products developed in Germany, got a new lease of life when they took up the challenge of developing single cylinder PF pump to deliver fuel at 1600 bar pressure. What was originally conceived as low cost option to Indian firms required to migrate to Common Rail system to meet Euro 4 norm was actually adopted by Deutz group , sold over 160000 units in 2007 and transformed the Indian team from adopters to developers.
Kirolskar brothers got the award for designing pumping system for Sardar Saovar project involving pumping 70000 cu.m per hour to a height of 72 mt. They achieved this engineering feat by successfully redesigning concrete volute pumps .
Titan proved they are smarter than Swiss in watch design by developing the slimmest water resistant watch in the world, as thin as floppy disc edge 3.5mm.
Maharani paints converted waste into wealth by developing process to convert paint sludge into primer.
A historically old innovation, treadle pump , generally made of wood or metal has been redesigned by Bhinge Brothers with plastic for pumping both irrigation and drinking water.

Light Logics-Holography people

Innovator P.T.Ajith has set up this high technology start-up Light Logics in Technopark, Trivendrum. In a short period, he managed to roll out a series of products: Security holograms, display holograms, hologram materials,readers , systems etc. He is now working on developing Holography Portrait Studio. A path to technology intensive ventures lighted by a researcher.

Technopreneur 2008, Kozikode

The workshop on ‘Promoting Technology Business Incubation and Building Enterprises’ was jointly organised by Technopark TBI, Technopark TePP Outreach Centre (TUC), NIT TBI, STED and VHSE on 10th March at Calicut. Innovators, Faculty members of Engineering Colleges and Teachers of Vocational Higher Secondary Schools and ITIs in the Northern Kerala comprising of the Districts Kozhikode, Kannoor, Kasargode, Palakkad and Malappuram attended this workshop.This is the first such event held in Calicut and next workshop is planned at Cochin.

IAITO Infotech

IAITO Infotech Pvt Ltd is a start-up company incubated SIIC, IIT, Kanpur, promoted by Anand Shenoy. Starting with desktop UHF reader and UHF evaluation kit, the firm now moved up the technology chain with RFID UHF external antenna and now RFID UHF 4 port and 8 port reader.

Contact person:

Anand Shenoy,IAITO INFOTECH,SIIC, IIT Kanpur,U.P-208016

ashenoy.iaito@gmail.com

Beans TradeEngine

Losses suffered by Indian corporations and banks due to trade in derivatives, hedging is in the news. There are many players but few (local) technology providers. One of the technology provider for finance market is Beans & Intellect Financial Technology Pvt Ltd , a derivatives pricing and risk management start-up promoted by two graduates of IIT, Mumbai, Anshuman and Dilli Babu. Beans TradeEngine and its extensions offer a complete package of solutions covering derivatives pricing, sensitivity analysis, credit& market risk analytics, hedging analysis etc. The product is priced right with a 2 months free trial.
Contact person: anshumaan@beansindia.com

Indygenius Technologies

Fight against piracy of movies by unauthorized copying goes high tech with Indygenious Technologies a start -up from Calicut, Kerala, offering a series of products and turnkey solutions. Clients include Aditya music, Eagle Videos,Shemroo videos etc. Contact person:
Sangeet Menon, sangeet@indygenius.com
Dileep Kumar, dileep@indygenius.com

Grammteller- low cost rural ATM

This low cost ATM was developed at IIT Chennai by TeNet group of Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala. It is low cost by design- this ATM plugs into a Kiosk PC connected to a bank server. Unlike PIN numbers for log in, customers finger prints are used. The mechanism was designed by Vortex , the licensee, promoted by innovator L.Kannan, who earlier developed low cost spinning equipment with support under TePP. For this no frills ATM, funding came from Aavishkaar. Initial testing was done by ICICI and now adopted by SBI.

Microscopes made from bamboo

Nature carried an article on Science on shoe string budget- the highlight was microscope made of bamboo costing four US dollars. It is a product of creative minds at Jodo Gyan, founded by Usha menon, scientist at National Institute for Science, Technology and Development Studies. Detailed coverage also appeared in Mail Today on 6th March 2007.

Fourth Generation Biofuels

Confused with hype and controversies on bio-fuel, read this article by Graig Rubens in earth2tech.
First-generation biofuels rely on food crops as their feedstock. Corn, soy, palm and sugarcane all have readily accessible sugars, starches and oils. So brewing them into biofeuls simply involves either fermenting the sugars or chopping up the fatty oils through transesterfication. Second-generation biofuels use lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock, among them dedicated biofuel crops like switchgrass and agricultural residue such as corn stalks. Rather than improving the fuel-making process, third-generation biofuels seek to improve the feedstock. Designing oilier crops, for example, could greatly boost yield.Fourth-generation technology combines genetically optimized feedstocks, which are designed to capture large amounts of carbon, with genomically synthesized microbes, which are made to efficiently make fuels.

read ...http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/04/wtf-are-fourth-generation-biofuels/

Model educational institute for tribal children

Achutananda Samanta, born in a poor family raised to an institutional builder with KIIT and an agent of change with KISS. KIIT started with ITI , now offers engineering, medicine and a host of other advanced programs in Bhubaneswar. KISS is different from the popular trajectory of private educational institutes, it provides free residential education to about 5000 tribal children.

Indian team consisting of all the players from KISS, Bhubaneswar won Under-14 Rugby World championship by defeating South Africa in the final match held at London in Sept 2007. To quote the tribal boy` people made fun of us when we wore shorts, now in London, we wear suit'. Empowerment of people by people.

Prof Girish creating waves with WiLCOM

Wilcom Pvt Ltd is a start-up promoted by Professors of IIT Mumbai. Leading the charge is Prof Girish Kumar, who has more than two decades experience in designing antennas and microwave circuits. His book Broadband Microchip Antennas is a standard text book. Mobile phone jammer, radiation shield are some of consumer products.

R&D India news on web

ASCI, Hyderabad is manging this site with news & views on Indian R&D. Access with free subscription. Visit: http://www.rndindia.info/.
Also see list of top 100 R&D spenders on R&D in India in the section on analysis.

YehiSahi at SPJIMR

Arpit Agrawal is incubating his concept to help parents create stimulating home environment to their children at the incubator in SPJIMR, Mumbai. See his web site http://yehisahi.com/

"There are hundreds of items available in the market that claim to be beneficial to the child. Not all of them are well designed. Also parents, sometimes, tend to focus on just one aspect of the development (example intellectual) and may miss out on the others like social and emotional.
Hence we help parents purchase items keeping in mind age appropriateness, different skills required, fun and safety".

scratch for creative kids

A new programming language developed at the MIT Media Lab turns kids from media consumers into media producers, enabling them to create their own interactive stories, games, music, and animation for the Web.With this new software, called Scratch, kids can program interactive creations by simply snapping together graphical blocks, much like LEGO® bricks, without any of the obscure punctuation and syntax of traditional programming languages. Children can then share their interactive stories and games on the Web, the same way they share videos on YouTube, engaging with other kids in an online community that provides inspiration and feedback.
Developed by Mitchel Resnick, Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, Designed for ages 8 and up, Scratch is available by free download from the Scratch website (http://scratch.mit.edu). The software runs on both PCs and Macs.

Social Innovation Exchange (SIX)

The Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) website now is online. It will enable members to upload information about their organisation; share projects, case studies and articles with the network; and engage in forums and discussions about social innovation around the world.Take a look .
want to make suggestions-
contact Sara Piteira ,
International Social Innovation eXchange Coordinator,
sara.piteira@youngfoundation.org

Global Mobile awards 2008

Global Mobile Awards 2008 included mCheck on Airtel for mobile payment.

This patent-pending solution allows customers to register credit cards, debit cards or bank accounts and link them to their mobile phone with a user-created 6-digit PIN. Users can pay their post-paid bills, prepaid recharge, or pay on behalf of others by sending a simple SMS and entering their PIN over a USSD session. This is a first of its kind service in the world. Sanjay Swamy, CEO, has an MS in Aeronautics from University of Washington, Seattle, a higher studies diploma in Avionics from France’s National Aerospace School (Sup-Aero) and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, Bangalore.

Electrolux Deisgn Lab 2008

Electolux Design lab has been organising annual competitions for innovative daring ideas in home appliances , last years winers include , E wash from Hungary, Plastic decomposer from Taiwan, detergent free dishwasher from Germany. Last date for 208 awards May 2008. For details see: http://www.electrolux.com/designlab/

Scientific challenge from Barrick Gold Corporation

Barrick’s Unlock the Value program is a unique opportunity for scientific problem solvers, who can come with a new technology or process to increase silver recovery from the ore at their Veladero mine in Argentina. Scientists, engineers and inventors worldwide can submit proposals by April 30. For proposals that have merit, Barrick will fund additional research and for an innovation that is successfully implemented at Veladero, they will pay $10 million.

A presentation is planned on 25th February 2008 at New Delhi, Shangri-la Hotel.
Contact: Archana Mohan at archana.mohan@bm.com

Training in IP at NIIPM

The National Institute of Intellectual Property Management (NIIPM) is a Central Government Organization under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry engaged in conducting various Intellectual Property (IPR) training programs on Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Geographical Indications.The institute is conducting a 2 day and another a 5 day training programs on IP at Nagpaur. Two day program on fundamentals will be held on 25th &26th Febrraury ,fees Rs 500/- and for professionals a more intensive 5 day program will be held between 10th to 14th March, fees Rs 1250/-
Contact: Sri Pankaj Borkar, Patent Examiner, ph: 9224425777

The Tech Museum Awards

The Tech Museum Awards is currently seeking nominations for the 2008 Tech Awards for innovators from around the world who are using technology to benefit humanity. The Tech Awards is an international awards program honoring individuals and organizations that are applying technology to benefit humanity. Twenty-five Laureates will be honored at a Gala event in Silicon Valley, CA, and five Laureates will share a cash prize of $250,000 USD.The nomination deadline is March 24, 2008. Nominations may be submitted online at www.techawards.org. Self nominations are accepted and encouraged.

Contact person:
Amanda Reilly
Senior Manager
The Tech Museum Awards
The Tech Museum of Innovation
Direct 408.795.6338
areilly@thetech.org
www.techawards.org

seamless engineering education for the better employability of engineers

Third national convention on `seamless engineering education for the better employability of engineers, is organised by Engineering council of India on 28th February at Hyderabad. There is no registration fee, all those that feel strongly on quality of engineering education can attend.
Contact person:
Sri PN Shali, former Adviser & Consultant to Planning Commission, pnshali@gmail.com

Srijan Microfinance Business Plan Competition

Intellecap in partnership with Aavishkaar Goodwell and The Financial Express launched the Srijan Microfinance Business Plan Competition 2008 ( www.srijan2008.com ). Srijan (meaning creation in English) is a search for entrepreneurs, groups, individuals and microfinance institutions with innovative ideas and viable business models that aim at improving the sector and promoting financial inclusion of the poor. This annual business plan competition provides both start ups and established businesses an excellent opportunity to:

• Showcase innovative and dynamic ideas that can fuel the microfinance sector;
• Network with people who are not only interested in the sector, but also monitor and promote it;
• Gain the assistance of experts within the sector to further build upon their ideas;
• Build linkages to the investment community;
• Receive mentoring support from experts;
• Win cash awards.

Last date for registration is 15th March 2008.

Contact person:
T. Keyzom Ngodup
512, 5th Floor, Palm Spring, Link Road
Malad (W), Mumbai 400 064, India
Office: 91-22-3253 5292
Mobile: 91-98201 80909

icamp

icamp is a BarCamp for innovation. Anuradha Goel and Prof Murli Nagasundaram have sent me this mail introducing the camp.

Today the word innovation find its place everywhere, yet this is an inscrutable subject for many (perhaps all) of us when it comes to action. The contextual nomenclature of innovation in our industry can further generate several new ambiguous questions, such as,

- What is innovation for a software service company?

o How can one innovate?

o Should innovation be top-down?

o Where do we start from?

- Why innovation is highly visible in a product company?

o Is it because more opportunity in new product development?

- How about innovation in non IT companies, are they doing better?

The collective understanding of innovation in an organization, society or country is deceptive, and practicing innovation is not easy, some time impossible. However sharing our individual belief, experience, learning and failure may bring a new perspective about making innovation happen. And more unstructured the platform to talk, the better we may share.

We are organizing first innovation unconferencing, Icamp on 23^rd February 2008 in Bangalore.

See details at http://barcamp.org/icamp

MeritTrac

MeritTrac designs and delivers assessments to evaluate abilities, skills and knowledge for both corporate & individual customers. Since its inception in 2000, MeritTrac has assessed over 3 million candidates for over 150 clients across 75 cities pan-India for industry verticals like IT, BPO, BFSI, Engineering, FMCG, Healthcare, Retail, Education, and Manufacturing. MeritTrac is neither a Placement/Recruitment agency nor a Training firm, and is uniquely positioned as an "Independent" assessment company that provides quantitative inputs on the talent pool and helps in measuring competencies for specific roles. Its suite of scientifically designed assessments is used by corporate for pre-recruitment/employee assessments and by individuals for measuring their skills for employability.MeritTrac's expert test development team has generated over 100,000 questions across 300 areas spanning Communication Skills (English & other Indian Languages), General Abilities, Domains Skills (Technologies, Engineering, Accounting, etc.) and Psychometrics. All tests can be delivered in both online and offline modes under supervision. Online tests are delivered using OnTrac-a proprietary web-based testing engine...read news item

Technopark as Change agent in Kerala

Entrepreneurs and business people all over the world relied on Kerala youngsters to build business but native Kerala had seen little entrepreneurial activity. The picture could change in the coming years with success of Technopark unleashing entrepreneurial potential of the state. What is remarkable is presence of 100 home grown companies in the park.

Enthused by the success, the Left Democratic Front government has decided to set incubation centres in all engineering colleges and polytechnics. Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said the idea was to make entrepreneurship a part of the state’s culture,The government is also in the process of setting up Technoparks in different parts of the state. The chief minister said that almost all districts in the state would have IT parks of world standards within the next five years.“We have recognised that this ambitious goal can be achieved only with the active participation of budding entrepreneurs. The very success of Technopark is due to the presence of almost 100 home grown companies in the park”, he added.He said that the state getting ready to take advantage of its greatest asset; a rich talent pool of quality human resource. “We would create a favourable system within the state so that the new generation would get the best of opportunities in their homeland”, he added... read khaleej Times

Iqbal Ahmed-model engineer

A model engineer working in unappreciated isolation in India works his way up to a win in one of the world's foremost miniature machining contests.

Iqbal Ahmed was born in Nagpur, India to a well-to-do family. His grandfather was in the insurance business, and when automobile insurance became mandatory for all drivers, his business expanded in the region. After claims were paid on cars, his grandfather would purchase the less damaged of the wrecks and renovate them for sale. He would hire mechanics to do the repairs, and young Iqbal was able to observe the repairs being made and to ride around in many different types of cars; all of which fueled his interest in engines and how things worked.

In 2001 Iqbal Ahmed entered the Sherline Challenge contest with a small steam engine and boiler that did not place highly. In 2004, his small brass lathe with electric motor took 3rd place. In 2005, his 4-cylinder internal combustion engine took 2nd place. In 2007, he dominated the contest, winning both first and second place with his tiny scale models of a Sherline 5400 milling machine and a Sherline 4000 lathe. These machines were not only a clever choice for popularity with the show-going public who did the voting, they were superbly made and equipped with accessories like chucks, a rotary table, tilting table and mill vise with rotating base. This places Iqbal in the company of some of the best model engineers in the USA and some former winners of the Craftsman of the Year award with his contest win in the Machinist's Challenge. Iqbal's winning entries are shown at the bottom of the photo section below.

Read this interesting story of Iqbal Ahmed.