World's Smallest Electric Bike,Moosshiqk , (E Bike)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMR0LUHPWLM&feature=email

2010 Create the Future Design Contest

The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs magazine to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has attracted more than 7,000 product design ideas from engineers, entrepreneurs, and students worldwide. The contest's principal sponsors are COMSOL, PTC, and Tech Briefs Media Group.
This years contest is on and entries received till 11:59 pm ET on June 30, 2010.
Details: http://contest.techbriefs.com/contest-rules

India Forum for Clean Energy Financing

India Forum for Clean Energy Financing seeks environmentally beneficial, socially responsible and financially viable projects across India.The selected teams will be provided mentoring support and an opportunity to make presentation to investors in Sept 2010 in Mumbai. Budding entrepreneurs in clean energy space can apply before 31th May to Kavita Kaur at kavita@cleanenergyasia.net .
URL: http://www.cti-pfan.net/events_detail.php?eventsid=29

Indian Pharma firms get a billion -is market failure still a valid resaon for govt support

Abbott (US) bought Piramal Healthcare's domestic formulations business for $3.72 billion. This was preceded by Shantha Biotech getting $784 m , Ranbaxy getting 4.6 Bn etc from acquisitions. There is debate on shareholders value in this acquisitions, but little is said of government. All Drug firms had been receiving support from government (DST/ DSIR/DBT/CSIR) in the form of tax benefits, grants, soft loans, duty waivers etc. The rationale in Indian case is supposed `market failure ' hence govt intervention. Many government initiatives on Patenting, R&D promotion were outcome of lobbying by Indian drug firms. It is different from S Korean policy of supporting their biggies. How should govt react?
Govt should be happy that they played their bit role in value maximisation of Indian firms. It is also time to prioritise- there are horde of small , young firms wanting to grow the size of Piramal and get their billion. Why not focus on supporting young technology ventures ?

A New Geography of Knowledge in the Electronics Industry? Asia's Role in Global Innovation Networks

This report by Dieter Ernst, East West Center is available for download from:
http://www.eastwestcenter.org/fileadmin/stored/pdfs/ps054_2.pdf

Citizens agenda on Science and Innovation

EU wants to prioritize focus areas for Science and Innovation and how do they do it -they invite citizens to vote !!!
May be we can make a beginning by listening to invited experts to government meetings.
Source: http://www.reto2030.eu/

Raising early stage financing for a Silicon Valley startup

Secret History of Silicon Valley

Vijay Govindarajan: How GE is Disrupting Itself

IP Radio

IP radio, web casting service exclusively devoted to Intellectual Property is initiative of Brain league. There is news, debates, interviews etc and I liked listening to them.
URL:http://sinapse.intellectureindia.com/radio/

External Regenearaive Braking

New Energy Technologies, USA came with this regenerative system, where kinetic energy of vehicles wasted when slowing down, at stops etc is reused . Read at:
http://www.newenergytechnologiesinc.com/motion_power

This sounds familiar- several innovators came with this idea in different versions, few supported under TePP/NIF. All face challenge of engineering, customer identification/acceptance and scale-up. Will this be one of the ideas that `failed' in India but engineered to success in US?

Celebrating women innovators

No nation can progress if it ignores contributions and potential of half of their population. Journalist Susan Casey wondered why women innovators were not talked about in US and wrote a book on `Women Invent' which was an eye opener. (http://www.susancaseybooks.com/)

Now Famina has taken the initiative to write a series of articles on 'Women and Innovation' wherein they feature young women who have come up with interesting innovations. It includes a profile of the inventor/innovator and a detailed description of the product and its working.

Here is the opportunity to nominate your favorite women innovator. Send details to:

Anindita Ghosh, Features Editor,Femina,9818186174,
Anindita Ghosh <aninditaghosh75@gmail.com>

The reversal of the Chicago River

While cruising on Chicago river, the guide makes an interesting reference to a great innovation in public works- that is reversal of river flow. There was a time Chicago river was flowing into the great Michigan lake and carrying with it all city's sewage. At one time 12% of Chicago citizens were affected with water borne diseases and how did they solve it? They did do so by constructing canals to make the Chicago River flow backwards, away from the lake. The system of three canals was built from 1892 to 1922, The Sanitary and Ship Canal reversed the flow in the Chicago River toward the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, diverting sewage away from the Lake Michigan water supply.
source: Top ten public works

Fazlur Rahman Khan

Visited Sears tower ( now called Willis tower), the world's tallest building for many years. There was a citation about one great structural engineer `Fazlur Rahman Khan. Name sounds familiar, I dig and learn he was from Bangladesh. Read more about the great innovator engineer called Einstein of Structural Engineering.
source: wikipedia

Acara Challenge 2010

Attended B plan competition at IIT, Chicago. And this was the first time I sat to judge US students. How do I rate them? The plans are not qualitatively different. But considering they are design under graduate students preparing plans for first time and developing solutions for a problem they are remotely connected, it was admirable work by the teams. What is the outcome of such elaborate exercise? The innovations , technical and service models , may not be pursued as like Indian students these US students would look for a career. The learning, on affordable innovations and cross country collaborations would be real.

LED technology

Gridlogics Technology has made public, their report on IP clustering of LED Technologies. LED technology represents a classic case of disruptive innovation. Now that market demand is clear, many Indian firms and start-ups want to enter this field. What is right strategy : to develop IP or to buy IP?
Source: http://www.patentinsightpro.com/

CK Prahalad's India 75 vision

World has come to know of Indian Innovations due to Prof CK Prahalad's pioneering work on Innovations for BOP Market. See his papers under `6 big opportunities for India'. We all miss him.

Exploring Silicon Valley wizards: Kumar Malavalli

Kumar Malavalli is widely considered to be the visionary behind Fiber Channel storage fabrics, a technology that enabled the development of production-class SANs.Kumar holds several patents in fibre channel including zoning for SANs.He served as chair of the ANSI T11 Technical Committee, which established universal standards for Fibre Channel. He has also served on the Boards of Directors of the Storage Networking Industry Association and the Fibre Channel Industry Association.

In 2003, Malavalli was inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Council Hall of Fame for his contributions to technology. He also received the Gene Milligan Award for Effective Committee Management from the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) for chairing an INCITS committee that developed 17 standards in the area of Storage Area Networks. He had made a gift of $1 million to the University of California, Santa Cruz, to establish the Kumar Malavalli Endowed Chair in Storage Systems Research at UCSC's Baskin School of Engineering. This major gift provides valuable support for the engineering school's Storage Systems Research Center.

Malavalli earned degrees in electrical engineering and physics at the National Institute of Engineering in Mysore, India. Malavalli currently invests in and mentors numerous storage networking startups in both Silicon Valley and in India. He also contributes substantially towards his own global vision, which encompasses telemedicine and education.

VC Seth Neiman is reported to have discovered Kumar, the engineer and with his support lunched Brocade Communication. The rest, as they say is History.

simplified negative pressure wound therapy

Read this interesting innovation from MIT. It is facilitated by Centre for integration of medicine & innovative technology set with the mission improve patient care by facilitating collaboration among scientists, engineers and clinicians to catalyze the discovery, development and implementation of innovative technologies, emphasizing minimally invasive approaches.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada

SD Tech Fund provides grants to commercial firms in Canada at pre-commercial stage. Another fund `Next Gen Biofuels fund' is targeted to bridge the Capital Expenditure gap. Rational for goverenment intervention is given at http://www.sdtc.ca/en/about/innovation_chain.htm
We planned similar initiatives in India- where is the difference?
1. First difference is in scale- Canadian Budget is $500 million in each case, DSIR's PATSER/ TDDP spends about Rs 5 crore annually.
2. The conviction of public good in providing public funds for private R&D was not shared widely with the result when the decision has to be taken on failed R&D projects, the departments DIT, TIFAC , CSIR, DSIR chose to close the programs or slow down. The government needs amendment to General Finance Rules to account for failed R&D projects.
3. DSIR started `Waste to wealth program' to bridge the CAPEX gap but had to be abandoned due to limited acceptance of the modality.
We declared current decade as Innovation Decade- is it not time to start a large fund to support Indian firms at pre-commercial stage?

RPX Defensive Patent Aggregation service

Patent litigation in the United States is a significant business cost. While 85% of patent litigation is between competing operating companies, the remaining 15% is between operating companies and NPEs – companies that have no products or services and exist purely to license and assert patents. It is estimated that investments in NPEs has grown to between $6 billion and $8 billion between 2000 and 2008, providing a large pool.

Concerned about threat from NPEs like Intellectual Ventures? Counter to NPEs is RPX’s Defensive Patent Aggregation.RPX provides a service that identifies and purchases patents that could be used offensively against the operating firm. They purchase these key patents into their Defensive Patent Aggregation, which is then licensed in its entirety to their members for an annual subscription fee.

Studylite rechargeable desk lamp

India’s eco-friendly rechargeable study lamp, BPL Studylite has won the coveted 2010 international red dot award for product design . It was chosen from 4,252 entries across a field of around 1,635 companies from 57 countries. The awards will be presented in Essen, Germany on July 5, 2010.

Design support provided by Abhijit Bansod of Studio ABD and product co-created with advise from Sankara Nethralaya doctors and students. It was designed to be child-safe, operating at 12 volts, with no heat radiation, flicker free and no harmful ultra-violet and infra-red emission. It is priced at Rs 1690/-

Women Innovator Emily Cummins

Innovator Dr A Jagadeesh sent me profile of award winning innovator Emily Cummins and her innovation- solar pwered fridge. The fridge is made using two cylinders, one inside the other. The inner cylinder is made of metal while the outer cylinder can be made from any solid material with holes drilled in the side, enabling communities to recycle and use local, sustainable resources. The space between the cylinders is packed with sand, wool or soil, and then water is added. As the sun warms the mixture the water evaporates cooling the inner cylinder. Fresh water is added to the mixture as needed. Read more from gizmag

As Dr Jagadeesh writes the technique is known and there have been several traditional and newer designs ( see Mitticcol above left) yet this innovation is remarkable for its elegance. I agree with him as I had seen several similar concepts in competitions like Techfest.

What was more interesting to me was her childhood experience. "When I was four, my Grandad gave me a hammer and began to teach me how to make toys from scraps of materials found in his garden shed. I loved the fact that we could make something out of seemingly random bits, and my interest in sustainable design was born".

How do we unleash creativity of our children?

The Next50 Global Innovation Challenge

The Next50 Global Innovation Challenge is an IIT Kanpur Golden Jubilee initiative to discover 50 early stage innovators in Agriculture, Cleantech, Financial Inclusion, Education and Technology who can change the way we work and live. 25th May is the last date for submission. Details: One Billion Minds

Malaysian PM Blogs on Innovation

Ever heard of a Prime Minister blogging and that too on innovation and creativity? See blog post of Malaysian PM Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. Multimdia Super Corridor started in 1996 , now in the final phase (upto 2020) is one illustration of their determination to walk the talk. In the first 2 phases more than 6500 SMEs have been impacted ( e-enabled) and at the end of 9th plan over 10,000 SMEs are set to benefit from this initiative. MSC Malaysia’s Creative Multimedia Cluster (CMC)’s 190 companies recorded US$1.22 billion in revenues and US$56.90 million in exports last year. Collectively, they provided 7,028 jobs, spent US$38.23 million on R&D, and filed or protected 390 IPs [intellectual properties] filed in the same period. Other clusters like SSO [shared services outsourcing] and InfoTech contributed US$6.36 billion in revenues and US$2.11 billion in exports last year.

Thousand crores for import of glass technology for cosmetics and perfumes

Mint carried news about Piraml Glass revival. In 2005, the Indian company acquired part of an Bankrupt American firm, Glass Group for $18 milion, invested additional Rs 300 crores and as on 2009 took a debt of Rs 1,357 crores. Very fascinating account in managing technology.
In 1918, Harding family they built their plant and called it Harding Glass Company. By 1965 HGI had grown to 53 operations in 8 states. The Glass Group was formed in1999 by a group of glass industry professionals to develop the necessary software tools and technology that would allow the Glass Industry to utilize Internet communications technology in an effort to reduce supply chain management costs for all industry participants, Glasslink and Directlink are their poremium products. When Glass Group filed bankruptcy petition, the pharma glassware part was acquired by German firm Gerresheimer Group . The 20 $million acquisition comprised both the container glass works in Millville and its 45.7% share in the Chinese specialty glass manufacturer Beijing Wheaton. The Chinese operations expanded and Gerresheimer now runs 7 plants in China. The acquisition helped Gerresheimer to expand its business in USA- it had a strong lead in the field of tubular glass and pharmaceutical packaging produced from it, while in the field of container glass for pharmaceutics the Gerresheimer Group was in the past represented in the American market by only one plant. The German firm understands the technology.
The Germans did not bid for Flat River Glass, which employs about 530, making glass containers for the cosmetics industry. Australian glassmaker Stölzle-Oberglas expressed interest in the facility and its employees. Piramal Glass succeeds in outbidding the Australian fiorm and bags the assets- eight lines of Type III flint bottles, for C&P, Pharma, liquor and food products industries.
House of Piramal had great reputation for growing with acquisitions. Where did things go wrong in US deal?

Venkat Jasti founder of Suven Life Sciences

Mr. Venkat Jasti holds a Master degree in Pharmacy from Andhra University and M.S. in Industrial Pharmacy, St.John's University, NY, USA. Mr. Jasti started his career as a Production Officer in Warner Hindustan Limited and later on migrated to USA wherein he owned and operated a chain of 6 community pharmacies in the United States for 12 years. He came back to India and established Suven Pharmaceuticals Limited in the year 1989.

The risky business of drug discovery has resulted in a new 'co-opetitive' approach. Today, many Indian pharma companies are partnering with Big Pharma, giving rise to different collaborative drug discovery models.Some of the most common models used by pharma companies are alliances, joint ventures (JVs), licensing, co-development, de-merging R&D units, contract services etc. Contract services range from fee-for-service through alliances and collaborations. Suven has adopted a concept-to-clinical candidate development model, ie full-scale innovation. This involves negotiated research funding, success-based milestones which accrue throughout the collaboration and if the discovered candidate makes it to the market after clinical development, royalties on world wide sales.

Suven started as supplier of intermediates for new chemical entities (drugs under development) as a thrust area and are also into contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS). So far developed more than 130 intermediates for new chemical entities worldwide these had focussed on theurepatic category like anti-cholesterol, anti-depressant, anti-AIDS, anti-hypertension, anti-convulsant and medical imaging.

In 2008, Suven signed a second agreement with Eli Lilly and Company to collaborate on the pre-clinical research of molecules in the therapeutic area of central nervous system disorders (CNS).
As per the collaboration agreement, Suven will be responsible for discovery activities related to the identification and selection of clinical candidates in the area of CNS, in close association with Lilly. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Suven will receive research funding and as well as potential discovery and development milestone payments in the range of $19 million to $23 million per candidate, and potential royalties on net sales of any products that may be successfully commercialized from the collaboration.

It recently secured one more Product patent from EPO for NCE for treatment of Neurodegenerative disceases.

Who will dominate Smart Meter market-US, EU or Chinese players?

The US stimulus package gives a big push to Smart Grid and Smart meters. Smart grid will utilize wireless sensor networks, software, and computing to enable utilities to see how much and where energy is being consumed, and if there are problems or blackouts in the network. Homeowners will be able to see how much energy they’ve consumed and adjust their consumption habits accordingly. Smart meters will pave the way for real-time pricing, where energy is priced at different rates depending on the time of day and much demand there is for the electricity. Utilities can use real-time pricing to better manage the loads on the grid, while home owners can use it to cut their monthly energy bills. President Obama has called for the installation of 40 million smart meters and 3,000 miles of transmission lines. Who gets the market?
Itron and GE have been battling it out for the large utility deployments. The only strong European player is Landis+Gyr. Now, British Gas teams up with Landis+ Gyr to deploy up to one million of Landis+Gyr’s “dual fuel” electricity and gas smart meters, along with Landis+Gyr’s innovative touch screen in home display, in UK customer homes, marking one of the fastest, largest and most advanced smart meter deployments in Europe. As part of the development, Landis+Gyr will share details of its smart metering system with third parties, allowing UK businesses a fast track to the creation of new and innovative solutions aimed at consumers, suppliers and utilities alike.
This again shows the importance of national policies in creating demand for innovations.

Villgro Fellowships

Interested in Villgro fellowships? Apply before 20th April 2010. For further information write to ranjitk@villgro.org

Top 10 technologies identified by Gartner

Gartner, Inc. analysts highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2010. Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.The top 10 strategic technologies for 2010 include:Cloud Computing, Advanced Analytics, Client Computing, IT for Green, Reshaping the Data Center, Social Computing, Security – Activity Monitoring, Flash Memory, Virtualization for Availability and Mobile Applications. Reading this together with Gartner Hype cycle 2009, I see some of our start-ups working in hot & promising topics like Speech recognition, Location aware applications, Wikis, Idea Management, Web 2.0, Mobile phone payment systems, RFID, Home Health monitoring. They would do better if enlightened users offer to test & adopt their products.

Duct Inspection Robot

Business Line covered ITsAP expo, Hyderabad where several start-ups participated. One of the participant start-up Robosoft systems was covered by Shivani Shinde in Business Standard. The story needs to be retold - a young passionate student wins prize in Robotic competition in 2004 at IITB, approached by Duct Cleaning firm EPSCO to develop low cost robots for duct cleaning and intial success leads to more orders from others like Bluestar.

Patent Portfolio management with IP score 2.2

IPscore® 2.2 is a tool for evaluation of patents and technological development projects. It
provides both qualitative and quantitative evaluation in the form of a financial forecast showing
the net present value of the evaluated technology. The Danish Patent and Trademark Office developed IPscore® 2.0, in collaboration with Professor Jan Mouritsen, the Copenhagen Business School and a number of Danish companies. The European Patent Office purchased the tool from the Danish Patent and Trademark Office. IPscore® 2.2, developed by the European Patent Office, is a multilingual and slightly improved version. IPscore® 2.2 is made available to users free of charge in order to support the patent strategy of companies, mainly SMEs and to steer the volume of applications by eliminating potentially “worthless” applications.
More at EPO:
http://www.epo.org/patents/patent-information/business/valuation/ipscore.html

ideaken

ideaken is an open innovation and co-creation platform promoted by Jayesh Badani. See the demo at: http://www.ideaken.com/pages/49/demo.html

Aikon Labs

Planet Aikon is an `Enterprise Idea Management & Execution Platform' promoted by RR Dasgupta andDilip Thomas Ittyera. Aikon Labs LLC ,the start-up venture behind PlanetAikon™ is incorporated in the State of Delaware in US and the core team is based out of Pune. We need to encouarge Idea Management tools and Platforms and this is an welcome addition.

Innovator of LPG kits for scooter needs funds

Read the story of innovator Rajesh Nair, who is developing LPG Kit for 2 wheelers. Should be a case for support under TePP. Full story : Economic Times

AVAZ from Invention Lab, Chennai

Very happy to read about this TePP facilitated innovation in `The Better India'. Dr Gangi Reddy as TUC coordinator connected the innovator Ajit Narayanan to TePP. wish the startup all success. It is another great story from Better India- read on

Xerox India Innovation Hub

Xerox takes Open Innovation route to increase cooperation with Indian researchers. Research activities at the India Innovation Hub have two core focus areas. The first of these aims at exploring and developing innovative document management solutions for emerging markets by bringing Xerox’s world-class expertise in imaging, smart document management, linguistics, and ethnography to address locally relevant problems. Projects under this theme range from modeling and analysis of document supply chains, multilingual technologies, mobile applications, and rural technology initiatives.
An equally important focus is on leveraging the latest technologies and paradigms, such as cloud and web computing, human computation, social networks and computational economics, to advance innovation in solutions and services delivery for Xerox’s global markets. Projects under this theme include on-line market places for services, mobile workflows and applications for enterprises, social network modeling for targeted information and cloud-based document solutions.
The India Innovation Hub is located at the Olympia Technology Park in Chennai, India.
Contact Details:
XeroxIndiaInnovationHub@xerox.com
http://www.xerox.com/innovation

Design Directions

Meet Satish Gokhale , designer behind SWACH low cost water filter of TATA Chemicals. Design Directions, Pune is promoted by Satish and Falguni Gokhale both alumni of National Institute of Design.Design Directions designs software user interfaces (GUI), medical products, electronic products and capital equipment, brand identity, package design and sales communication that deliver maximum value to the end user.

Technologies for transfer from Media Lab Asia

Media lab Asia works with several research partners and regularly comes out with technologies for transfer. Some technologies on offer:
eGalla- Retail Management System
eDhanwantari: Hospital Management system
ganitmitra: maths preparation guide for Class XI & XII
Virtual Labs for Life Science: Life science experiments for class XI & XII.

Interested can write to Managing Director, Goswami

Will Tejas survive Chinese competition?

Indian Innovators get awards but no rewards is a common refrain.
The case of anti dumping duty on Chinese SDH equipment raises two old issues- do we need to support local innovators and if so do we know how to support our innovators?
Case in brief : based on complaint by Tejas government imposed anti-dumping duty and court had set aside that imposition. Supporters of (few) Indian innovators say that protection is essential for survival but ( large number of) free market pundits argue that protection increases capital cost of service providers and if Chinese manufacturers are willing to supply at below (Indian) cost then why bother, the benefit goes to millions of Indian customers in the form of low charges.
Some facts:
1. Well known is Chinese government support for Huawei .
2. Every other telecom network equipment manufcaturer received their govt support at initial stage. Ericsson was founded in 1876 by Lars Magnus Ericsson, a young mechanic who set up a small workshop taking in telegraph instruments for repairs. They made it big in telephone exchange (AXE) with support from their country operator Televerket. Acceptance in the home market provided them needed eligibility criteria for global supply and they expanded to Austria, France and Saudi Arabia etc.
3. Prof Ashok jhunjunwala has tons of data to prove that local capabilities played a significant role in keeping capex costs low in India.

Will Tejas survive to receive one more award??

TePP Innovator Kranti is MIT TR35 innovator of the year 2010

TePP innovators Kranti Vistakula, Prajwal Kumar, Arvind Narayanan, Ashish Bhat, Shashikant Suryanarayanan are among the MIT TR 35 awardees and Kranti is the Innovator of the Year. I would like to reflect on the TePP process :
Innovator Kranti (a student) contacted me ( from Hyderabad) on email with his idea of an apparel which can be cooled based on Peltier Effect. TePP had earlier rejected few proposals aimed at demonstrating Peltier Effect as the product targeted was not clear or innovator was not percieved as capable of working on his idea. I referred his proposal (again on e mail) to Dr Ramamurthy, Retired Director of ERDA living in Hyderabad. He discussed with Kranti and gave his recommendation saying that Peltier Effect was known but the innovator had something new to offer to dissipate heat and it was worth trying. The evaluated proposal was taken to the committee chaired by Prof Amarnath of IITB. Though the committee was named Screening Committee , we deliberately avoided screening with checklist and discussion always focussed on desirability and feasibility of the idea. Two committee members Dr Anil Wali of FITT and Mahesh Krovidi of NID offered to incubate his idea. The innovator took technical assistance from IITD and incubation support at NID. He also got NID designer Parsenjit as partner.
Best Practices of TePP
1. Provide innovators an opportunity to refine the proposal before taking it to committee.
2. Respect Expert and value his views. We invented the word `Technology Angel' for our experts.
3. Avoid checklists and focus on implementation in committee meetings.
4.Respect all stakeholders as partners.

Cisco-I Prize

Cisco announces its second Cisco I-Prize contest. In this open, global competition entrepreneurs submit proposals and collaborate to create the seed idea for Cisco's next billion-dollar business.

Idea submissions should fall in one of four categories:

• The Future of Work: New solutions that accelerate and change the way we do business
• The Connected Life: Technological inspirations that dramatically improve living conditions and disseminate culture
• New Ways to Learn: Next-generation solutions that transform when, where, and how people learn.
• The Future of Entertainment: New solutions that change how people play together

The winning team will receive a grand prize of $250,000.

Apple patents

Here's an illustrated guide to the 20 iPhone patents that Apple's suing HTC over.
Source: gigmodo

National Clean Energy Fund

The Finance Bill 2010-11 has created a corpus called National Clean Energy Fund, which will invest in entrepreneurial ventures and research in the field of clean energy technologies. The money for this will be garnered through a so-called ‘clean energy cess’ — Rs 50 on every tonne of coal, both domestic and imported. The government didn’t say how much the new cess would bring in, but a back-of-the-envelope calculation by ET indicates that a sum of Rs 2,500 crore may not be unrealistic. How to leverage the fund? take a clue from China- support Indian private business to invest in start-ups in USA and Europe.
China has set aside a whopping $200.8 billion in stimulus funding for cleantech, 79 percent more than the $112.2 billion the U.S.These numbers mean that governments, in essence, have become the biggest cleantech venture capitalists – with China as the largest player by far. Here is an example: vanadium redox flow batteries were being developed in Vancouver, Canada by a company called VRB Power Systems and chinese firm Prudent Energy bought out the struggling company’s assets in Jan. 2009. Later the Chinese firm has raised a $22 million Series C round to build its Beijing manufacturing capacity for vanadium redox flow batteries.

The traditional way of funding Indian public sector units like CEL / BHEL or CSIR labs (CECRI) & IITs to develop clean technologies would take us no where. The starting point is not research but access to patented technology. Will government dare to lend stimuls money to firms to buy out start-up firms from abroad???

Start-up funds from Morpheus

Morpheus is now accepting applications for its fourth batch of startups. Last date for submission is 10 Mar 2010. There will be mentoring and seed funding of Rs 5 lakhs. See their existing portfolio of start-ups at:
http://themorpheus.com/portfolio/

The Economists Innovation Awards

THE ECONOMIST’S ninth annual Innovation Summit will take place in London on October 22nd. You can nominate outstanding innovators in seven categories: bioscience (which includes medical devices, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and agriculture); energy and the environment; computing and telecommunications; “no boundaries” (which includes materials science, nanotechnology and other emerging fields); consumer products and services; business processes; and social and economic innovation, a category that recognises individuals who have pioneered novel technologies and business models that improve everyday lives.
Nominees should be people, not companies, who are responsible for an innovation that has been a proven success in the past decade. Please submit your nominations by e-mail to innovation@economist.com, giving the nominee’s name, affiliation and contact information, and a 200-word summary explaining why he or she deserves the award in a particular category. Nominations can also be submitted online at economist.com/innovationawards. The deadline is April 1st.

Evoke- crash course in changing the world

Want to learn how to change the world as social innovator. World Bank Institute starts a new trend in education with a game as means to learn. Play the game at:

http://www.urgentevoke.com/

Yoga instruments for pranayam

Benefits of doing anulom vilom are known but many do not spend sufficient time doing these simple breathing exercises. Innovator Santam Singh has got an instrument to do that for you. See his web site or call him 9888576622 .

Do fiscal incentives drive investment in R&D

One of the important proposal made in the budget is enhancing Weighted deduction of expenditure incurred on in-house R&D from 150 percept to 200 percent. But do fiscal incentives matter in deciding on R&D and if they matter for whom and for what type of R&D? what do experts say on this?......

comment at Indian R&D Managers Forum, LinkedIn

Asian Innovation Awards 2010

The Wall Street Journal Asia is now accepting entries for the prestigious Asian Innovation Awards 2010. The Asian Innovation Awards are committed to finding the next big ideas in Asia, from entirely new inventions to the advancement of a classic. Entries to The Asian Innovation Awards may come from individuals, small businesses, large corporations or academia in Asia Pacific.
The deadline for entries is Friday, March 26, 2010, at 11:59pm Hong Kong time.

URL: http://www.wsj-asia.com/aia/

Toy of the year awards 2010

More than 400 executives from across the toy industry gathered to honor their peers at the tenth annual Toy of the Year (TOTY) Awards program and Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Well-recognized as the “Oscars®” of the toy industry, the annual gala paid tribute to the best in toys and children’s entertainment; outstanding achievements by individuals, teams, and companies; and the creativity and playful spirit upon which the toy industry is based.

Read: http://www.toyassociation.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=TOTY_Awards

India as destination for affordable health care

India has become favoured destination for affordable health care not just because of cost difference but also due to innovations in medical practices mastered with wide base of patients. Read this post on Endoscopic Retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). There are also linkages to:

1. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography in India: Get it done in low cost
2. Diverticulosis & Obscure Bleeding Treatment In India at Low Cost-India
3. Child Surgery In India At Affordable Low Cost–Child Surgery India Cost
4. Pediatric Surgery In India At Affordable Low Cost – Pediatric India
5. Ulcers Treatment In India at Affordable Cost-Ulcers Surgery India Cost

Tank Simulator from Zen Technologies

Business Standard carried this interesting article on competition for Tank Simulator. Indian firm Zen Technologies and Canadian firm CAE are in the race to supply 80 simulators for T-72 & T90 tank regiments. Russians who suplied those Tanks complained of IPR infringement.

Zen Technologies is a great Indian technology venture. They had put all their money on developing new products and I remember they operated from rented premises while developing their first major project `Small Arm Training Simulator' with partcial financial support from DSIR under PATSER. That product was a great success, hundreds of para military forces/ police improved their responses by training on the simulator. Their next project supported by DSIR is Simulator with 6 DOF - a technologically complex system and they did come with a successful model backed by patents.

The realistic environment they created for their simulator training is India specific , can be integrated with confidential terrain maps and must be a critical factor for users.

My vote is for Zen -the Indian Innovator

Innovation led Development- special issue from MIT

A special edition of Innovations, a quarterly journal published by MIT Press, has been written specifically for Tech4Society event held at Hyderabad and is full of in-depth insights on social entrepreneurship and technology from leaders in the field. Contents include lead essays by President Paul Kagame of the Republic of Rwanda, Julia Novy-Hildelsy, Executive Director of The Lemelson Foundation, Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, and case studies, discussions and analytic essays by Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows and other experts in the field of innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Download from: http://tech.ashoka.org/innovations_hyderabad_2010

From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India

This book by Prof Rishikesha Krishnan, Professor of Strategy & Jamuna Raghavan Chair Professor of Entrepreneurship at IIM Bangalore was launched by Mr. Subroto Bagchi, Vice Chairman, MindTree Ltd., at IIM Bangalore, on Friday, February, 5, 2010.

Why is it that India is unable to be the source of major industrial innovations on a sustained basis even though it has highly skilled talent and a penchant for jugaad (creative improvisation)? This book draws on social, cultural, political, economic and managerial arguments to explain this paradox:Firms are the primary agents of industrial innovation. While the incentive for innovation by firms in India has increased after economic liberalisation began in 1991, the inputs (funding, trained people and basic research and development) for innovation by firms have not kept pace with firms’ needs. Nor has the capacity of firms to innovate. Government’s efforts to enhance the availability of inputs to the innovation process have been ineffective because of the lack of a strategic and integrative vision, inadequate resources, and poor implementation. Professor Krishnan explains the government’s shortcomings in this respect in terms of the political economy of India’s innovation policy. Firms have failed to build an innovation capacity because of issues of ownership and control, and a number of deeply embedded social and cultural barriers to innovation. These include poor teamwork, the enduring importance of upward hierarchical progression, and a weak systems and strategic orientation.To overcome these problems, India needs to move from a paradigm of Jugaad (or creative improvisation) to one of systematic innovation. Specifically, India needs to (1) create a critical mass of new, innovative, technology-driven firms, (2) enhance the technological capability of existing micro, small, and medium enterprises, (3) transform large enterprises, (4) create a new incentive system for universities and other institutions of higher education, (5) continue and enhance the process of dynamic reform of public R&D organisations, (6) change the structure of government involvement in supporting industrial R&D, and (7) create supportive societal conditions for industrial innovation. Replete with a strong conceptual framework, case studies, examples, and data relating to India’s innovation performance, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of Indian industry.

Place order online at IndiaPlaza

Notion Link ADAM

Nation Link's ADAM received rare reviews at CES and created ripples of excitement in India too. About the start up: http://www.notionink.com/Home/about-us

About the product and comments: http://www.technoholik.com/news/exclusive-a-sneak-peek-at-the-notion-ink-adam-tablet-specs-pics/

The place where it was developed:

http://www.bvrit.ac.in/index.php?fname=bvrit_ic

Innovative India badly needs atleast one major hit and this can be that.

Invention Capitalism

See presentation by Peter N Detkin. Intellectual Ventures started investing in India- is it in patentable academic research or in technology ventures?

Democratizing the future

Democratizing the future is a free to download ebook from Josephine Green of Philips.

This paper argues that we need different ways of thinking, being and doing if we are to live well, prosper and safeguard the future. Primarily we need to go beyond the straight jacket of consumer needs and a consumer approach, and also encompass social needs and a social approach. By doing so, we can drive a new era of creativity and growth.Working with this emerging social space therefore becomes both an opportunity and a necessity. However, we must not only re-invent our social industries, but also our lifestyles and even the very growth models upon which they are based. To achieve this, the new technologies enable more radical innovation through the delivery of more context-based customized services and systems. Such place embedded systems have the potential to deliver sustainable solutions for the 21st century. Shifting our emphasis from consumption to services and systems, and combining a consumer-led and socially-led approach, means that how we think about and interact with the future will change. This paper explores these changes and examines how we might open up and engage with the future differently, in terms of going beyond:

• a market-led approach, based on consumer research and innovation, to a socially-led approach based on social research and social innovation.
• the act of researching the future to directly engaging with the future through people who are already creating it today.
• closed research and innovation to open co-creation with stakeholders, especially users.
• a linear interpretation of time and the future towards new conceptual models that allow a more imaginative and creative interaction with the future.
In short, we need to shift the emphasis away from technology and the market and more towards people and responsibility through ownership. It is time to democratize the future.

Download :http://www.newscenter.philips.com/shared/assets/Downloadablefile/democratizing-the-future-16071.pdf

Household utensils from used tyres

Businessline has carried this interesting picture. Credit to Ritu Raj Konwar.

Can anyone share more information on this venture from Nagaland?

Solid Propellant plant at ISRO

An important technology was mastered by ISRO scientists by designing and setting up of a Solid Propellant plant at SHAR.The Solid Propellant Plant (SPP) at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, set up for manufacturing S200 solid boosters of GSLV Mk-III, was commissioned on December 18, 2008 with the successful casting of Head-End Segment (HES). Subsequently, in February 2009, the Nozzle-End-Segment (NES) and in April 2009 the Middle Segment (MS) were also processed. Thus, processing of all the three segments for the first static test of S200 booster has been completed. The S200 booster segments with 3.2 m dia. stand as the second largest of their kind in the world. SPP has 53 buildings spread over 6 Sq Km area, interconnected with roads of 18 Km length. The annual capacity of the plant is to produce 900 ton of solid propellant required for 12 segments (delivery of four S200 boosters). India becomes the third country after USA and France to develop this capability.

(source: ISRO)

Mitti cool or Chotukool

Godrej launching Chotukool brings to mind low penetration of Mitticool supported by NIF. Who would be more successful?

(source: NitiBhan),