INNO INDIGO Joint Call 2014 - Clean Water and Health

Within the framework of the INDIGO Partnership Programme (IPP), a EU-India joint call for proposals on « Clean Water and Health » is now open. Deadline for submission:

15 October 2014 (12 :00 CET / 15 :30 IST)

Type of funded projects:

Indian-European collaborative research and technological development projects in the field of “Clean Water and Health” with a specific focus on:

• Development and applications of membrane technology in water purification/sanitation
• Membrane bio-reactor applications at domestic and industrial waste water management
• Reuse of municipal/industrial waste wate

Scope of the projects:

Projects can have a maximum duration of 3 years and funding is around € 100.000 - € 200.000 per partner/per country, depending on national regulations.

According to the respective national regulations the following funding can be applied for:

• Mobility
• Workshops
• Research costs
• Personnel costs

Who can apply?

Applications may be submitted by academics, higher education institutions and / or non-university research establishments. SMEs are also eligible depending on national regulations.

Consortia that wish to apply for funding of a research project within the above mentioned topics have to consist of at least three partners: two from two different European countries contributing to the call, and one from India.

Countries contributing to the Call are: Belgium, Estonia, Germany, India, Portugal.

Partners from other countries than those participating in the IPP Call can join a consortium but have to secure their own funding. In particular, for candidates from France and Latviawilling to participate as additional partners, please note that the Latvian Academy of Science and the French Embassy in India can provide support.

Application Process

The application procedure has one stage. Applications are submitted electronically using the PT-Outline Web Tool: https://www.pt-it.de/ptoutline/application/IPP1

Contact information:Ms. Shailja Vaidya Gupta

Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology (DBT)

Email: shailja@dbt.nic.in

Phone: +91 11 24 36 37 48

Golden Peacock Awards

Golden Peacock Awards Secretariat is now inviting applications, for the following Annual Institutional Awards (4th cycle) for the year 2014, from all Corporates/ Industries including multinationals, SMEs, Public, Private and Government Enterprises of India and abroad, as given below:  GLOBAL Awards:                   1. Golden Peacock Global Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance (GPGAECG)                 2. Golden Peacock Global Award for Sustainability (GPGAS)  NATIONAL Awards:                  1. Golden Peacock Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance (GPAECG)                2. Golden Peacock Award for Sustainability (GPAS)            3. Golden Peacock Innovation Management Award (GPIMA) The last date for submission of completed applications for the above Awards, is 5th September 2014.   The Application form cum Guidelines can be downloaded from www.goldenpeacockawards.com.  The Awards Jury is chaired  by Justice (Dr.) Arijit Pasayat,  former Judge, Supreme Court  of India and former Chairman, Competition Appellate Tribunal & Authority  for Advance Ruling (Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax).  This year’s above Awards, under various sectors, will be conferred in Mayfair at a Special Golden Peacock Awards Ceremony, during IOD India's "14th LONDON GLOBAL CONVENTION on CORPORATE GOVERNANCE & SUSTAINABILITY" and GLOBAL BUSINESS MEET, being held on 28 - 31 October, 2014 in London (UK). Contact :   Dr. A. N. Saksena (former Financial Advisor, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Govt of India) Director General Golden Peacock Awards Secretariat INSTITUTE OF DIRECTORS M-52 (Market), Greater Kailash Part-II, New Delhi – 110048, INDIA Board Nos. : +91-11- 41636294, 41636717, 41008704, Fax:  +91-11-41008705 Email: info@goldenpeacockawards.com Web: www.iodonline.com , www.goldenpeacockawards.com

Technology offers from SAC, Ahmedabad

ISRO's Space Application Center (SAC) is offers several technologies on license in the following areas:

• Antenna
• RF and Electronics
• Communication and navigation
• Remote Sensing
• Radar Imaging.

See list of technologies transferred here. Most of them are backed by patents.

 Contact:

Head, Technology Transfer and Industry Interface Division
Planning and Projects Group
Space Applications Centre (ISRO)
Jodhpur Tekra, Ambawadi Vistar
Ahmedabad - 380015, Gujarat 

E-mail: ttid@sac.isro.gov.in 
Fax:   +91 - 79 - 2691 5817

IEIK 2014 International Exhibition of Inventions in Kunshan China, 19-22 November 2014

Since 1988, China Association of Inventions started to hold “The International Exhibition of Inventions ” in China once every 4 years with accumulated more than 10,000 Chinese and foreign inventions exhibited. It is the largest platform for the international exchange activities of the invention circle in China, a channel to make friends extensively and to broaden the cooperation, a site to exchange invention information and a gateway for the innovative products to the huge Chinese market.  It was also highly appreciated and supported by WIPO and IFIA as well as Chinese central and local governments and enterprises for its events over the years.
Inventions, New Techniques and New Products will be staged in Kunshan on November 19 - 22, 2014 under the support of different governmental departments of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the China State Intellectual Property Office and the Provincial Government of Jiangsu, etc. The topic of this exhibition is “Gathering in Beautiful Kunshan and Flying Invention Dreams”. IEIK 2014 will widely invite the participation of associations of inventors, inventive organizations, maker spaces, the inventors, innovative enterprisers, funds and financial institutes from countries and regions all over the world.
For IFIA members：One Standard Booth free and 40% discount for other booths. Indian Innovators Association is a member of IFIA. Indian innovators may contact indiainvents@gmail.com or caikunshan2012@163.com.

LAST DATE: 31ST AUGUST 2014

compendium of selected technologies: DST, Lockheed Martin ,Innovation Growth program 2007-12

The program started in 2007 with 102 innovations ,raised to 819 by 2012 and apart from awards, many Indian Innovators were rewarded with technology commercialization support by FICCI.The compendium is compiled by Ernst & Young.
Download report: https://www.indiainnovates.in/pdf/DST-Innovation-Growth-Report-2012.pdf

No CROWD in Crowd funding proposal of SEBI

The 60 page document is well written , they are aware of the criticism that there is no crowd in crowd funding and  raise the question -  is it premature to come with a regulation now. My answer is yes. Koreans and Chinese are not rushing with any rule book, they probably want the system to evolve and capture the learning.
First , why crowd funding? We need crowd of retail investors to support startups because we need crowd of early adopters for our innovations.
How to increase the base of investors? Two suggestions:
1. Give a push to investment in startups by large profit making companies under CSR. The law is in place but trickle is yet to begin.
2. Give tax incentives to individual tax payers to support startups by way of donation/ loan/ equity etc within the existing exemption limit.

Let us experiment, learn and freeze.

SEBI invites comments on proposed regulations for crowd funding

Pl see the paper.
Do U feel the definition of eligible investors too narrow and process of approval too formal?
http://www.sebi.gov.in/cms/sebi_data/attachdocs/1403005615257.pdf
Crowd

The Product Mindset 2013- India report

This reports compares responses from Indian manufactures and consumers on various issues relating to product purchase decisions and compares same with global set. Interesting aspects of the report:

• Neither Indian consumers nor Indian manufactures concede cost/price is a deciding factor in purchse.
• Product reliability, safety, environment, are important.
• But unlike global peers who consider innovation as the primary driver of success Indian manufacturers & consumers attach least importance to innovation.
• Low level of importance to innovation can be due to sourcing strategy- sourcing is the most global function of  Indian manufacturer's globalization. Innovation does not merit for Indian consumers as novelty wears off by the time the product reaches late majority segment. 

Source: UL

3D holographic projection technology

A new complex technology pioneered by Indian politicians? Well, that is 3D Holographic projection technology introduced into the country by Modi and now adopted by KCR, Chandrababu Naidu and others.

Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corp, made a virtual appearance at the “World Congress on 

Information Technology 2008”, where he was reproduced on stage as a holographic simulation.The size of the projection was 4.6m and appeared in front of the audience of around 400 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

Three-dimensional holographic projection technology is loosely based on an illusionary technique called Peppers Ghost, and was first used in Victorian theatres across London in the 1860s. In August 2009, Endemol, the producers of the famous reality TV show Big Brother, working together with activ8-3D holographic projections, beamed housemates' friends and families into the house to deliver messages of support and encouragement. In January 2009 Coco-Cola gave a holographic sales conference presentation in Prague for over 800 people. Senior directors of the company were beamed into the stage as 3D holograms before giving a presentation about how the Coco-Cola brand has evolved over the years. The content of the presentation was also in the form of 3D holographic projections. Musion Systems have installed the UK's first 3D - Eyeliner™ Holographic projection system to appear in a retail mall as part of the new Toyota retail concept store launched at Bluewater Shopping Centre. Visitors can see a full sized car rotating in mid-air. 

In India the system is introduced by Mani Shankar and Raj Kasu, promoters of NChant3D sourcing technology from Musion, UK. Inventor UWE MAAAS invented the first polarised 3D laser projector and founded Musion Germany in 1997 and built the first Eyeliner for an event by jewellery giant Swarovski.

Future: Holographic meetings replacing video conferencing? Mahatma Gandhi seeking votes for congress?

More: Source

Entrepreneurship training in India

EY Entrepreneurship Barometer 2013 places in India at rank 11, scores in access to funds, entrepreneurship culture are at same rank. Lower rank of  19 for tax & regulation and higher rank of 5 for coordinated support are also on expected lines. But lower rank of 20 at the bottom for education and training is a surprise. What is this parameter and why are doing this activity so badly?
Entrepreneurship education uses indicators like  Pre-university education, University education, Entrepreneurship specific training and Informal education/lifelong learning. The survey findings on this:

• 84% agree or partly agree that they need specific education to become successful entrepreneurs. 
• 52% say that university and business school courses for entrepreneurship have improved in their country.
• Sharing success stories is ranked as the most impactful way to inspire people to become entrepreneurs.

What is missing: an integrated approach. 

• Engineering technology students with innovative ideas are separated from MBA students.
• Business plans and domain knowledge have no relationship. 
• Students not exposed to real-world business challenges. 
• Large corporations, philanthropists and existing entrepreneurs need  support educational courses, as well as business games that give young people an early experience of what it is like to be an entrepreneur.

E Governance in Estonia

AADHAAR hopefully will survive political transition. It is interesting to learn how a small country Estonia embraced technology to provide e-governance to its citizens.

Electronic government is the use of information and communication  technologies in government to provide public services, to improve  managerial effectiveness and to promote democratic values and  mechanisms; as well as a regulatory framework that facilitates  information intensive initiatives and fosters the knowledge society.

• Estonia of the 1990s did not have an industrial policy, nor did it engage in policies that would target the ICT sector or companies directly.
• General government spending on research and development in the 1990s was below 0.5 percent of the GDP, and there were no crucial technology or innovation policies to speak of . Even the spending on information and communication technologies (ICT) remained modest from 1995 to 2003 in comparison with other countries. Estonian government budget has allocated about one percent for the ICT expenditure throughout this period, while many other countries spend 2.5-4 percent of the budget.
• Only exception to this hands-off policy is the fact that in 1997 Estonia’s public sector did support the launch of the Tiigrihüppe (Tiger’s Leap) program, which provided information technology to many schools. 
• The electronic exchange of official government documents is still limited still in 2007 because different departments purchased different software solutions which are not compatible with each other. Since the Estonian government departments tend to rely on proprietary solutions, then vendor lock-in is wide-spread.

Despite absence of grand plans and regulations, Estonia succeeded in e-governance because enlightened leadership believed in  e-democracy, good habit of attention to detail, an effective legal  framework, and  the macroeconomic stability  of the country.

MNCs offer to donate technologies to Social Entrepreneurs targeting poverty reduction.

Potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to reduce poverty by improving poor people’s access to education, health, government and financial services has led to many programs in India and Outside. Popular are ICT plans to help small farmers and artisans by connecting them to markets. Health and solar are another group of technologies leveraged by social entrepreneurs.

Capital remains main concern of social entrepreneurs , while technology deployed is undifferentiated/ open/ non-exclusive, the business plan netting the funding has to be innovative. The new generation social entrepreneurs are more comfortable with changing technology and plan to base their ventures on technology as key factor. And they need technology `free' and MNCs are willing to `donate' that technology.

One of the platform connecting social entrepreneurs/ NGOs with MNC is crush poverty now.
Technology seekers can write to:

 Kewal k. Likhyani, Ph-D; CLP

 President, IP2Revenues.com

 302-252-5056
  kewal.likhyani@comcast.net

last date: 15th April 2014  

DIPP discussion paper: Towards strong and meaningful university-industry collaboration and creation of sustainable competitive advantage in manufacturing - Missing links and way forward

The paper can downloaded from here.
Suggestions and recommendations made in this discussion paper are:
4.1.1 Targeted investments by Government in R&D projects of national importance over a reasonable horizon, say 5 years: 
4.1.2. Enactment of the Indian version of a law such as the one passed in Japan in 1998 for promoting the establishment of  technology licensing/ transfer organisations (TLOs) with authority to license some university inventions and to channel royalties back to the inventors, their laboratories and their universities.
4.1.3.Enabling stronger University-Industry collaboration through joint research and contract research in select universities.
4.1.4.Enactment of the Indian version of the Bayh Dole Act (passed in US in December, 1980) with a distinct Indian footprint which addresses the country’s concerns.
4.1.5.Introduction of utility model for promotion of incremental innovation, particularly in the SME sector.
4.1.6.Human resource development for strengthening the innovation eco-system.
4.1.7.Facilitating access of industry to environment friendly patents and other technology patents, particularly in manufacturing.

One wonders what is new in this. There is no shortage of reports in the country , the problem is not in diagnosis but in treatment. Some impulsive thoughts on these recommendations.

4.1.1. Targeted investment - who will do the targeting- Government departments , government funded labs? And industry role is limited to participation in high powered committees. One does not need committees to identify thrust areas, read Gartner reports or MIT reports or any other think tank. The question is what can government do thereafter. Government committees identifying thrust areas and government funded research institutes developing technologies in those thrust areas for transfer to commercial firms in old hat. The five year time frame is important but department approving a 5 year project would freeze all mile stones and output  prior to approval. The GFR and CAG would not be kind to mid term rethinking.
4.1.2. Incentives to Innovators. Technology Transfer Offices and incentives to innovators do exist in CSIR, IITs etc. NRDC  was started decades back, Intellectual Ventures is active in India and Government approved scientists/ researchers promoting technology ventures with their knowledge as sweat capital. The royalty earning of research institutes is so meager, forget about sharing windfall profits with inventors they cannot attend a meeting of AUTM without government support. 
4.1.3. industry-institute collaborative research: There are fiscal incentives and research grants made available to both institutes and industry. There is a ocean of literature on this- why incentives do not forge research links.
4.1.4. Indian version of Bayh Dole Act.- no recommendation on changes to be made to the proposed legislation other than a wish that it should be passed.
4.1.5, 4.1.6 and 4.1.6- Like 4.1.4 these are part of wish list.

conclusion: this paper has no substance of value, totally devoid of actionable recommendations.
Do you agree?

Long Coastline of Andhra : a discovery by policy makers

Once arrival of new state of Andhra is announced, politicians are busy searching for clothes to dress the baby. Andhra politicians discovered long coast line and daily assure the public that this strategic advantage would transform economy of new state. It may be possible to build ports, power plants, economic corridors provided the coastal land is not eaten away by cyclones. 
The long coast needs natural or manmade sources, which can dissipate or deflect the potential wind and wave energy and protect the coastal life and properties from the calamities,  called as coastal shelterbelt. These can be hard defenses like static shoreline structures such as those constructed from timber, steel, concrete, asphalt and rubble. Soft defenses include mobile/ responsive defense measures, seek to work with nature rather than control it. Such structures may consist of sand or shingle beaches and dunes or banks, which may be natural or constructed, and may include control structures. These can include soft solutions of beach nourishment, cliff/dune stabilization, bypassing and managed retreat. A 'bio-shield' is formed by planting a vegetation belt along coastlines would protect India against future coastal storms, cyclones and tsunamis.
Antonio Mascarenhas in his paper in current science highlighted:

• failure of hard structures indicate the unsuitability of extensive coastal protection works.
• wide beaches and high dunes act as efficient dissipators of wave energy. However, dense population crushed this option.
• coastal forests, green shelter belt is a better option but they need to be repaired after every cyclone and merged with economic activity of share based population.
• network of canals , drains, tidal creeks are essential to drain storm water. 

Will the new govt accord priority to coastal protection?

CDAC Mohali Designed Digital Stethoscope

CDAC Mohali has developed a wireless Digital Stethoscope The device works with a wired headset as well as with a Bluetooth enables wireless headset. The heartbeat analysed through the device can be displayed on a mobile handset and the data can be stored on a laptop. 
Compared to a commercially available digital stethoscope, that costs about `60,000/-, CDAC developed Digital Stethoscope will cost around `6,000/- (prototype) plus `2,000/- for the Bluetooth Headset. 

The key features of the Wireless Digital Stethoscope: 

• Picks up sounds directly from the body surface 
• Improves low frequency sounds characteristics through the use of Advance filtering technique 
• Audio frequency band for heart and lung sounds:20 Hz to 320 Hz 
• Op Amp Gain: 40dB 
• Sampling rate: 4KHz with Sample Averaging 
• Wireless transmission over Bluetooth 
• Power supply: 3.6 V Chargeable Battery with on board charging 
• MCU based volume control 
• Analog output port for headphone 
• Battery life: 100 hours of continuous power operation 
• Handheld portable device 
• Supported by Mobile application to capture wireless data and plot the graph of acoustic signal from heart and lungs 

The trials of the device are presently underway. Technology transfer process is also likely to start shortly. Interested parties may contact Shri D.K. Jain (Executive Director), Telemedicine LAB & Bio-Medical, CDAC, Mohali (dkjain@cdac.in)

Survey on Foreign Collaboration in Indian Industry: 2007-2010

The RBI survey captures comprehensive information relating to the nature, pattern, and operations of Indian companies having technical collaboration with foreign companies valid during the period April 2007 to March 2010.Highlights of the survey:

Drop in pure technical collaboration.

• Out of the 158 companies which had entered into foreign technical collaboration agreements during the period 2007-08 to 2009-10, 129 were subsidiaries, 19 were associates having equity participation and 10 had pure technical collaboration (PTCC).
• Out of 678 companies which has entered into foreign non-technical collaboration (equity only) , 543 were subsidies and 92 associates. 
• Patents transferred as part of agreement stood at 5 in 8th survey compared to 3 in seventh survey.

This was on expected lines as with liberalization, Indian partner is not a condition for operating in India. MNCs discovered that doing business in India is easier with professional managers than rent seeking Indian business partner.

Impact on Economy

• The total value of production reported by the foreign collaboration companies covered in the present survey increased from `604.8 billion in 2007-08 to `822.4 billion in 2009-10. As a percentage of GDP these companies contributed 1.3% of GDP. 
• The number of employees in the responding foreign collaboration companies increased from 62,166 in 2007-08 to 71,268 in 2010.
• Total exports of the foreign collaboration companies covered in the present survey increased from `120.7 billion in 2007-08 to `156.7 billion in 2009-10.Total imports made by the foreign collaboration companies covered in the present survey increased from `275.0 billion in 2007-08 to `342.3 billion in 2008-09 but declined to `299.0 billion in 2009-10.
• R&D intensity measured as the ratio of R&D expenditure to the value of production declined for both manufacturing as well as service sector from 1.55 in 2007-08 to 0.83 in 2009-10.

Trend

• Foreign Collaboration has negligible impact on GDP, employment, exports or R&D. Strange, considering the fact that India needs better technology in all sectors. 
• Direct import of technology goods seem more attractive than even local assembly with FC.
• Unlike China, Indian govt had no strategic vision of technology acquisition. While China made heavy payments for patents & technology and became global leader in  areas like High Speed Rail transport, Batteries etc, India every year routinely transfers large payments to Suzuki, Unilever etc as royalty(!).

civil engineering in China

The Challenge: How to construct overpass over a busy high speed rail track in Wuhan city. Traffic cannot be halted and overpass has to be 256m long weighing 17,000 tonnes spanning 11 rail lines. Engineers in China built the overpass outside the rail lines and rotated it 106 degrees on a 15 metre axis to position it above running trains and it took just 90 minutes.

 source:Saindranath Jonna

 

InTech50 Most Innovative Products from India: Bangalore from April 9 -10, 2014

InTech50, a joint initiative by iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network, that recognizes most promising software products by India’s entrepreneurs,  confirmed the first set of 10 selected products from over 200 nominations.The first 10 finalists for InTech50 2014 Most Innovative Products (in alphabetical order) are:

•  99tests is a Crowd sourced Testing Marketplace with over 6500 testers from over 20 countries. Software product owners can get their applications tested on different versions of web browsers and various mobile devices to find critical bugs.

• Cerebra (patent pending), a product from Flutura Solutions is a Machine-to-Machine Big Data Analytics platform that has the capability to unlock signals embedded within cryptic machine logs.

• CoCubes is India’s largest assessment and campus hiring platform. The company works with 450+ corporate for hiring that provide greater control and transparency, while assisting institutional clients measure and improve employability and helping students move ahead on their career path.

• Datonis (TM) is a platform from Altizon which helps get any device connected to the internet, manage these connected devices and drive data related to their performance and usage to a cloud based data aggregation and analytical engine to glean operational and consumer insight.

• Freshdesk is a leading SaaS based customer support software that has more than 16,000 Support Teams across the world using it to deliver exceptional customer service. Freshdesk allows businesses to support customers through email, Twitter, Facebook, chat, phone, forums and other channels.

• Bizosys’ HSearch is an award winning Hadoop based search and analytics engine to handle several terabytes of data. HSearch has been deployed by clients in Telecom infrastructure, Pharmaceutical R&D, Energy management, online retail, financial analytics industries with the core search engine available as open source.

• Uniken has developed a path breaking Secure Digital Platform, REL-IDTM – which delivers ubiquitous, rich multi-channel digital experience with military grade security to the customers, employees and partners of an enterprise. Through REL-ID, the end users enjoy a rich and secure digital experience across devices and platforms.

• Whatfix is a solution for creating interactive support faqs, training and product tours. With Whatfix anyone can create such interactive guides with just a few clicks and integrate them with products, applications & websites.

• WhistleTalk is a SaaS based referral hiring solution that allows companies to leverage the social network of all their current employees, reach out to their friends and hire them. This unique approach helps organisations to supercharge their referral hiring.

• ZipDial is a pioneering Mobile Marketing & Analytics platform for emerging markets. Marketers and advertisers utilize ZipDial to transform their brand campaigns into highly interactive and viral user experiences, while building a loyal customer base.

Indian Commodity Innovation Map by World Startup Report

Crowd sourcing Prior-art search

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) encourages subject-matter experts to take advantage of a new rule implemented under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) that allows third parties to submit relevant materials to patent examiners in any given examination. Submission of proposed prior art helps examiners determine whether the innovation in the application is patentable. 

To give effect to this provision, on Sept. 20, 2012, the USPTO partnered with Stack Exchange (a popular question/answer tech website) and Google to create AskPatents.com. Like other Stack Exchange websites, AskPatents.com is formatted in a question/answer style in which citizen volunteers and other interested parties ask about patent applications (and patents) they think are suspicious. In turn, the community reviews the questions, proposes prior art solutions and votes up/down posted prior art to rate examples people find. The USPTO provides a system for submission of the prior art, while Google provides an algorithmic search utility to help uncover references.

Case: Scaling based on pixel density (Microsoft)- rejected by USPTO based on prior art by Ask patent community.

TITLE: Scale factors for visual presentations

• Publication Number: US 20130063492 A1
• App Number: 13/230445
• Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Prior Art Cutoff Date: Prior Art predating Sept 12, 2011
• Availability for Challenge: Open Until at least Sept 14, 2013

Summary: This application generates and display graphical elements based on pixel density. The invention selects a scale factor from a scale factor set that is within the range of the pixel density.
Claim 1 requires, among other things:

A method of generating, using a device having a processor, a presentation comprising elements to be displayed on a display component, the method comprising:

• executing on the processor instructions configured to:
  
  • identify a pixel density of the display component;
  • for respective elements of the presentation:
    
    • from a scale factor set, select a scale factor having a pixel density range including the pixel density of the display component; and
    • request the element to generate a scaled representation using the scale factor; and
  • generate the presentation comprising the scaled representations of the elements.

QUESTION - Have you seen anything that was published before 09/12/2011 that discusses (1) scale factor; (2) scale factor set; and (3) pixel density range in the manner described in claim 1?
Best Answer: "Writing DPI-Aware Win32 Applications", an article by Ryan Haveson and Ken Sykes, published by Microsoft and dated September 2008.

Technology offer: Pre-treatment of lignocellulosic biomass for the production of second-generation bioethanol

A procedure for making soluble the lignin and other polymers responsible for the low digestibility of lignocellulosic materials, in particular rice husks, has been developed by the University of Cadiz research group on "Food Engineering and Technology” (AGR-203). This new procedure utilizes hydrogen peroxide in conditions of high pressure for digesting the material. This pre-hydrolysis stage is essential for extracting maximum amounts of the sugars that are subsequently fermented to produce second-generation bioethanol.Details: Innoget 

Electrolux 2014 competition for students

The topic for 2014 is -Creating Healthy Homes in 3 focus areas:

• Focus 1 – Culinary Enjoyment
  Design challenge: Which inspiring and motivating solutions within culinary enjoyment can be designed to support the desire for healthier lifestyles in future homes?
  Focus 2 – Fabric Care
  Design challenge: How can design solutions within fabric care offer support to the desire for sustainable, stylish and well managed homes?
  Focus 3 – Air Purification
  Design challenge: How can air purification be designed in a way that enhances the quality of the different activities in our living environments and addresses specific needs?

Has India benefited from the enactment of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002?

From Darryn Smyth post in IP Kat:

 India’s accession to the CBD and the subsequent enactment of the BD Act has been based on a post-colonial narrative where it was presumed that the West was exploiting India’s rich biodiversity and that India was only losing through a regime of free trade in biological resources. This assumption is possibly flawed since India has also gained through free trade of biological resources. There is perhaps no better example than the Green Revolution of the sixties and seventies which made India self-sufficient in basic food crops. This was possible due to Norman Borlaug’s high yielding wheat varieties from Mexico. There are several other examples of crops like potato, peas and tomato entering India from other countries and becoming a staple in the Indian diet.
Our primary concern with the massive bureaucratic apparatus created by India to execute its obligations under the CBD is the fact that it is creating a massive opportunity for rent-seeking and delaying and bureaucratizing scientific collaboration and research projects within and outside India. The fact that the Indian legislation has a penal provision greatly adds to the climate of fear surrounding research involving biological resources in India. It doesn't help that these provisions have actually been invoked in one case, where Indian academics of a government university are facing the possibility of jail time for an alleged violation of the BD Act while working on a government funded project. More recently there has been news of Hershey’s top brass being prosecuted for allegedly violating the BD Act. 
We agree that biodiversity must be protected but clearly India is on the wrong path.

Hygeia Bioresearch- New Medical Device venture

Hygeia Bioresearch Private Limited (HBPL) is a medical device venture based in India that focuses on the development of portable bio-diagnostic technologies for real time haematology. Their IP-protected novel electronic integration technology supports the convergence of microfluidics with conventional electronic systems in a miniaturised form. HBPL is an incubatee of TREC-STEP (Technology Business Incubator, Government of India).

Founder Mukesh Kumar, is a first generation entrepreneur with extensive research experience. Mr. Mukesh was nominated for SET (Science, Engineering and Technology Student of the Year) awards from Lancaster University in 2008  and also received prestigious awards such as Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, London) research grant, Higher Education Innovation Fund (UK research council), Leverhulme PhD studentship (Leverhulme Trust, UK), Peel Studentship (Peel Studentship Trust, UK), and Education grant awarded by the American Services to India (USA).

India's first Intellectual Property Rights Helpline‏

India’s first IPR helpline is offered by Inolyst. You can clear all your doubts on Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights with our experts, free of cost!  Call 080 - 3927 5503 - 

India's Innovation Performance w.r.t to EU

European Commission published Innovation Score Board 2014 comparing states within EU and EU with USA, Japan, China,India etc. Excerpts from the report on India:

USA and South Korea have a performance lead over EU at  17% and Japan had a lead of  13%. China is at 44% of EU level. India performs relatively better in `Knowledge Intensive Service exports' and lead in this one parameter is also shrinking.

Indian Research Output 2008-2012-Elsevier

• A recent study prepared by Elsevier shows that India has achieved substantial growth in research articles output, increasing from 54 thousand in 2008 to 93 thousand in 2012 at an annualized growth rate of 14.4%. 
• Over the same period from 2008 to 2012, India’s share of the top 10% of the most cited articles – a proxy for high quality research articles – rose from 2.0% to 3.1%.
• proportion of Indian research cited in patents is relatively low. The relative share of India’s patent citations to articles published from 2007 to 2011 is for  India (0.65).

Stable Spoon- innovation from Anupam Pathak

Ten years ago, Anupam Pathak was a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, working on a university lab project to help stabilize stressed soldiers’ rifle barrels. Soldiers shaking with fear, dread, or stress cannot fire accurately, but canceling the shaking stabilizes the aim. Today,, Pathak has used what he learned about canceling human tremor to help the more than 5 percent of the United States population suffering with essential tremor and to help others with neurological diseases like Parkinson’s that can cause trembling. A three-person startup company he founded, Lynx Design, of San Francisco,  released the LiftWare tremor-cancelling spoon under the company’s Lift Labs name. 

Active Cancellation
The technique uses active cancellation hardware, which is currently used in noise-cancelling headphones. As part of his Ph.D. work, Pathak figured out how to make active cancellation hardware small enough to fit within the tremor-cancelling spoon. The utensil stops the bowl of the spoon from moving even while the handle itself may be trembling, which lets users can eat without spilling. 

Pathak did his research before creating the LiftWare spoon. He discovered that today’s tremor-assistive devices usually attempt to cancel movement and for that reason are big, bulky, and inconvenient. “You don’t want to use things like that in public and they don’t even work that well at home,” Pathak said. “Our idea was not to stop the hand from shaking but to cancel its movement. That way, we can make our device really small, the size of an electric toothbrush, and you can use it every day.”

Source:Jean Thilmany

Business Accelerator in a Stock Exchange

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

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

`Progressive Purchase' pricing model for household energy systems

“Progressive Purchase” is a new pricing model developed by Simpa Networks that shares some characteristics of the familiar “prepaid”, “pay as you go”, and “installment plan” pricing models. Under Progressive Purchase, the consumer makes a series of payments, each of which unlocks the solar home system for a paid amount of energy consumption (Kwh).  Once the prepaid consumption is exhausted, the solar home system is temporarily disabled until another paymenmt is made.  Once the consumer has fully paid the total purchase price of the product, full functionality is restored and the product is permanently unlocked.

The Progressive Purchase pricing model is enabled by the Simpa Regulator, a tamper-proof, system-integrated micro controller and user interface that regulates the function of  solar home systems based on proof of payments, and the Simpa Revenue Management System, a centralized software solution in the “cloud”, accessible via SMS gateway and over the internet, for payment processing and accounts settlement.

Lessons from Lepakshi Knowledge Hub

January 2012, Business Standard

Global Emerging Markets (GEM), a $3.4-billion alternative investment group having its presence in 55 countries, and former Chief Vigilance Commissioner N Vittal-promoted Gujarat Vittal Innovation City have entered into a joint venture with Andhra Pradesh-based Lepakshi Knowledge Hub to develop a green eco system for knowledge-based services, manufacturing, R&D and incubation activities. To be developed on 2,500 acres allotted by Lepakshi from its 10,000 acre Knowledge Park located in Anantapur district bordering Karnataka.

February 2014 Indian Express

The government issued a show-cause notice to Lepakshi. However, the company failed to give proper replies and the government cancelled all the incentives. The principal obligation of the Lepakshi was to establish a World Class Global Knowledge Hub by providing integrated infrastructure support to universities, science & technology parks, medical parks, aerospace parks, agro food parks, IT/BT parks, logistic parks, global eco theme village, business financial district, FTWZs, energy projects, commercial, retail, residential and other support infrastructure etc., at Chilamattur and Gorantla mandals.The government concluded that there was no substantive progress in the project and no specific action plan has been provided.

Lesson to retired Bureaucrats

Think twice before lending your name to shoddy plans. 

support for small budget innovations benefitting MSME from VNRVJIET, Hyderabad

MSME recently approved incubator of VNRVJIET at Hyderabad to support innovations under their incubator support program. Details of MSME program:

http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/schemes/Incubatee_Application_Format.pdf

Individuals/ Micro and Small Enterprises having innovative business idea at near commercialization stage and needing about 5 lakhs to complete the development can apply to edcell@vnrvjiet.in. 

First Product Industry Monitor Report

iSPIRT has brought out the product start-up report (Feb 2014) based on survey carried out by Sharique Hasan (Assistant Professor at Stanford's Graduate School ofBusiness),SrivardhiniK.Jha(Research Scientis with McGill Centre for Convergence of Health and Economics and Fellow at iSPIRT), and  Rembrand Koning(a doctoral candidate at Stanford's Graduate School of Business). Findings:

• Over 50% of software product firms are bootstrapped.Majority invested less than a crore and valuation is generally less than 10 millionUSD.
•  40% of founders came from MNCs and the founders have a similar background & skill sets.Founders are older with 70% in 301-40 age group.
• Bangalore and Enterprise sectors dominate.

Emergence of entertainment and creative cluster at Hyderabad: Contribution of ANR

In the filmed entertainment sector Los Angeles, or Hollywood, has been the dominant cluster for many years and is the most globally recognised centre for film and television production. However, India is the largest market globally in terms of total box-office admissions and number of films produced. Filmed entertainment in India was estimated around 112 billion INR in 2012 by PWC expected to cross 200 billion INR by 2017. Digital distribution has transformed the markets with movies releasing with large number of prints across India and abroad thereby capturing revenues early combating piracy.

The market share of Hollywood films is about 9%, mostly from multiplexes in large metros. Indian film clusters evolved in a different way compared to Hollywood where all mainstream Hollywood films are produced, financed, distributed (and, to some extent, exhibited) by a handful of integrated media conglomerates (News Corp, Walt Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, NBC Universal, and Sony), and non-mainstream films are practically isolated from the mainstream system of finance and distribution. There is even structural difference amongst film clusters in Hyderabad and Chennai and Bollywood.

After Indian Independence in 1947, Bollywood films have been produced, financed, distributed, and exhibited in complex collaboration among hundreds of independent producers each owning a small-scale production company (with one or fewer annual releases), independent distributors (covering different regional territories), private financiers, and stand-alone cinema operators. seems to move towards an industry model based on alliances. Despite increased professionalism and horizontal integration in down stream processing & distribution, alliances mark the culture of Bollywood film cluster ushered in by refugee film producers, stars and entrepreneurs from Lahore. Star actors, even today are cast and signed though informal social relations, rather than through agents and lawyers, and unlike their Hollywood counterparts, written contracts are rarely used. The second category of social relations is those between producers and financiers. Since Bollywood's inception, producers have obtained most film finance either as advance payment from distributors or from private sources, and the production companies struck new finance and distribution deals for each production.

The growth of Film cluster in Hyderabad is attributed to Akkineneni Nagegewararao (ANR). At the height of popularity, he took a decision to shift to Hyderabad and insisted all his producers to shoot in Hyderabad only. He built his own studio in 1975. The formation of film cluster in Hyderabad shows that government initiatives like providing infrastructure (lands for studios, residence) and fiscal incentives (tax rebate , lower entertainment tax) etc are all important, a cluster champion is needed to form the nucleus.

Chinese Solar Mission

Chinese strategy in solar PV focussed on utilisation, manufacture and research with a synergistic policy. Interesting from Indian perspective as tend to see as all three components as mutually exclusive. Excerpts from UNU-MERIT working paper'  Diverse and uneven pathways towards transition to low carbon development: The case of diffusion of solar PV technology in China, Michiko Iizuka, (wp2014-002).

China (as of 2012) has the largest capacity for renewable power generation in the world, followed by the USA and Germany, and is one of the five largest countries in the world in terms of capacity for producing the following types of renewable energy: bio‐power (3rd), hydropower (1st), solar PV (4th), wind power (1st), solar water collection (1st), geothermal (2nd) in 2012 (REN21, 2013). 

As for manufacturing capacity, several Chinese firms, such as Goldwind, Sinovel and Migyang for wind energy and Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar – to name a few – for solar PV, are considered the dominant players in the global export market for both wind turbine and solar PV respectively. The growing presence of China in terms of capacity to generate and manufacture renewable energy is accompanied by a growing capacity to innovate as the result of conscious efforts made by both private and public sectors.

The growing manufacturing capacity demonstrated by China’s export performance was accompanied by increasing technological efforts. Both government and firms attempted to close the technological gap with OECD countries. The results of these efforts can be observed from the rapid increase of indigenous R&D. Between 1996 and 2008, central government R&D appropriation for renewable energy increased from RMB 21.1 billion (US$2.5 billion) to RMB104.8 billion (US$15.2 billion), while expenditure by regional governments for the same purpose increased from RMB 7.8 billion (US$940 million) to RMB 105.7 billion (US$15.4billion) (Cao and Groba, 2013). 

 Parallel to such technological efforts, Chinese firms relied on the acquisition of foreign technologies using turnkey cell and module production lines and capital goods from the late 1990s to the early 2000s (de la Tour et al., 2011). During this time, the manufacturing activities of Chinese solar PV firms were concentrated on ‘easy‐to‐enter’ but ‘low‐profit‐margin’ activities of cell and module production. Subsequently, these firms’ cumulative efforts at in‐house R&D were complemented by strategies of joint R&D with universities and research institutes, as well as setting up overseas R&D facilities with government inducements for acquiring technology. Such R&D focused on crystalline silicon, which was the dominant technology at that time. Although the strongest presence of Chinese firms is still in downstream activities, i.e. cell and module production, firms have also invested in upstream activities such as the processing of silicon feedstock.

India adopted early- to- start and fast- to -vacate policy in solar PV too, established CEL in 1974, supported research regularly with small grants to IITs and increased utilisation of PV with Solar Mission.