50 Global Hubs for Top AI Talent - Bangalore is in top 5.

In this article, HBR highlights the 50 cities with the largest AI talent pools worldwide and evaluate them using a framework that we have developed at Digital Planet: TIDE (for Talent pool; Investments; Diversity of talent; Evolution of the country’s digital foundations). These factors collectively give companies a way to prioritize their AI talent sourcing choices by scoring the different locations on the concentration, quality and diversity of the AI talent pool. The diversity measure combines several factors: the proportion of female AI workers, racial diversity and migrant acceptance along with the cost of living in a city. 

pepsi potato patent and Gujarat farmers

Pepsi got an USA patent for potato cultivator 2027. IP protection granted in USA under Patents and Plant Variety Protection (PVPA).  In India patent protection is not available but Plant Variety Protection avaiable. Pepsi registered this 2027 variety in 2016 and promptly sued farmers in Gujarat growing this without license. 

Now, Plant Varieties & Farmers' Rights (PPV&FR) Authority, rules Pepsi registration under Plant Variety Protection as invalid.

More information: www.motguru.com

World’s First COVID-19 DNA vaccine developed in partnership with DBT-BIRAC under Mission COVID Suraksha

 

The ZyCoV-D is the world’s first and India’s indigenously developed
DNA based vaccine for COVID-19 to be administered in humans
including children and adults 12 years and above. This vaccine has
been developed in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology
(DBT), Government of India under the ‘Mission COVID Suraksha’ and
implemented by BIRAC, a PSU of DBT. This 3 dose vaccine which when injected produces the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and elicits an immune response, which plays a  vital role in protection from disease as well as viral clearance.Vaccine Technology Centre (VTC), vaccine research centre of the
Zydus group, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute
(THSTI), an autonomous institute of the DBT and Interactive Research
School for Health Affairs (IRSHA), Pune, GCLP Lab set up under the
DBT- National Biopharma Mission (NBM) also played a vital role in this
success story. The plug and play technology on which the plasmid DNA platform is based can be easily adapted to deal with mutations in the virus, such as those already occurring.

Read about the amazing journey: DBT publication

Technologies on offer from ICMR

 

ICMR regularly posts technologies available from its institutes for collaboration with Industry.

Patents 2020

WIPO report analyzes IP activity around the globe. Drawing on 2020 filing, registration and renewals statistics from national and regional IP offices. India received 56,771 patent applications, ot of which 23,141 were from India, 10,478 from USA, 4826 from Japan, 3775 from China, 2682 from Korea and 2525 from Japan.Resident grants for India grew by 5.5% whereas that of non-residents grew at 6.3%. Non-Resident share of patents granted by Indian Patent Office were pegged at 81.1%. The situation was different for Industrial Designs where out of 12,793, resident applicants were 8962 and non-residents 3,831.India does not grant utility patents and is not a member of International Union for Protection of New Variety of Plants. Publishing industry data covered under Creative Economy do not have Indian data.

Institutions that shaped modern India- DRDO

Ravi kumar Gupta , the author, served at DRDO as a DRDS Scientist for over 35 years and superannuated in May 2015 as Scientist G and Director Public Interface at the DRDO headquarters. The book was written with the aim of presenting a holistic picture , the manner and scenario under which it was formed , its visionary leaders, the eventful journey and how it shaped the defence infrastructure and ecosystem in the country.

Catching up:

Development in weapon system in advanced countries have been invariably driven by innovativeness of their defence scientists and the ability of such scientists to think well beyond the existing systems and technologies. Here, in India, TDE ( Technical Development Establishments , earlier called Inspectorates) and others insisted that development work by the DRDO should be taken up for only after the services had laid their requirements in the form of Qualitative Requirements/ Operational Requirements (Qrs/Ors). The Qrs/Ors were invariably based on the products already available abroad.

Technology Transfer

Import and produce under license is a powerful lobby favouring big ticket imports and killing all local efforts to develop technologies. Air guided anti tank missile was one early example. Initial goal post was range of 1.5km, when that was reached, QRs increased operating range to 4km and finally product imported from France. Myth of Technology transfer resulted in component to component development with no design capability.

Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP)

The appointment of DR VS Arunachalam as the SA to RM and Secretary DDR&D in 1982 was the turning point. During his leadership, several programmes were launched including IGMDP, LCA, UAV,Sonars, Torpedoes etc. His initiatives were supported by R Venkataraman, Defence Minister. Dr Kalam took command of the organisation in 1992 when DRDO enetered the development of mega systems. The rest is history.

Book available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/INSTITUTIONS-THAT-SHAPED-MODERN-INDIA/dp/9390356725

Global Innovation Index 2021- India status

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

India ranking by pillars:

Institutions-62

-Political environment -66

-Regulatory environment-71

-Business environment-62

Human Capital and Research-54

-Education-102

-Tertiary education-64

-Research and development (R&D)-35

Infrastructure-81

-Information and communication technologies (ICTs)-86

-General infrastructure-52

-Ecological sustainability-98

Market sophistication-28

-credit-56

-investment-45

-Trade, diversification, and market scale-7

Business sophistication-52

-Knowledge workers-83

-Innovation linkages-50

-Knowledge absorption-34

Knowledge and technology outputs-29

-Knowledge creation-51

-knowledge impact-51

-knowledge diffusion-13

Creative outputs-68

-intangible assets-61

-Creative goods and services-55

-online creativity-105

India's best

Graduates in science and engineering, %-12

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

QS university ranking, top 3*-23

Government online service-24

E Participation-29

Gross capital formation, % GDP-28

Ease of getting credit*-23

Microfinance gross loans, % GDP-25

Market capitalization, % GDP-19

Ease of protecting minority investors*-13

Domestic industry diversification-12

Domestic market scale, bn PPP$-3

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

Intellectual property payments, % total trade-27

High-tech imports, % total trade-26

Citable documents H-index-21

Labor productivity growth, %-17

ICT services exports, % total trade-1

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

Cultural and creative services exports, % total trade-18

Creative goods exports, % total trade-24

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

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

Technologies available with MCCIA, Pune

 Innovation and Technology Transfer Cell in Pune supported by the Rajiv Gandhi Science & Technology Commission  identified few technology/processes that are ripe for commercial exploitation: 

Technologies available with MCCIA –

• Solar plant for drying of fruits and vegetables
• Just sip nutritious dehydrated vegetables drink 
• Cottage level manufacturing technology of Santa barfi
• Hatchery technology for quality seed of mud crab 
• Milk chilling plant with energy optimised heat-based refrigeration
• Vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging of fresh fish
• Processing technology for turmeric, onion, garlic and ginger
• Pilot scale demonstration of fish and fishery Based
• Value added products from Acetes meat
• Value added fish products
• Nutritious supplementary foods from edible food wastes
• Nutritionally balanced and healthy value added emulsion products from fish 

CAN ORGANIC AGRICULTURE FEED THE WORLD?

As per a policy decision by the Sri Lankan Government the country is moving toward an eco-friendly sustainable agricultural system by promoting organic farming within the country. Going with this decision the government issued the Gazette Extraordinary No. 2226/48 of May 6, 2021, banning the importation of chemical fertilizers and pesticides with immediate effect. As a country which relies heavily on agriculture this decision came as a surprise and discussions, arguments and debates began surfacing over the good and bad sides of it. Group of Agricultural Scientists and Professionals representing universities, research stations, and other Agriculture related organizations formulated a special report and forwarded it to His Excellency the President Gotabhaya Rajapakse urging the government to rethink the strategy towards an eco-friendly sustainable agriculture as these sudden decisions could lead to catastrophic situations in Sri Lankan Agricultural sector. 

There is much criticism globally on this organic only policy of SL. Many countries have suffered food shortages due to idealistic pro-organic policies. But analyzing the situation as it unfolds exposes precisely what goes wrong when governments make decisions based on bad ideology and ignore evidence. 

Recommend this paper Organic Agriculture, FoodSecurity, and the Environment for informed discussion on this vital subject. There are several areas that deserve more research to further improve our understanding of the effects of organic agriculture. 

First, many of the available studies on yield performance and environmental effects refer to developed countries. Additional studies under typical conditions in developing countries would be very useful. 

Second, many of the existing studies with farm survey data have not properly controlled for selection bias. More rigorous empirical studies are needed. 

Third, while several studies showed that organic farming can be profitable with the existing support through subsidies and development projects, it is less clear whether organic farming could also be profitable without such external support. 

Fourth, the net food price effects of organic agriculture are not sufficiently understood. Although it is clear that organic foods are more expensive than conventional foods, it is less clear how much of the price markup is attributable to differences in farming practices as opposed to other factors such as scale effects, market structure, and efficiency. 

Finally, it would be interesting to analyze how the productivity, environmental, and profitability effects of organic farming might change through slight adjustments in the definition of what is allowed and disallowed in certified organic production.

What happened to India's Smart Cities Mission?

The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), launched on 25 June 2015, is a joint effort of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), and all state and union territory (UT) governments. It initially aimed to be completed by 2019-20, but has since been extended. One hundred cities and towns in different states and UTs of India have been selected under the SCM—they are home to more than one-third of the country’s population . The Mission aims “to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to smart outcomes,” and ensure that these cities are “liveable, inclusive, sustainable, (and) have thriving economies that offer multiple opportunities to people to pursue their diverse interests.” In other words, according to MoHUA, “smart cities are cities that work for the people.”

Report by ORF makes few pertinent observations:

The progress of the Mission has been best in the states of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Indore, Bhopal and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, and Surat and Rajkot in Gujarat, figure repeatedly among the best performers on different criteria.

An India Smart Cities Awards Contest (ISAC) has been organised every year since 2018 to recognise the best performing cities. A special award was also instituted at the third edition of the contest in 2020 to recognise the most innovative responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The winners of this prize, announced at the fourth edition on 25 June 2021 were Chennai (Round 1), Kalyan-Dombivali and Varanasi (Round 2), Bengaluru (Round 3) and Saharanpur (Round 4).

During the current monsoon season in 2021, it has been seen that drainage systems in many of the selected smart cities have still not ensured proper management of rainwater.

Ministry of Civil Aviation notifies liberalised Drone Rules, 2021

In March 2021, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) published the UAS Rules, 2021.  They were perceived by academia, Startups, end-users and other stakeholders as being restrictive in nature as they involved considerable paperwork, required permissions for every drone flight and very few “free to fly” green zones were available. Based on the feedback, the Government has decided to repeal the UAS Rules, 2021 and replace the same with the liberalised Drone Rules, 2021. 

Features of Drone Rules 2021

1. Number of forms reduced from 25 to 5. 
2. Types of fee reduced from 72 to 4. 
3. Quantum of fee reduced to nominal levels and delinked with size of drone.  For instance, the fee for a remote pilot license fee has been reduced from INR 3000 (for large drone) to INR 100 for all categories of drones; and is valid for 10 years.
4. Digital sky platform shall be developed as a user-friendly single-window system.  There will be minimal human interface and most permissions will be self-generated.
5. Interactive airspace map with green, yellow and red zones shall be displayed on the digital sky platform within 30 days of publication of these rules. 
6. No permission required for operating drones in green zones.  Green zone means the airspace upto a vertical distance of 400 feet or 120 metre that has not been designated as a red zone or yellow zone in the airspace map; and the airspace upto a vertical distance of 200 feet or 60 metre above the area located between a lateral distance of 8 and 12 kilometre from the perimeter of an operational airport.
7. Yellow zone reduced from 45 km to 12 km from the airport perimeter.
8. No remote pilot licence required for micro drones (for non-commercial use) and nano drones.
9. No requirement for security clearance before issuance of any registration or licence.
10. No requirement of Type Certificate, unique identification numberand remote pilot licence by R&D entities operating drones in own or rented premises, located in a green zone.
11. No restriction on foreign ownership in Indian drone companies. 

The Economic Times Global Digital Innovation Summit 2021.

Indian Innovators Association is a supporting Association for The Economic Times Global Digital Innovation Summit 2021.  Indian Innovators Association works to celebrate creations of independent innovators, link them globally and lobby for their rewards. Their independent innovators showcase their creative work and participate in global innovator exhibitions, and provide consultancy on Innovation Audit. 
Together, let’s recognize the power of Digital Innovation & gain insights for 2021 & beyond with The Economic Times Global Digital Innovation Summit 2021.

Book Your Seat : https://bit.ly/3yJKyNK

Date : 23rd & 24th September, 2021

Top 100 Innovation Blogs and Websites.

Our blog is listed at number 70. Your comments and active reading will propel us to move to higher positions.

https://blog.feedspot.com/innovation_blogs/

Feedspot was founded by Anuj Agarwal.

Innovations for Agribusiness- India

 

Download from Slideshare.

How Andhra wants to convert to 100% natural farming by 2027

Fortified Rice- global scenario

Indian Prime Minister announced nutrient fortified rice through under welfare schemes like public distribution system and mid-day-meal scheme.

Rice fortification is currently compulsory in six countries: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the Philippines. In USA FDA has not issued any mandatory standards for manufacture and follows labelling as standard. Manufacturers need to identify versions of food products that are enriched and those that are not.

WHO Guidelines

Fortification of rice with iron is recommended as a public

health strategy to improve the iron status of populations, in

settings where rice is a staple food. Fortification of rice with

vitamin A may be used as a public health strategy to improve

the iron status and vitamin A nutrition of 

populations. Fortification of rice with folic acid may be used as 

a public health strategy to improve the folate nutritional status 

of populations.

Are the nutrients in fortifed rice retained after preparation and

cooking? 

When produced using extrusion or rinse-resistant coating

technologies, fortifed rice will retain nutrients through various

preparation and cooking conditions, including washing and

cooking in excessive water that is later discarded. The

micronutrients in the fortifed kernels produced with extrusion 

technology are evenly  distributed throughout the kernels. 

Therefore, the nutrients are  adequately sealed and 

adequately retained through preparation and  cooking. 

However, when fortifed rice is produced using dusting or

coating that is not rinse-resistant, nutrients will be lost if the 

rice is  washed prior to cooking. There is ongoing additional 

research in this  area to further identify potential diferences in 

nutrient retention  between diferent rice preparation and 

cooking methods and  fortifcation technologies.

Operational Guidelines-India.

Extrusion is the preferred technology for rice fortification

because of the stability of micronutrients in the rice kernels

across processing, storage, washing, cooking, and in view of

cost considerations. Fortified Rice Kernels (FRK) produced

using extrusion technology are made with rice flour and

micronutrients such as iron, folic acid, Vitamin B12 as

mandatory and zinc, vitamin A, thiamine (vitamin B1 ),

riboflavin (vitamin B2 ), niacin (vitamin B3 ), and pyridoxine

(vitamin B6 ) as optional micronutrients.

Best Engineering Technologies is one of the manufacturers of

Fortified Rice. The firm is a supplier of Herbal plants, 

Essential oil plants, Food processing plants, spice powder 

plants, cashew nut processing plants etc.

Brazilians Investing In Startups Then Bank Deposits | Dr Marcelos

Digital Manufacturing in India- Gateway House paper

 

Gateway House with funding from EXIM Bank prepared this paper covering both theory and practice. Excerpts: 

Industry 4.0 promises to create new jobs and products while boosting productivity. The complex array of processes that make this possible – including 3D printing, computer-aided design, data analytics, artificial intelligence, simulation, virtual reality, sophisticated process management and more – are collectively known as Digital Manufacturing. Companies can also achieve digital manufacturing goals independently through the Global Lighthouse Network and Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Industrial IOT. So far, India has just one company in each segment – Tata Steel for Lighthouse and Altizon for the Magic Quadrant. 

Startups are catching up with Government support.Clairviz, co-founded by Aditya Vermani, an engineer who worked with India’s engineering giant Larson & Toubro and was briefly seconded to the Indian Space Research Organization, has a product similar to Altizon. But Vermani is sitting in a sweet spot because Clairviz participates in the government’s Start-Up India programme and is a beneficiary of government’s mandate that state companies use start-ups and MSMEs like Clairviz for their procurement of goods and services. State-owned oil refining giant Hindustan Petroleum was among Clairviz’s first clients; it installed and monitored sensors at the company’s Mumbai refinery and oil depots, resulting in improved regulatory compliance and a saving of almost $20,000 per year on maintenance and labour costs, against a small subscription fee – another creative revenue model.

SAMARTH

SAMARTH Udyog Bharat 4.0 is an Industry 4.0 initiative of Department of Heavy Industry, Ministry of Heavy Industry & Public Enterprises, Government of India under its scheme on Enhancement of Competitiveness in Indian Capital Goods Sector.  The experiential and demonstration centres for Industry 4.0 have been proposed to spread awareness about I4.0 amongst the Indian manufacturing industries. Five centres of I4.0 having a unique identity for spreading awareness and branding have been sanctioned under SAMARTH Udyog. It is emphasized that these centres would have resource sharing, common platform of industry 4.0 and network each other’s resources so that the utilization of resources is maximised.

Five CEFC (Common Engineering Facility Center) Projects are:

• Center for Industry 4.0 (C4i4) Lab Pune
• IITD-AIA Foundation for Smart Manufacturing
• I4.0 India at IISc Factory R & D Platform
• Smart Manufacturing Demo & Development Cell at CMTI
• Industry 4.0 projects at DHI CoE in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, IIT Kharagpur

Draft Drones Rules, 2021 released

The draft Drones Rules, 2021, replacing the regulations was issued in March this year, Provision on R&D:

26. Drone operations for research and development. – The following persons shall not require a certificate of airworthiness, unique identification number, prior permission and remote pilot licence for operating drones for research and development purposes – 

(a) Research and development entities under the administrative control of, or recognised by the Central Government, State Governments or Union Territory Administrations; 

(b) Educational institutions under the administrative control of, or recognised by the Central Government, State Governments or Union Territory Administrations; 

(c) Startups recognised by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade; and 

(d) Any drone manufacturer having a Goods and Service Tax Identification Number:

Also read -World of Drones.

Indian Researchers in Commercial Space- nominations open.

Competitive India is built by commercial firms with thousand of R&D persons developing products competing with resource rich global firms. Indian Innovators Association plans to bring out a compilation of those researchers behind the scene.

Nominate them and give them recognition due to them.