The Scheme for Facilitating Start-ups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP)

The Scheme of SIPP aims to promote awareness and adoption of Intellectual Property Rights amongst Start-Ups. Scheme is inclined to nurture and mentor innovative and emerging technologies among Start-ups and assist them in protecting and commercializing Intellectual Property Rights by providing them access to high-quality IP services and resources. For the purpose of facilitating the Start-ups and giving them assistance while getting their Intellectual Property registered in India, the Controller General of Patents, Design and Trademarks (CGPDTM) also appoints a panel of Facilitators. 

The Facilitators would perform the below mentioned functions-

• Providing general and basic advice to the Start-ups with respect to different Intellectual Properties.
• Providing information regarding protecting and promoting IPRs in different countries.
• Providing assistance and guidance in filing the applications for registration of Intellectual Properties like Trademarks, Patents and Designs and disposal of the same at the Indian Offices under the CGPDTM.
• Drafting Specifications, Claims, response to Examination Reports/Queries etc.
• Attending hearing on behalf of Start-ups.
• Contesting third-party Oppositions.
• Ensuring disposal of the IPR applications.

The Facilitators are not allowed to charge anything from the Start-ups for the services provided by them. Further, the Facilitators will be provided with a fixed amount of fee by the Central Government and it will not be entitled to charge any amount apart from that to the Entrepreneur.

The facilitator would get Rs 15,000/- at the time of filing, another 15,000/- at the time of final disposal.

Source: mondaq

INVENT ARENA 16-18 June 2016, Trinec, Czech Republic

Indian Innovators are invited to participate in the first annual of the International Exhibition of Technical Innovations, Patents and Inventions-  INVENT ARENA - in Trinec, Czech Republic scheduled from 16th to 18th June 2016. The best exhibits in each category will be awarded with gold, silver and bronze medals. The international jury will be evaluate inventions in following categories:
1. Ecology and environmental protection
2. Metallurgy, power supply, mechanical engineering, transport and civil engineering
3. Chemistry, agriculture, health care and biotechnology
4. Computer engineering, telecommunication, automation and informatics
5. Young innovators (up to 26 years)
6. Miscellaneous

Details: http://www.inventarena.cz/en/

Contact: Jan Kobielusz, Chairman of the INVENT ARENA organizing committee, INVENT ARENA <invitation@inventarena.cz>

The 8th Edition of EUROINVENT - European Exhibition of Creativity and Innovation

Indian Innovators invited to participate in EUROINVENT 2016,at  Iasi, Romania, May 19^th-21^st, 2016, Palas Mall -Atrium Hall. The exhibition promotes creativity and innovation in international context.The last edition showed over 400 inventions and projects, being the largest in Eastern Europe .
Details: http://www.euroinvent.org/
Contact :
Prof.Dr.Eng. Andrei Victor SANDU, EUROINVENT Coordinator 

euroinvent@yahoo.com, +40-745438604

Prof.Dr. Kamel EARAR, earar_dr.kamel@yahoo.com 

Defence Procurement Procedure made Indian Innovator friendly.

The DAC met under the Chairmanship of the Hon’ble Raksha Mantri on 11/01/2016 and key provisions of the DPP, as listed under have been approved.

• Introduction of a new category of acquisition: Buy Indian (IDDM), to promote indigenous design development and manufacturing. Under this category, indigenously designed equipment with 40% indigenous content (IC), or equipment with 60% IC will be considered for acquisition. This category will be the most preferred acquisition category, above the existing ‘Buy (Indian)’ category.
• Make II (Industry funded) – involves no funding by the Government for prototype development. However if RFP for the equipment developed, is not issued with two years from the successful prototype development, 100% refund for successful developers, who were selected through due process.  

Thomson Reuters India Innovation Awards 2015

Thomson Reuters India Innovation Awards honors the most innovative academic institutions and commercial enterprises headquartered in India. The list of award winners and the top 50 Indian innovators is provided below.

Winners of India Innovation Awards 2015

Corporate Hi-Tech: Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., TATA Steel

Corporate Pharmaceuticals:  Lupin Limited, Cadila Healthcare

Academic and Research Institutes: Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Department of Atomic Energy.

Highlights from the report.

• The volume of patents public funded institute hover around 1000 whereas from corporate sector it is 3 times higher.
• Major focus of govt funded research was on medicinal preparation with focus on traditional herbal medicine. A number of patents were also filed in organic chemistry related to acrylic compounds.
• corporate sector also patented  on medicinal preparation though  focus was on preparation of organic active ingredients and preparation of ointments.

It can only be said that India is far behind China in patenting. 

China received more patent application than USA and Japan combined- WIPO

Year 2015 report on IP metrics was released by WIPO. Highlights:

•  Around 2.68 million patent applications were filed worldwide in 2014. Indian Patent Office received 42,824 patent applications, 12,040 from India, 9,824 from USA, 5338 from Japan, 3,174 from Germany and only 880 from China. PCT applications not originating from India number 26,340.China tops the list with nearly a million applications, 80% from residents and mostly utility patent applications. India's patent position is higher than Russia, UK, France, Australia and near that of Germany.
•  USPTO tops in patent grants with 3 lakh, India grants 6,153, mostly (5433) from non-residents. There are over 2 lakh patent applications pending in India compared to a million in USPTO.
• Of the top 10 origins in the period 2011-13, Switzerland filed mainly in pharmaceuticals; the Russian Federation in food chemistry; France and Germany in transport; China, Japan and the Republic of Korea in electrical machinery; the Netherlands in medical technology; and the UK and the US in computer technology. Majority of applications in India are in Pharma and Computer technology.
• An estimated 948,900 applications for utility patents were filed worldwide in 2014, of which 868,511 were received by SIPO. Resident applications made up 98% of all applications filed worldwide in 2014, showing that utility model applications are rarely filed abroad. Compared to patents, the Czech Republic, China Hong Kong (SAR), the Philippines, Slovakia and Ukraine are intense users of utility models.

CSIR- Dehradun Declaration

DEHRADUN DECLARATION’ has been adopted at the end of two day conference of CSIR Directors held at CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum in Dehradun. Highlights:

•  CSIR labs will develop technologies for National missions like Swachh Bharat, Swasth Bharat, Skill India, Smart Cities, Digital India, Namami Ganga. 
• Each laboratory would also develop at least one technology in strategic sector for India. 
• (CSIR) to come up with at least 12 cutting edge technologies which are to be commercialized every year.

Fair Standards Alliance- friend of FRAND

A group of companies which include global firms such as BMW, Cisco, Dell, HP, Intel and Lenovo launched the Fair Standards Alliance this week in Brussels, aimed at ensuring licensing of standard-essential patents is done on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. The support revision made by IEEE. On the critical issue of Royalty on SEP, they state:
(a) Fair and reasonable royalties for a SEP must not tax features of a product that are unrelated to the patented invention 
Some SEP holders suggest that licensing rates should be based on downstream uses of standardised technology. Licensing polices that seek to charge such rates are unfair – they violate the FRAND commitment because they seek compensation for unpatented technologies or technologies that the patent holder did not invent or create. For example, when a smartphone has an innovative user interface that helps drive consumer demand for that device, the owner of a patent essential to a cellular standard should not be permitted to use that patent to appropriate any portion of the value of the user interface. Instead, in most circumstances, FRAND licensing rates should be determined with reference to the device, or the part of the device, that implements the patented invention; this ensures that the patent holder obtains fair compensation for what it actually invented, and not compensation for the value of others’ work or contributions. In other words, the price of a brick should be independent of whether that brick is used for building a garage or a mansion – and the royalty for a SEP associated with a standard that enables an Internet of Things (IoT) device to be wirelessly connected to other IoT devices (or the cloud) should be independent of whether that first IoT device is a smart watch, a refrigerator or a car. That is why it is so important to not blindly base royalty rates for SEPs on the overall value of an end device that makes use of the SEP’s invention, but to rather carefully consider the actual value that the SEP contributes to that end device. Often, that assessment can greatly be aided by considering the smallest component that actually implements the patented invention. When that part can be isolated as a separately saleable unit (a brick for building various types of buildings), a fair royalty rate will typically bear a relation to the price of that unit. 

Report of the Expert Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship: August 2015, NITI Aayog, New Delhi

Recommendations:
1. Introducing Competitions to Solve Pressing Economic and Social Problems:
The committee recommends a “ Grand Prizes” approach to finding ultra-low-cost solutions to India’ s most intractable problems on the lines of X Prize. Each challenge should carry a prize of between Rs. 10 cr and Rs. 30 cr for achieving a significant precisely-defined target over a precisely defined target over a precisely defined time horizon. The committee recommends spending entire  AIM budget of Rs 150 crores in this way.
(my comment: Amount is significant. Product development to meet challenge needs permission to use part of grant to buy Patents) 
2. Harnessing Corporate Funds to Finance R&D
All contracts with foreign defence companies above $5B should include a clause for 5% of contract value to be directed to establish research centric universities with strong emphasis on its core product areas in particular and broadly focused on the related areas in general.
(my comment: to be seen how this recommendation is accepted by Ministry of Defence)
3.SETU Funds Should Be Used to Upgrade Incubators and Set-UpTinkering Labs
Budget allocated Rs. 1000 crores for Self Employed and Talent Utilization (SETU).  The SETU funds should be used to jumpstart innovation through two concrete initiatives at scale. Committee recommended Rs 500 crores to be given to 10 existing incubators and balance Rs 500 crores to set up Tinkering Labs.
(My comment: Hopefully ten incubators would also include those that support Hardware Startups. I suppose setting up Tinkering Labs would be by UGC)

And many more recommendations: Inability to prioritize is a perennial  problem and this committee followed the best Indian practice of satisfying all stakeholders with a recommendation or two. 
Why Secretary, DSIR is left out of the Board of AIM??

Climate Smart Agriculture- ecourses from World bank

Several E-courses are offered by World bank to understand more about Climate Smart agriculture.
Read: World Bank

ETSI Vs IEEE on Standard Essential Patents (SEP)

IEEE  updated its SEP policy, introduced Smallest Saleable Unit (SSU) policy for determining a reasonable royalty rate in a licensing deal. Patent owners did not like it. Now, Standards-setting organisation the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) has said that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) intellectual property rights policy is incompatible with its own.
Different Standard Setting Organisations, ETSI, ITU, IEEE have varying influences on royalty on FRAND  terms. 
Read: Perkins primer

Methodology: Ranking the World’s Most Innovative Universities

Reuters list of top 100 innovative universities has 2 Korean institutes, 1 from China and nil from India. The criteria used will give us an idea of distance to be traveled to get into the top 100.

The list was reduced to just those institutions that filed 70 or more patents. Each candidate university was then evaluated using various indicators such as:

 Patent Volume

(Source: Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Innovations Index0
The number of basic patents (patent families) filed by the organization. This is an indication of research output that has a potential for commercial value. The number is limited only to those patents that are registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Patent Success
(Source: Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Innovations Index)
The ratio of patent applications to grants over the assessed timeframe. This indicates the university’s success in filing applications that are then accepted.
Global Patents
(Source: Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Innovations Index)
The percentage of patents for which coverage was sought with the U.S., European and Japanese patent offices. Filing an international patent is an expensive and laborious process and filing in multiple countries or regions is an indication that the invention is considered to be nontrivial and has commercial value.
Patent Citations
(Source: Patents Citation Index)
The total number of times a patent has been cited by other patents. As part of the patent inspection process, the patent office examiner will cite significant prior art. The number of times a patent has been cited is an indication that it has an impact on other commercial R&D.
Patent Citation Impact
(Source: Patents Citation Index)
This is an indication of how much impact a patent has had. Because it is a ratio (or average), it is not dependent on the size of the organization. Note that the indicator Percent of Patents Cited (listed below) is closely related to this indicator, therefore these two indicators are given half the weighting of all others.
Percent of Patents Cited
(Source: Patents Citation Index)
This indicator is the proportion of patents that have been cited by other patents one or more times. As mentioned, it is closely tied to the Patent Citation Impact indicator.
Patent to Article Citation Impact
(Source: Patents Citation Index, Derwent World Patents Index, Web of Science Core Collection)
Similar to Patent Citation Impact, this indicator measures the average number of times a journal article has been cited by patents. This unique indicator demonstrates that basic research conducted in an academic setting (as recorded in scholarly articles) has had influence and impact in the realm of commercial research & development (as measured by patents).
Industry Article Citation Impact
(Source: Web of Science Core Collection)
Article-to-article citations are an established indicator of influence and research impact. By limiting the citing articles only to those from industry, this indicator reveals the influence and impact that basic research conducted in an academic setting has had on commercial research.
Percent of Industry Collaborative Articles
(Source: Web of Science Core Collection)
The percentage of all articles of a university that contain one or more co-authors from a commercial entity. This indicator shows the percentage of research activity that is conducted in collaboration with industry, suggesting potential future economic impact of the research project jointly undertaken.
Total Web of Science Core Collection Papers
(Source: Web of Science Core Collection)
The total number of journal articles published by the organization. This is a size-dependent measure of the research output of the university.

World Intellectual Property Report 2015

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

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

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

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

DEMAND DRIVEN INNOVATION: LEARNING FROM CHINA

In India, we think preferential treatment to local innovation is stupid economics and sinful global behavior. How did the Chinese manage to support local innovations with a public procurement policy consistent with international treaties? Some excerpts from the PhD Thesis of Radomir Tylecote.

• The Chinese government has created demand-side innovation policies to help give indigenous innovators a favourable environment, including procurement preference for domestic innovative products, and technical standard-setting.
• In 1992, Beijing published the Government Procurement Law, mandating (with exceptions) that government procurement purchases should be limited to domestic products , with support for enterprises used to support those which purchase domestic high technologies.
• In public procurement, the World Trade Organisation’s Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) does not apply to all government procurement, and GPA coverage to each member state is based on negotiation (WTO members are not yet required to join the GPA, and China is currently negotiating GPA accession, meaning it can include preferences for domestic goods and companies in state procurement practices.
• Procurement policy was reinforced from January 2005, as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the Opinion on Accelerating the Large Company Strategy in the Electronics and Information Industry, stating that support should be provided “to the leading large companies”.
• In 2009 the Circular on Carrying out the Work on Accreditation of National Indigenous Innovation Products, (a.k.a. Circular 618, by MOST, the NDRC, and the MOF) created a national-level “catalogue” of preferred procurement products in the six high-tech areas of computing and application equipment, communications, modern office equipment, software, new energy, and high-efficiency and energy-saving products.
•   An upgraded catalogue following the Circular listed 240 forms of industrial equipment in 18 areas that Chinese firms are encouraged to manufacture, to upgrade China’s manufacturing base, including solar PV. Participating firms were offered subsidies and tax incentives, alongside priority in procurement. 
• This was followed in November 2009 by the Indigenous Innovation Product Accreditation Policy, whereby state-procured products had to contain Chinese IP. Beijing’s municipal procurement catalogue contained 42 products and just one from a foreign-invested manufacturer; Shanghai’s had 258, with two from foreign-invested firms; Nanjing’s list had none. 
• These initiatives have been pursued in different ways by different levels of state. Procurement has built a platform to take Chinese firms from early innovation to market entry, and demonstrates a more direct approach among local government, and province-level cities in particular (the four major municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing) in supporting their high tech firms.

·       The indigenous IP issue fizzled out in 2011, but it had become entrenched in many people’s minds.

Innovation Fair-Egypt, 8-10th March 2016

After the great success in the Exhibition "Egypt invents 2015", sponsored by Beni Suef University, The Egyptian Inventor Syndicate and International Federation of Inventors' Association (IFIA), are organising "Egypt Invents 2016, a wholly integrated invention fair providing inventors from all over the world with comprehensive information on the commercialization of inventions, patent information, and technology transfer.

Contact:

Hebatalrahman11@yahoo.com

Hebatalrahman11@gmail.com

00201226020076

0020223634880

registration

http://egyptianinventorss.wix.com/egyinventorsyndicate

Indian Innovators can also send poster for display. 

Electronics Development Fund (EDF) policy

As part of the “Digital India” agenda of the Government, it is envisaged to develop the Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector to achieve “Net Zero Imports” by 2020. Setting up of Electronic Development Fund (EDF) is one of the important strategies which would enable creating a vibrant ecosystem of innovation, research and development (R&D) and with active industry involvement. It is with this objective that an Electronic Development Fund (EDF) is set up as a “Fund of Funds” to participate in professionally managed “Daughter Funds” which in turn will provide risk capital to companies developing new technologies in the area of electronics, nano-electronics and Information Technology (IT). The EDF will also help attract venture funds, angel funds and seed funds towards R&D and innovation in the specified areas. It will help create a battery of Daughter funds and Fund Managers who will be seeking good start-ups (potential winners) and selecting them based on professional considerations.

Target Beneficiaries:

Any Daughter Fund which is registered in India and abides with relevant rules and regulations applicable to such Funds, including SEBI regulations on Venture Funds and is set up to achieve the objectives mentioned above will be eligible for support from the EDF.

Fund Manager:

CANBANK Venture Capital Funds Ltd. (CVCFL) http://www.canbankventure.com/ is the Fund Manager for EDF. The role of the Fund Manager of EDF is to consider requests from applicant Venture Funds, Angel Funds and Seed Funds and make recommendations to the Department of Electronics and IT, Government of India. The CVCFL will also be participating in the individual beneficiary Daughter Funds based on the approval of the Department of Electronics and IT.

Time Lines:

The requests for seeking participation by EDF in any Venture Fund, Angel Fund or Seed Fund must be made on or before 31.03.2017

Contact Details:
CVCFL

Shri S. Thiruvadi, MD, CVCFL, md@canbankventure.com. Fax: +91-80- 25583909

­Shri P. Sitaram, Executive Vice President, CVCFL, sitaramp@canbankventure.com
DeitY
Shri Prashant Kumar, Scientist-‘D’ prashant@deity.gov.in

Proposal for expedited examination of Patent application

DIPP issued notification inviting comments on several amendments to patent law. One of the proposed change relates to expeditious processing of patent application when:

• the applicant in the international application designated Indian Patent office as International Searching Authority.
• the applicant, assignee or licensee already starting manufacturing the invention in India or
• undertakes to commence manufacturing in India within 2 years from the date of grant of aptent.

Read for Details

India attracts USD 24 billion as R&D investment in 2015 from North America and Europe based MNCs

Asia becomes the top region for corporate R&D spend, according to the 2015 Global Innovation 1000 Study, from Strategy&, PwC’s Strategy Consulting Business. 
Report highlights:

•  In 2015, R&D spending by the Global Innovation 1000 increased 5.1% to $680 billion.
• Globalization increasingly becomes the norm , 94% of firms conduct R&D beyond just their home country,
•  Asia has become the top destination for corporate R&D spend in 2015, accounting for 35% of total in-region R&D, including both domestic and imported R&D. This places Asia ahead of North America and Europe, who dropped to third, in a complete reversal from 2007 when Europe was the previous leader.
• The U.S. remains the largest spender of in-country corporate R&D, with in-country (domestic & imported) R&D spend at $145 billion in 2015, up 34% since 2007. Imported R&D spend to the U.S., mostly coming from Europe, in 2015 is $53 billion, up 23% from 2007. Exported R&D spend in 2015 is $121 billion, up 51% from 2007, predominantly going to Asia where previously in 2007 it was going to Europe.
• The three largest industries for R&D Spend in 2015 are computing and electronics (C&E), healthcare and auto. In particular, healthcare is on track to pass C&E as the largest industry by R&D spend by 2019.
• The largest spenders by region have remained the same, but where they spend their R&D has changed . In 2015, almost half of all R&D spend came from North American companies, but only about a third of all R&D was actually done in North America. 
• R&D ( domestic and MNCs) in China increased by 120% (2007 to 2015) to $billion surpassing Japan's R&D spending of $50 billion. India's R&D spend at $28 Billion is higher than Southkorea $ 13 Billion, and Taiwan's $ 6 Billion.
• China’s imports of R&D from multinationals headquartered in other countries were $44 billion in 2015. The U.S. led in exports of R&D to China in 2015, accounting for 39 percent of inflow, followed by Japan (20 percent) and Germany (10 percent). Survey respondents cited proximity to a high-growth market as the top reason for moving R&D to China (71 percent), followed by proximity to key manufacturing sites (59 percent), proximity to key suppliers (54 percent), and lower development costs (53 percent). 
• Total corporate R&D conducted in India increased 115 percent between 2007 and 2015, to $28 billion. The growth was powered by R&D spending from other countries, which grew 116 percent. India, not surprisingly, is the largest global destination for software R&D. Multinationals that have moved R&D to India cite a variety of reasons for the move, and cost is often not the most important. “Our tech center in India gives us an around-the-clock capability to accelerate development work due to the time difference with the U.S'.  “The highest priority was access to technical talent that was in close proximity to regional customers. The fact that some of the labor is lower-cost was nice to have, but not a primary driver".
• USA based MNCs spent 43% of their R&D budget at home, another 15% in India, 15% in China, 9% in UK.

Royalty Payments by Maruti- importance of stage in Technology Life Cycle

IiAS has brought out a  report on royalty payments by Maruti, IiAS examined Maruti’s royalty payouts in the context of revenues, margins, and research and development (R&D) spends, and concludes that Maruti’s royalty payouts are extortive.Maruti has been paying royalty to Suzuki for its car manufacturing technology since inception. Over the past five years (2010-11 to 2014-15), Maruti’s aggregate payout towards royalty was Rs.118.7 bn while the 5-year profit before tax (PBT) aggregated Rs. 167.7 bn (Table 1). In 2014-15 alone, royalty expenses aggregated 36% of profit before tax and royalty. While royalty to Suzuki per car sold is Rs 21,414/- Maruti's R&D per car produced is only Rs 3600./-This argument of royalty extortion was countered by Financial Express. The paper defended the high royalties on several grounds, primarily the company’s tremendous performance vis-a-vis peers and second capital appreciation and dividends that the stock returned to investors.
Looking beyond shareholders benefits
We have no comments on what is good or bad for majority shareholders or minority shareholders. From a national perspective, we need to ask the question- how does market leader in automobiles behave in China? Do they still pay royalties for petrol/ diesel powered cars? The Chinese planned for the future, invested heavily in batter technology, acquired startups where required and based on the strength in Battery technology, they negotiate as grown ups.  A case in point is all-electric Denza car in China  produced by BYD Auto in a joint venture with Daimler.

Patents and Royalty payments are indicators of technology diffusion. Market leaders are also expected to invest in technology generation. What is required to wean away cash rich market leaders like Maruti from their old parents? 

Technology Tipping Points 2015

World Economic Forum report concludes several technologies are nearing tipping point. In March 2015, the Global Agenda Council on the Future of Software & Society launched the Technological Tipping Points survey. Based on the council’s discussions over previous months, the survey asked respondents for their views on 21 “tipping points” – moments when specific technological shifts hit mainstream society. Aiming to provide a snapshot of expectations from a community of over 800 executives and experts from the information and communications technology sector, the survey asked respondents for their perception of when these tipping points would occur, offering date ranges from “it has already happened” to “20+ years”. The option of “never” was also available. A total of 816 responses were received. Predictions:

2018-Storage for All 
2021-Robot and Services
2022-The Internet of and for Things,  Wearable Internet,  3D Printing and manufacturing.
2023 -Implantable Technologies, Big Data for Decisions, Vision as the New Interface,  Our Digital Presence
2024 -Ubiquitous Computing, 3D Printing and Human Health, The Connected Home 
2025 -3D Printing and Consumer Products, AI and White-Collar Jobs, The Sharing Economy
2026 -Driverless Cars,  AI and Decision- Making ,  Smart Cities
2027-Bitcoin and the Blockchain Manufacturing,

From Indian perspective hype on Smart Cities is interesting. The tipping point defined as the first city with more than 50,000 inhabitants and no traffic lights is expected by 2026. These smart cities will manage their energy, material flows, logistics and traffic. Progressive cities, such as Singapore and Barcelona, are already implementing many new data-driven services, including intelligent parking solutions, smart trash collection and intelligent lighting. Smart cities are continuously extending their network of sensor technology and working on their data platforms, which will be the core for connecting the different technology projects and adding future services based on data analytics and predictive modelling.  The city of Santander in northern Spain has 20,000 sensors connecting buildings, infrastructure, transport, networks and utilities. The city offers a physical space for experimentation and validation of functions, such as interaction and management protocols, device technologies, and support services such as discovery, identity management and security.