Innovation - An Indian Perspective
WHAT ROLE CAN INDIA PLAY IN THIS ERA OF INNOVATION?

Interview with Arindam Banerjee

Any other thoughts/views you would like to share with our readers?

I think the most important aspect of the next few years for India is to focus on a few specific things:

• For us - Focus on improving the odds for Indian scientists to succeed.

• For the Government of India - Improve the quality of engineering, science and medical education provided by second and third tier colleges and universities.

• For state governments - Use government funds to encourage VCs and financial institutions to invest in rural technologies and innovation in areas that help India as a whole.

• For the media - Journalists and media outlets need to push Indian companies and their CEOs to innovate more- especially the CEOs of larger companies.

• For NGOs and industry c o n s o r t i ums-R e w a r d scientists and professors who create new ideas significantly- even if they are part of Government of India research institutions.

• For our industry consortiums - Create high level groups in Industry consortiums (CII, FICII, etc.) to help co-ordinate key areas of research, such as in smart materials- CII, FICCI, NASSCOM must step up to the plate and deliver measurable results in enabling innovation in India.

• For Indian executives - Get India, Inc. to invest more in R&D-even if you have to go hire the right people, even if you have to take that extra risk, even if you have to take that extra hour away from your short-term goals.

• For Indian teachers - Focus on teaching your students intellectual arrogance, tell them that they can come up with world-changing ideas. Our teachers, even at the IITs do not teach us this.

• I will repeat, the most important issue is to improve the odds for Indian researchers and scientists, and many groups, subgroups and individuals have a role to play, in this.

• For executives, my parting message would be: Do not wait for innovation to happen, do not wait for the government to come and help you.

• Innovation in the small must start with you-it must start with steps taken by individual executives at small and large companies. Small baby steps taken by individual executives will lead to the kind of watershed innovations that we dream about.

• In the end, innovation is about our attitude.

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