Lively discussions and spirited Q&A sessions marked the first day of the ‘1st India Conference on Innovation, Intellectual Property & Competition’, hosted by the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
Offering an overview of the conference objectives, Dr Chirantan Chatterjee, Chair of the Conference Organizing Committee and Faculty Member at IIM-B, said: “We live in an ever mutating and transforming world. Economic historians point out that while in the 17th century innovators had their ears cut off instead of winning accolades, today everyone, globally, is a worshipper of ideas and innovation. And why not, when climate change and models of development are playing havoc with our mega-cities at one end while young intrepid entrepreneurs are brimming with ideas at the other. These contrasts are not just India’s story but also of the world. And the only solution here might be that of ideas.”
Speaking on the big challenges and a sustainable start-up ecosystem in India, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd., explained that the future for any developing country belonged to its ability to innovate new solutions for old problems. “India has a host of challenges to solve. The country needs new ideas, new business models and new technologies. We are at a point where the people have become aware of the importance of intellectual property (IP) and the value it creates, and of the importance of innovation as possibly the only way to tackle the problems we face today.”
Arguing that the country needed a virtuous cycle of investment, innovation and value creation backed by policy change, she said: “Our IP is not commensurate with the scientific and engineering talent in the country. That is because we built our entire economic growth pattern by mimicking and imitating other peoples’ IP. We created important sectors and global scale generic companies. Now the time has come to us to really look beyond. Only innovation can lead to non-linear growth and non-linear job creation that India needs.” Her observations set the stage for Tarun Khanna, Professor from Harvard University, who has just submitted to the PMO the Report of the Expert Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship .
“India is a great experimental lab and Bangalore which hosts nearly 30% of approximately 3000 start-ups in the country is a great place to learn about the eco system of first generation entrepreneurs but aside the Bangalore bubble, does India still prefer jobs in MNCs? Entrepreneurs here need a financial and a psychological safety net and there is a mind set against failure which needs to be addressed,” explained Khanna. “India needs to provide immediate and intense stimulus, create an enabling environment and address the cultural context to nurture entrepreneurship. We need to evaluate incubators. Few are successful, most are not. We need to retire the ones that are not valuable, help the good ones mature and release resources for new ideas,” he said.
Incubators and Academic Institutions
Addressing the importance of merging science and business, Khanna said: “Incubators need to be connected to academic institutions. We need to break the poor equilibrium to catapult incubators to a completely different level, where there is actual conversation between science, research, insight and practice. Changes need to be made to move towards a culture of measurement and a culture of experimentation, to create IP that takes the longer view, and to trigger interest in the financial community, which will boost innovation.”
Earlier in the day, after lighting the inaugural lamp, Dr Ishwar Murthy, Dean Faculty, IIMB, welcomed the delegates and participants to the conference, with a brief overview of the research and innovation ecosystem offered by IIM Bangalore. Dr Sourav Mukherji, Dean of Academic Programmes, IIMB, shared statistics on India and Innovation and set the tone for the meet by observing that the two-day conference could prove to be the starting point of a much-needed conversation between academia, business and policy in the country.