When Innovation is the name of the game

1 Mar, 0048 hrs IST, Meenakshi Kumar, TNN

Innovation never got more interesting. Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief of MIT’’s Technology Review which organises EmTech, says there is a “rising sense of opportunity and innovation” and this is why the meet will “spotlight innovations from large multinationals as well as emerging companies based in India.”
It all adds up. According to a report by Dow Jones VentureSource, $874 million was invested in 80 deals in India in 2008. It was a thumbs-up for the Indian entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. Tarun Anand, whose company The Perfect Future aims to make primary education less boring, says, “While investors have withdrawn their funds in start-ups globally, they haven’t touched their funds in India.”

Anand, who studied at IIT Kanpur and worked at Microsoft, returned to India to launch his own start-up. It provides a host of services, such as online student assessment tools and interactive question-answer exams on the web and mobiles. Today, it’s being used by 80,000 Indians. The West, agrees Anand, is looking at India with growing interest.

But how best to take technology to the common man? Pontin says that “technology holds the promise to help us work more efficiently, improve our health, and restore our environment. (But) none of that is possible unless the technologies make their way out of labs and corporate settings and into our everyday lives.”

But can India make a habit of producing world-class technology? Not really, says Harish Mehta, chairman of Onward Technologies Ltd. “In a country where doing business is so difficult, how can we expect innovations to flourish?” Mehta, who’s also a member of Indian Angel Network, a group of investors keen to invest in early stage businesses, adds that many ideas come up but there haven’t been “any breakthrough innovations.”

But many believe Mehta is unnecessarily pessimistic. Anand says, “First, we should have technology which is India-class before it becomes world-class.” Swamy says we have to re-define ‘breakthrough’. A solar-powered lantern produced in India could be a breakthrough innovation for other developing parts of the world, he points out, adding “India is the perfect test lab for the world.”

 

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