India Is Innovation
This symposium was organized by Microsoft on 9th October 2007 at the Leela Palace,
Bangalore.
Mr Ravi Venkatesan:MICROSOFT
He said that India has been an Innovative Society and that sustained economic progress
would be possible only by continuous innovation. The 3 steps in realizing innovation are
Igniting Innovation,Making it more Pervasive and Sustenance.
Workforce development of the labour force consists of 2 aspects.
 The development of vocational skills
 The development of intellectual skills
He also said that that IP driven Innovation in India needs to mature.
He said that Microsoft’s policy towards innovation in India is
Innovating from India,For India,With India
The examples of such innovation by Microsoft are the MultiMouse System, Split Screen
and the SMS server.
Microsoft has been a part of
Project Shiksha: Train teachers which in turn results in training of students
Project Vikas:A project for the National Manufacturing Cluster Commission for the
support of the Tirupur garment export industry.
He also stressed the importance of innovation in the Rural context and in the SME
sector.He said that the existing efforts for innovation in these sectors need to converge.
He finally spoke about the opening of the MICROSOFT INNOVATION CENTER at
Pune.
Mr Arun Mehra : Chairman BCG
He said that Human Aspiration is to create democratic societies and governments. He
said that Development and Freedom meant the access to Capital and Knowledge for
everybody.
He said that Harvard Business School had cases from India i.e The Dabbawalas, EChoupal, and Tech farms that illustrated Innovation.He said that the dabbawalas are an
example of Innovative Enterprise and Governance.
Mr Udai Pawar
Demonstration of the Simultaneous Shared Access PC’s
He said that this was one of the results of the research for technologies applicable for
Emerging markets.
He also spoke about the MultiNode(Multi Mouse) system for collaborative learning in
government schools.
He also showed the Multi Console system which is an illustration of Sharing in Space
rather than Sharing in Time.
Mr Rajashekaran Pillai: Vice Chancellor IGNOU
He spoke about Innovation for Quality Education Delivery.
He said that the 3 goals for India in Education are
 Universal Literacy
 Universal School education opportunity
 Opportunity for Higher Education
Literacy is defined as the ability of an individual to read, write and count.
He said that in developed countries over 85% of the children complete school education
and the teacher-student ratios there is 1:30.But for India to realize this student: teacher
ratio is currently difficult due to the acute shortage of trained teachers.
The initiatives of IGNOU are
 Teacher Capability building i.e train untrained teachers.
 School leadership management programs i.e How to build and manage
schools?
 Information and Communication technology for schools
 Information and Communication technology for colleges
 Content creation training
 EDUSAT
 Certification of prior learning
 Set up Chair for sustained development at MSRRF chaired by
M.S.Swaminathan.
 Development of IGNOU repository
 Translation of English content to other vernacular languages.
Ashok Ganguly-Chairman RBI
His talk focused on innovation in small and medium sized enterprises.
He said that innovation can happen more easily in SME’s because of their agility. The
inhibitors of innovation in SME’s are
 Low Leadership
 Hyperjargonism of IT
 Transactional issues of IT and SME
Innovation intensity can be defined as the % of business i.e less than 3 years old.
He said that Microsoft’s new product for individual health management is an excellent
example for innovation.
Ramgopal Subramani:Aztecsoft
He demonstrated a vendor management system called V-Serve developed for the
Garment Industry in Tirupur.He said that the challenges for SME’s to implement IT was
basically Affordability of the IT solution and the ROI on it.
He said that the rental subscription was preferable to a high initial cost based system.
Panel Discussion 1:
Mr A.Shakthivel-Tirupur Exporters Assocation
He said that the garment export industry consisted only of the SME’s and that there are
no large players in it currently. The Tirupur garments exports have grown from 15 crores
in 1985 to 11500 crores in 2007.The challenges for this industry are ensuring productivity
and improving the quality of workforce.
Mr Sadagopan-IIITB
He said that, in India innovation occurs in the most unexpected ways.
He mentioned the innovative use of waterproof barcode tags for the management of the
logical queue in Tirupathi.The cost of these tags is 10 paise. The innovation here is
lowcost,easy to use and reliable. The barcore tags are now replaced by Biometric system.
He also mentioned the E-Hundi and the E-Survellance as examples of innovation.
He also spoke about a company Robosoft on the Mangalore beaches and Naviplay ,a
company in Bangalore.His message was that innovation can be done anywhere.
Mr Sadagopan opined that maintenance of systems and businesses is going to generate
most of the jobs in the future.
Mr Shrikant Rao_Affordable Business Solutions
He said that innovation requires that everybody in the company can see the big picture
and how their work fits in the larger scheme of things. He also stressed that change
management in SME’s required innovation.
Mr Daniel Levin: Moderator-Microsoft
He stressed that training in application and business process is important. He asked if
today’s graduates are sufficiently trained in application of technology.
The group opined that new ways of training millions of people in different sectors needs
to be devised.
Other remarks:
Current status of innovation in educational set-ups would improve with more corporate
contacts.
The education system in India is suffering from lack of teachers at all levels.
For really small vendors the key to success is going the mobile way.
A course on maintenance and process engineering.
Prof Parameshwar Iyer opined that Problems should chase Solutions rather that the
current scenario where solutions are chasing problems.
Panel Discussion 2:
Mr Ajit Balakrishnan: Rediff.com
He defined Innovation as less of something of the past rather than more of something of
the future.He gave the following examples
The first car which was introduced as a Horseless Carriage.
The first modern painting which was a painting lacking the 3rd dimension and therefore a
dimensionless painting.
The Editor less website which moderates itself and the quality of content in it.
He said that new technology has to be presented to consumers in the way they are
familiar with.
The digital camera which need not be in the shape of a case but it still resembles the old
cameras .
Mr P.Anandan:Microsoft
He gave a demo of the following technologies developed at Microsoft Research.
Surface Computing:A surface that does not distinguish between virtual and real objects.
Virtual Viewpoint Video:
Photo Tourism:A collection of a large number of photos of places giving different
dimensions and viewpoints of the same place.
Mr Kishore Biyani:Future Group
He said that there are 3 classes of India i.e
India 1: The consumer class -12%
India 2: The class serving the consumer class-50% to 55%
India 3: The class which is struggling to meet its own daily needs.-33 %
He spoke about the practice of encouraging Innovation in his organization and gave the
following points.
 Usage of only Scenario Planning techniques rather than case study approach.
 Promote Design management techniques that require using both the sides of the
brain i.e the logical and the creative sides.
 Recording trends i.e looking of cultural, social and political impacts on the sales.
 Set up of the innovation and incubation group.
 He spoke of the analogy of film-making to innovation.
Lights-Idea generation; Camera-Observation; Action-Prototyping; RetakeImprovisation; Blockbuster-Rollout of new product.
 He said that learning by doing is encouraged in his organization.
 The reference model for innovation should be the consumer and his needs.
The panel concluded the discussion with the following remarks
Ajit said that it is the best time for entrepreneurship today.
Anandan said that it is important to think and innovate for the future.
Kishore said that India is a Land of opportunities today.
Discussion: Research and Innovation by Craig and Mashelkar
Mashelkar: The advantages of India for innovation are Democracy, Diversity and
Demography
India became a democracy in 1947.Liberalisation happened in 1991 and brought in
competition. These 2 events have fostered innovation.
India he said has been a hesitant innovator till now. He quoted that “Innovator sees what
everybody sees but thinks what nobody else thinks. He doesn’t know that something
can’t be done”. He said that it is important to focus our energies on the goal and that
convergence of goals will bring about leadership. He opined that the role of a teacher is
to help a student discover himself and his potentials.
Craig: He said that the Innovative Engineer rather than the Pop star or Cricketer should
be celebrated. He said that it is important to celebrate Engineering Innovations since
these have the power to drive the future. Popularity driven decision making in
democracies can bring democracies down. Entertainers and Athletes are not the future of
the world. It is Science and Technology that will help the country progress.
Networking
Mr Venky Rao of Satyam spoke about the KM and Innovation practice at his
organization.He said that the 3 C’s of Km are Culture,Commitment and Connect.
He said that Satyam has a Ideas Portal into which new ideas can be entered by everybody
in the company.The 4 classifications of Innovations within Satyam are
1. Business Model Innovation
2. Process Innovation
3. Technical Innovation
4. Execution Innovation