CNBC-TV18
Updated Jul 13, 2011 at 11:49am IST
ehind every big movement lies the germ of a great idea, behind every change the power of a thought now be it governance, society or our systems, changes can only began with an idea.
It is to plan these ideas that the nation innovation council is working. The council has set itself the five prompt approach to introduce all round innovation across platform, inclusion drivers and ecosystem. What does all this mean is what we have explored in the series: India Unlimited With Sam Pitroda.
The model of innovation will encourage widespread innovations in products, services, processes and create transformative innovation at all levels. The tool in the hand of The National Innovation Council or NIC is the Unique Identification Number being created by the UIDAI headed by Nandan Nilekani.
UIDIAI as a platform
Established in 2009, The Unique Identification Authority of India or the UIDAI is presently in the process of giving out the UID or AADHAR cards. The 12 digit number which is to be linked to a person’s demographic and biometric information can be use by individuals to identify themselves across the country in order to access a host of benefits and services.
AADHAR is guarantee of uniqueness and centralized online identity verification promises to be the basis for building multiple services and applications. These 12 digits could well be a ray of hope for tomorrow's India while serving as the perfect platform for the national Innovation council to implement its ideas.
"UID is an instrument to document our residence and citizens. Today we really don’t have a framework to document each individual in the country either your passport, your driving license, you have may be you know ration card, so on an average you have ten ID's so UID gives you one number for one person and one person to have one number.
It then matches you with your face, finger prints, iris, address, and birth-date whatever. So when you move that number moves with you and sort of in a sense gives you identification," explained Sam as he shared how the Innovation Council and UIDAI are related in their purposes.
But what kind of vision does the Innovation council have to spawn Innovation, Arun Maira, Member of the Innovation Council has some insights. "Many entrepreneurs, many innovators, many local leaders bring in change about; this is happening in some parts of the country like other things are happening in the country too.
What we have to do as a country is to push to make happen more of the model that we like, one that suited to us, to our aspirations and to our conditions and this model of entrepreneurs, innovators, local leaders, people making good things happen which will be good for not just themselves but for even people around themselves is a way of bringing about change in this large system called
India which will produce benefits for the people in this fourth model of fireflies arising since they by their initiative are producing results.
They are already participating in the growth, its not that they are waiting for the pie to be made and then all little bits of the crumbs of the pie to be given to them. They are making the pie, they are employing themselves they are or being employed and growing incomes themselves and change around themselves in thus producing the growth of economy in an inclusive passion so we need a as I said a inclusion in the approach we take, I am sorry an innovation in the approach we take to our development let say the model of entrepreneurs, innovators, local leaders, fireflies arising. So we set good that’s what we got to stimulate, an ecosystem of entrepreneurship, innovation, local leadership"
Just as fireflies carry their own lamp, such is the spirit of innovation that the innovation council wishes to implement.
They are small, yet independent. The National Innovation Council wants to encourage, brilliant minds people who create their own solutions and share their light with those who wish to fly with them.
With the deeper penetration of technology India now is able to provide a suitable environment for innovation. With the revolution of mobile technology connectivity is no longer a problem. Identification is also on its way to being sold with the AADHAAR initiative. It is on these two engines that the National Innovation Council is looking to drive forward its models of innovation.
Sam Pitroda explains: These are various platforms we want to create to be able to benefit from IT revolution that bring some structures, processes, discipline, openness, accountability, transparency and at the same time open the government systems, today government systems are closed.
A co-member of NIC, Saurabh Srivastava adds: Innovation is to find a fundamentally different way of doing something. In a way that has major impact, across society and across people, it has a major impact on changing lives. So innovation is as much about changing a business process, its more about changing a business model, its more about how you may sell differently, how you may produce differently, it isn’t only about a new technology and when we start to look at that than we began to understand what is happening across the world in different countries.
The country is replete with examples of grass root level innovation where people, with limited resources have created solutions for their own problems. Anil K Gupta who is at the helm of the organizations like Sristi, Gyan and the Honeybee Network and who also heads the National Innovation Foundation is also a member of the National Innovation council. According to Gupta, “We scout through the collaborators, Honey Bee Network collaborators; we scout innovation and traditional knowledge. We find whether how many of them are unique, because not all of them are unique then we add value to them by linking with the formal science and technology, we file patents and we also have a macro venture innovation fund with the help of SSIDBI.
Arun Maira adds: "The job of the National Innovation Council at its heart is to stimulate innovations everywhere, entrepreneurship everywhere, leadership everywhere not the top buffaloes or the peacocks or the tigers, it’s all of us, many of us being so. So we are to create an ecosystem or to help create an ecosystem in which entrepreneurs, innovators, local leaders can rise and flourish. If we take that is, that is what our challenge is what would be things that we need to do to make the ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship flourish. We have looked into that when I am go to name out 5 or 6 things that were located when we had done the scenarios of how India could have faster growth which apply also to the task of the National Innovation Council, the first is people need to be stimulated with the possibility that they could be changers themselves. It won’t have to wait for someone high, could be myself stimulator and innovator. So giving to people the aspiration, inviting them to be leaders, innovators, changers, so evangelizing for this is one task that the National Innovation Council is pursuing".
Evangelizing innovators and empowering them with the basic support to have them fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams is also a significant initiative being taken by the National Innovation Council, but before all that can take place, there are some crucial infrastructure needs that need to be addressed in the country: "Get GIS map out through out the country, computerize all our court cases, connect all our universities, schools, libraries, hospitals to broadband network. Develop lots of applications, provide secure network and provide this infrastructure."
Arun Maira further says: "Someone as he starts with an idea needs some support in the early days, a little kid who starts to want to do something needs some guidance may be need some support some tool to be able to grow that idea further. So we have recognized that the availability of say like finance at the very early stage when the person’s idea is small not yet proven and need some support we don’t have system that provide such financial support easily to innovators, to entrepreneurs in our country yet. I mean we are funding say small enterprises but when after they form and got an account and they go to the bank with the account at that stage but most entrepreneur are not at that stage yet, I mean they hopefully become that stage but not their stage. So we need something like angel funding, something even smaller than angel funding to handhold these smaller entrepreneurs to the point at which the more formal systems of landing can start excepting them and then it take an over so then you take them from being too small to the stage where they can now participate in the more formal system where is micro landing or whatever it is after that.”
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD of Biocon who is also a member of the Council says, “In a country like ours we have a plethora of necessities which need to be addressed and it is here where the country has enormous opportunity to innovate, to leapfrog, to basically develop affordable and sustainable innovations that can meet these challenges that we are facing today. Come on let me who has been very focused on certain types of innovation where we are trying to address health challenges that the country is faced with, I think we have found that there are wonderful ways to innovate."
So, how can we help support these fledgling ideas, how can every Indian think differently and walk the path of progress. We need to stop complaining and start acting to take India to unlimited heights, we will bring you more questions and more answers in the weeks to come on India Unlimited with Sam Pitroda, don’t forget to send us your own original ideas and solutions to: Indiaunlimited@network18online.com.
Follow Sampitroda on Twitter @ pitrodasam.
Interviews and Script By: Sharmila Bhowmick, Senior Producer, CNBC TV
The tool in the hand of the National Innovation Council is the Unique Identification Number.
It is to plan these ideas that the nation innovation council is working. The council has set itself the five prompt approach to introduce all round innovation across platform, inclusion drivers and ecosystem. What does all this mean is what we have explored in the series: India Unlimited With Sam Pitroda.
The model of innovation will encourage widespread innovations in products, services, processes and create transformative innovation at all levels. The tool in the hand of The National Innovation Council or NIC is the Unique Identification Number being created by the UIDAI headed by Nandan Nilekani.
UIDIAI as a platform
Established in 2009, The Unique Identification Authority of India or the UIDAI is presently in the process of giving out the UID or AADHAR cards. The 12 digit number which is to be linked to a person’s demographic and biometric information can be use by individuals to identify themselves across the country in order to access a host of benefits and services.
AADHAR is guarantee of uniqueness and centralized online identity verification promises to be the basis for building multiple services and applications. These 12 digits could well be a ray of hope for tomorrow's India while serving as the perfect platform for the national Innovation council to implement its ideas.
"UID is an instrument to document our residence and citizens. Today we really don’t have a framework to document each individual in the country either your passport, your driving license, you have may be you know ration card, so on an average you have ten ID's so UID gives you one number for one person and one person to have one number.
It then matches you with your face, finger prints, iris, address, and birth-date whatever. So when you move that number moves with you and sort of in a sense gives you identification," explained Sam as he shared how the Innovation Council and UIDAI are related in their purposes.
But what kind of vision does the Innovation council have to spawn Innovation, Arun Maira, Member of the Innovation Council has some insights. "Many entrepreneurs, many innovators, many local leaders bring in change about; this is happening in some parts of the country like other things are happening in the country too.
What we have to do as a country is to push to make happen more of the model that we like, one that suited to us, to our aspirations and to our conditions and this model of entrepreneurs, innovators, local leaders, people making good things happen which will be good for not just themselves but for even people around themselves is a way of bringing about change in this large system called
India which will produce benefits for the people in this fourth model of fireflies arising since they by their initiative are producing results.
They are already participating in the growth, its not that they are waiting for the pie to be made and then all little bits of the crumbs of the pie to be given to them. They are making the pie, they are employing themselves they are or being employed and growing incomes themselves and change around themselves in thus producing the growth of economy in an inclusive passion so we need a as I said a inclusion in the approach we take, I am sorry an innovation in the approach we take to our development let say the model of entrepreneurs, innovators, local leaders, fireflies arising. So we set good that’s what we got to stimulate, an ecosystem of entrepreneurship, innovation, local leadership"
Just as fireflies carry their own lamp, such is the spirit of innovation that the innovation council wishes to implement.
They are small, yet independent. The National Innovation Council wants to encourage, brilliant minds people who create their own solutions and share their light with those who wish to fly with them.
With the deeper penetration of technology India now is able to provide a suitable environment for innovation. With the revolution of mobile technology connectivity is no longer a problem. Identification is also on its way to being sold with the AADHAAR initiative. It is on these two engines that the National Innovation Council is looking to drive forward its models of innovation.
Sam Pitroda explains: These are various platforms we want to create to be able to benefit from IT revolution that bring some structures, processes, discipline, openness, accountability, transparency and at the same time open the government systems, today government systems are closed.
A co-member of NIC, Saurabh Srivastava adds: Innovation is to find a fundamentally different way of doing something. In a way that has major impact, across society and across people, it has a major impact on changing lives. So innovation is as much about changing a business process, its more about changing a business model, its more about how you may sell differently, how you may produce differently, it isn’t only about a new technology and when we start to look at that than we began to understand what is happening across the world in different countries.
The country is replete with examples of grass root level innovation where people, with limited resources have created solutions for their own problems. Anil K Gupta who is at the helm of the organizations like Sristi, Gyan and the Honeybee Network and who also heads the National Innovation Foundation is also a member of the National Innovation council. According to Gupta, “We scout through the collaborators, Honey Bee Network collaborators; we scout innovation and traditional knowledge. We find whether how many of them are unique, because not all of them are unique then we add value to them by linking with the formal science and technology, we file patents and we also have a macro venture innovation fund with the help of SSIDBI.
Arun Maira adds: "The job of the National Innovation Council at its heart is to stimulate innovations everywhere, entrepreneurship everywhere, leadership everywhere not the top buffaloes or the peacocks or the tigers, it’s all of us, many of us being so. So we are to create an ecosystem or to help create an ecosystem in which entrepreneurs, innovators, local leaders can rise and flourish. If we take that is, that is what our challenge is what would be things that we need to do to make the ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship flourish. We have looked into that when I am go to name out 5 or 6 things that were located when we had done the scenarios of how India could have faster growth which apply also to the task of the National Innovation Council, the first is people need to be stimulated with the possibility that they could be changers themselves. It won’t have to wait for someone high, could be myself stimulator and innovator. So giving to people the aspiration, inviting them to be leaders, innovators, changers, so evangelizing for this is one task that the National Innovation Council is pursuing".
Evangelizing innovators and empowering them with the basic support to have them fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams is also a significant initiative being taken by the National Innovation Council, but before all that can take place, there are some crucial infrastructure needs that need to be addressed in the country: "Get GIS map out through out the country, computerize all our court cases, connect all our universities, schools, libraries, hospitals to broadband network. Develop lots of applications, provide secure network and provide this infrastructure."
Arun Maira further says: "Someone as he starts with an idea needs some support in the early days, a little kid who starts to want to do something needs some guidance may be need some support some tool to be able to grow that idea further. So we have recognized that the availability of say like finance at the very early stage when the person’s idea is small not yet proven and need some support we don’t have system that provide such financial support easily to innovators, to entrepreneurs in our country yet. I mean we are funding say small enterprises but when after they form and got an account and they go to the bank with the account at that stage but most entrepreneur are not at that stage yet, I mean they hopefully become that stage but not their stage. So we need something like angel funding, something even smaller than angel funding to handhold these smaller entrepreneurs to the point at which the more formal systems of landing can start excepting them and then it take an over so then you take them from being too small to the stage where they can now participate in the more formal system where is micro landing or whatever it is after that.”
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD of Biocon who is also a member of the Council says, “In a country like ours we have a plethora of necessities which need to be addressed and it is here where the country has enormous opportunity to innovate, to leapfrog, to basically develop affordable and sustainable innovations that can meet these challenges that we are facing today. Come on let me who has been very focused on certain types of innovation where we are trying to address health challenges that the country is faced with, I think we have found that there are wonderful ways to innovate."
So, how can we help support these fledgling ideas, how can every Indian think differently and walk the path of progress. We need to stop complaining and start acting to take India to unlimited heights, we will bring you more questions and more answers in the weeks to come on India Unlimited with Sam Pitroda, don’t forget to send us your own original ideas and solutions to: Indiaunlimited@network18online.com.
Follow Sampitroda on Twitter @ pitrodasam.
Interviews and Script By: Sharmila Bhowmick, Senior Producer, CNBC TV
The tool in the hand of the National Innovation Council is the Unique Identification Number.
