INNOVATION :THE WAY FORWARD
INNOVATION: THE WAY FORWARD
Nikunja Bhari sahu
Find time to read these stories abuzz in media: an entrepreneur designs shoes that expand as children grow to earn lakhs a month, an Assam man’s 3D Startup brings old memories to life raising Rs 10.5 crore funding, Coimbatore woman’s smart wheelchair with self-cleaning device bagging Rs 1 Cr on Shark Tank, Farmer’s innovative tree scooter helps climb Areca trees in a few second saving money, Brother-sister duo are using drones to help farmers triple their income, Scientist builds Solar Hamam to provide warm water to thousands in frigid Himalayas, Engineer’s solution for Pad Disposal cuts 2 Lakh kg carbon emissions a day winning Rs 30 Lakh . All these achievements have a common feature behind them : Innovation!
Innovation is a method to adapt to new challenges by changing to new products and processes with the help of technology to meet the requirements of time. There is a difference between invention and innovation. In an invention, a completely new thing, hitherto unknown, is created whereas in innovation incremental technological changes are incorporated with the existing product. For example, the telephone was an invention made by Graham Bell in 1876 to send and receive voice calls over short distances through copper cables. However, due to the advent of an industry driven society hungry for faster data handling and transmission, the structure of the device has undergone revolutionary changes over time to culminate into today's most versatile and user friendly smart phones. Historically, man's ability to survive can be traced back to crucial inventions from fire to the wheels to agriculture amongst other things. However, over the years, our design of wheels, method of creating fire and the kind of agricultural practices have drastically changed to meet new challenges of life. Similarly, the new demands in recent years have pushed forward to seek for emerging technologies in the field of Cyber Security, IoT, AI , Block-chain, Robotics, 5G, Quantum computing, 3D printing, Metaverse and Drones among other things because of man's incessant quest for innovation and improvisation for better efficiency and use. The Covid pandemic was a classic example of how innovation in different fields could pave way for path-breaking discoveries to manage our daily life chores during the most difficult lock-down periods.
India is among the fastest-growing economies globally and innovation has played a critical role in achieving this status. India's Unicorn club is booming as is the overall Startup landscape. Home to an impressive 107 Unicorns with a total valuation of a whopping $ 340.79 bn, India has emerged as the third largest ecosystem for Startups globally (after US and China) with over 77,000 recognized Startups as of 2022.
Though India still has a long way to go to become a leader in developing cutting-edge, path-breaking and innovative technologies for catching the world market, the ecosystem that fosters innovation and sustainability has already been established for a take-off. India must gear up its strategy through policies and programs that are inclusive and sensitive to the aspirations of the country so that an innovation-driven and knowledge-based economy could be developed. Although in India, sectors such as IT, Communication and Pharmaceuticals have established themselves as global hubs in innovation and research , the country needs to do a lot in sectors such as Agriculture, AI, Computer hardwares and Infrastructure building to catch consumers in world market.
One of the major factors that mars innovation in India is the dismal performance of its R&D sector. In India, R&D investment has been relatively low. In the past few years, R&D investment in the country has declined from 0.8 % of the GDP in 2008–09 to 0.7 % in 2017-18. This is lower than the other BRICS nations: Brazil spends about 1.2 %, Russia about 1.1 %, China just above 2 %, and South Africa around 0.8 %, with the world average being about 1.8 %. On the other hand, developed countries like the United States, Sweden, and Switzerland spend about 2.9 %, 3.2 % and 3.4 % respectively. Among all nations, Israel spends the most, 4.5 % of its GDP on R&D. The reason for the low spending on R&D India is that most investments in R&D take time to produce results. In a country like India where there are bigger issues like hunger, education and heatlth-care to contend with, resources are often diverted towards mitigating them. However, these pressing concerns shouldn’t be viewed as stumbling blocks; rather an opportunity to widen the ambit of R&D so as to come up with solutions to such issues. Further, there is a relatively low private participation in the R&D sector in India which is also another key hindrance in country's overall low performance.
Secondly, the number of medium and large manufacturing firms in India is far less compared to small sized firms (having less than 50 employees) where R&D is not often recognised. This structural set-up causes a number of stigmas in areas of productivity, economy of production costs and innovation and research as for a path-breaking discovery, a conducive infrastructure with skilled manpower is a prerequisite.
Thirdly, the Indian manufacturing sector is highly a labour-intensive setup where it is feared that a switchover to innovative methods of automation would displace labour from the market to generate more unemployment in the country's massive labour force. However, this is not always true as innovation has the capacity to generate new jobs as well.
Fourthly, we are not able to channelize the potential of our vast young populace to covert to our assets . Most bright students and engineers tend to migrate to Western countries to join big companies in prospect of better earnings, job security and career opportunities. For example, 36% of NASA scientists, 34% of Microsoft employees, 28% of IBM employees and 27% of Intel employees are Indians. A right ecosystem to prevent this brain drain should have ushered in a more vibrant culture of innovation and research in India.
Fifthly, academic research in our universities and labs should be oriented in line with our market demands and should be closely tied up with industries not just for financial support and patronage, but also for marketing of their products.
Finally, In India, patent and trademark filing processes for intangible assets like creative works, scientific research, discoveries, new softwares are complex and face substantial procedural delays. According to the Economic Survey 2021-22 of India, the average pendency for final decision in acquiring patents in India is 42 months as of 2020. This is much higher than 20.8, 20, 15.8 and 15 months respectively for the USA, China, Korea and Japan respectively.
This is also evident from the fact that China has now outpaced India in innovation and intellectual capacity although both nations started almost at the same time. China went up from rank 35 (2013) to 14 (2019) in the Global Innovation Index, while in this period, India went from 66 to 52 standing nowhere when China was in 2013. This can be attributed to China's more business-friendly Special Economic Zones (SEZs), labour-friendly business, more aggressive private partnership system and vastly improved infrastructure.
Govt. of India has made a lot of initiatives to promote the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country through a number of flagship programs like Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), Startup India and Make in India programs. Incubation centres have been established across the country to provide space for budding entrepreneurs and young minds to translate their innovative ideas into viable business propositions with minimum risks. However, a lot more is to be done in this regard to transform India to stand on its innovative talents as a world destination for products and technologies.
Education Officer
Regional Science Centre
Bhopal
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