Importance of innovation, incubators in India\'s startup culture highlighted

HYDERABAD: Highlighting the importance of innovation and policies in strengthening the startup culture in India, Col. Anurag Awasthi, Vice President, India Electronics and Semiconductor Association & Interim CEO, Electropreneur Park Delhi, on Thursday, moderated the plenary session on “ Policy and Innovation” on the second day of the Public Policy Dialogues being held at ISB Hyderabad campus.  

Speaking at the plenary session, Dr Sapna Poti, Director, Strategic Alliance Division, Office of Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India, said, “The startup culture in India is a mix of good and bad eggs. On one hand, a substantial number of startups are generating massive employment opportunities, on the other hand, there are some fly-by-night startups which disappear after initial rounds of funding.”

 “There is still a greater need to have quality incubators in the country to mentor startups for innovation”, she added.  

Dr Vijaya Lakshmi Nadendla, Joint Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, GOI, spoke on the importance of innovation in agriculture and how technology is driving agriculture forward.

She said, “Technology has been leading every aspect of agriculture. Right from high-quality seeds to sowing technologies, irrigation, harvesting, storage, and post-harvesting, technology is the catalyst in completing the value chain in agriculture”.

Highlighting the need to bridge the linguistic gaps, accessibility of funds, between policy implementors and innovators at the grassroots level, Dr. Anamika Dey, CEO, Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN), said, “Many times the innovations at the grassroots level do not see the light of the day as there are linguistic barriers. Vernacular languages are extremely crucial in promoting startup culture among grassroots level innovators. The innovators at the grassroots level are often less educated and have minimum awareness levels. There is a need for policymakers, and corporates to bridge this gap and work towards generating awareness amongst the grassroots level innovators about funding ecosystem as well at various stages of innovation”.  

Mr. Bharat Lal, Director General, National Centre for Good Governance (NCCG), shared anecdotes from his journey as a policymaker and highlighted the importance of policy-making process and how effective governance plays an essential part in policy making and implementing process.  

A roundtable was also organised by the India Data Portal (IDP), an initiative of BIPP- ISB to make open data easily accessible to all. Prof. Ashwini Chhatre, Executive Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, said, “The pandemic inadvertently showed the power of collaborative work to make data not just usable but useful too. In the post-pandemic era, it is critically important to pick up conversations among multiple stakeholders in the context of data”.

The session focused on the critical need and importance of the knowledge and skillset to know what data is worth extracting and what is not, given the huge volume of data being produced. The experts also dwelled on the initiatives being taken up by the government in the form of open data portals to meet the growing demand for usable data. Domains experts from think tanks, academics, researchers and policymakers also discussed the challenges such as lack of a central portal for accessing data, standard naming format and the issues faced in comparing data across diverse datasets.

Earlier, Ms. Smita Parkash, Editor-In-Chief, Asian News International (ANI), spoke during the session on the “Role of Media in Governance & Public Policy”. She said that the media could be a positive tool in influencing public policy instead of being a silent spectator and can instead be an active participant in the policy making deliberations by bridging the communication gaps between the policymakers, researchers, and citizens.  

An Innovation Sandbox video presentation session also took place with five selected proposals. The sandbox presentations covered varied subjects such as responsible migration, climate smart agriculture, sustainability, rational use and reduction of wastage of medical oxygen during the second COVID-19 scheme and the national pension scheme.