The many bright spots on India’s innovation horizon
Recognising the potential, the government is putting in place a framework of collaboration, facilitation and regulation
Amitabh Kant &
Satwik Mishra
I
nnovation rearranges existing
elements into permutations
and combinations that benefit
society. In his Brāhmaphuta-
siddhānta, Brahmagupta’s marvel-
lous take on his innovation of zero
was, “A debt minus zero is a debt.
A fortune minus zero is a fortune.
A debt subtracted from zero is a
fortune. A fortune subtracted
from zero is a debt. The product of
zero multiplied by a debt or for-
tune is zero.” The Indian innova-
tion of zero fundamentally reor-
dered history. The novel
coronavirus pandemic provides
an opportunity for similar reor-
dering for posterity.
Realistic potential
India is a fertile ground to be a
technology-led innovation garage.
It is the fastest growing country in
terms of Internet usage, with over
700 million users and the number
projected to rise to 974 million by
2025. The JAM trinity ( Jan Dhan,
Aadhaar, Mobile) trinity has 404
million Jan Dhan bank accounts
with 1.2 billion Aadhaar and 1.2 bil-
lion mobile subscribers. There is a
potential to add over $957 billion
to India’s GDP by 2035 with artifi-
cial intelligence (AI), according to
a recent report by Accenture.
Innovation in India is being
structured around the triad of col-
laboration, facilitation and res-
ponsible regulation. It is advanced
by cross-disciplinary collabora-
tion. In his famous essay, ‘I Pencil’,
Leonard Read brings forward the
wonder of collaboration between
people cutting trees, mining gra-
phite, working in factories, mar-
keting, designing and managing,
just to produce a single pencil. offers a voice-based AI product serve Bank of India, Securities and
Innovation is a recombinant that can understand up to 10 In- Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
and brings tangential benefits dian languages and around 160 and the Insurance Regulatory and
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through products and services dialects. It is helping build virtual, Development Authority of India
that may not even have been its in- smart, responsive and effective allow for regulatory sandboxes for
itial purpose. The founders of chat assistants suitable for diverse piloting new ideas. The Telecom
Twitter had set out to make a plat- Indian consumers. Regulatory Authority of India
form for people to find podcasts; (TRAI) has recently introduced re-
Instagram was first intended to be Many incentives commendations for regulating
a sign-in application; CRISPR, or Innovation needs risk capital in cloud services in India, suggesting
the clustered regularly inter- terms of resources and psycholog- a light-touch regulation in collabo-
spaced short palindromic repeats, culture, finance, education and ical security for researchers. It ration with industry, balancing
which is the transformative gene smart mobility. needs an environment where it is commercial freedom and princi-
editing tool, was partly being re- safe to fail. The government has ples adherence.
searched for fixing problems in Start-up disruptions been building a comprehensive
the yoghurt industry. It won this This focus on celebrating innova- framework to this end. It is incenti- A better life
year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry. tion has led to several start-ups vising research and development Walter Isaacson once cited this:
The realistic potential of technolo- disrupting the Indian market. The with several schemes such as Inno- “Advances in science when put to
gy for India resonates in the ‘Ama- recent winners of the ‘Digital India vation in Science Pursuit for In- practical use mean more jobs,
ra law’ named after Roy Amara, a AatmaNirbhar Bharat Innovate spired Research (INSPIRE) scho- higher wages, shorter hours, more
Stanford computer scientist, who Challenge’ (https://bit.ly/3jer2QV) larships, the Ramanujan abundant crops, more leisure for
said that “People tend to overesti- Chingari with its video communi- Fellowship, the Knowledge Invol- recreation, for study, for learning
mate the impact of a new technol- cation tools and MapMyIndia with vement in Research Advancement how to live without deadening
ogy in the short run, but to under- its elaborative maps, ‘Logically’, through Nurturing (KIRAN) drudgery which has been the bur-
estimate it in the long run.” with its news delivery features are scheme, Smart India Hackathons den of the common man for past
October 2020 saw two disrup- becoming household names. Fur- (SIH), Atal Innovation Mission ages.” Innovation has the potential
tive events that were organised by thermore, Setu, true to its name, is (AIM), the Biotechnology Ignition to build a future where AI will
the Government of India for col- building a bridge to bring banks to Grant (BIG) scheme, setting up of transform education and health
laborative knowledge creation. At people. It has built an application the Future Skills PRIME (Pro- care, machine learning and block-
the Vaishvik Bharatiya Vaigyanik programming interface which al- gramme for Reskilling/Upskilling chain will make commerce robust
(VAIBHAV) summit (https:// lows customers to make small tick- of IT Manpower for Employability) and resilient, clean energy will
bit.ly/35aC3O8), which was inaug- et payments without going to the capacity building platform and al- drive our economy, gene-drives
urated on October 2, more than bank. Yelo is offering neo-banking so the triad of Scheme for Trans- would exterminate invasive and
3,000 overseas Indian-origin aca- payment and money transfer ser- formational and Advanced Re- harmful species, gene-editing
demicians and scientists from 55 vices online for workers in the gig search in Sciences (STARS), would help us bring back extinct
countries, and about 10,000 In- economy. Niramai (or Non-Inva- Scheme for Promotion of Academ- species and reinvigorate depleted
dians participated to ideate on in- sive Risk Assessment with Ma- ic and Research Collaboration ecosystems, quantum computing
novative solutions to our challeng- chine Intelligence) uses an AI- (SPARC) and Impactful Policy Re- will raise our processing capability
es. The Prime Minister articulated based thermal imaging portable search in Social Science (IM- to resolve challenges which seem
this spirit of knowledge sharing tool that carries out non-invasive PRESS). The National Mission on insurmountable and augmented,
while inaugurating the summit; he breast cancer screening for wo- Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical and virtual reality will optimisti-
called it “a true sangam or con- men for early detection. This in- Systems aims to ‘catalyse transla- cally change the way we interact
fluence of great minds” where “we tervention is of great importance tional research across “Al, IoT or with the physical world.
sit to form our long-lasting associa- as an estimate suggests that one in the Internet of Things, Machine Steam engines made us under-
tion for empowering India and our two affected women in India die Learning, Deep Learning, Big Data stand thermodynamics, flights
planet”. The concluding session due to late detection. Qure.ai uses Analytics, Robotics, Quantum made us understand aerodynam-
has been planned on October 31. AI for health-care diagnostics in Computing, Data Science”. ics. There is ‘in-deed’ merit in re-
This has been concomitant to the rural India, tackling challenges Furthermore, the government lentless focus on innovation as it
Responsible AI for Social Empo- such as tuberculosis and now CO- has been actively facilitating col- essentially augments ease of living
werment (RAISE) 2020 summit VID-19. Gramophone offers pric- laborative and light touch regula- for citizens, dematerialising and
(https://bit.ly/2IN0Dx4), which ing information from mandis, ad- tory practices to promote innova- democratising products and ser-
was from October 5-9. It was to vice on soil and crop health and tion and incentivise risk-taking. It vices.
charter a course to effectively use access to agricultural inputs via has increasingly relied on collabo-
AI for social empowerment, inclu- micro-entrepreneurs to farmers in ration, communication and crea- Amitabh Kant is CEO and Satwik Mishra is
sion, and transformation in key Madhya Pradesh, aiding their op- tivity, taking the route of standard a Young Professional, respectively, at NITI
sectors such as health care, agri- eration efficiency. Vernacular.ai and principles adherence. The Re- Aayog. The views expressed are personal