The Prime Minister’s Office will take on the task of identifying and nurturing an idea with the potential to be an Indian enterprise equivalent of Google or GE.
The plan is part of the proposed overhaul of the innovation ecosystem in the country under the Atal Innovation Mission and follows Prime Minister Narendra >Modi’s meeting with Google CEO Sundar Pichai in the U.S. last month.
Earlier, in his >Independence Day address , Prime Minister Modi had made a call for “Startup and Stand-Up India”.
“The organisation will identify critical path breaking innovations where it would actively pursue implementation in coordination with the NITI Aayog and the Prime Ministers office,” an expert committee on the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has recommended in its report, a copy of which was accessed exclusively by The Hindu .
“Some examples of these special initiatives are…nurture an idea to be an enterprise tomorrow equivalent to an Indian GE or a Google through innovation, research and creative destruction,” the expert committee recommended.
The government will formulate guidelines for the Mission on the basis of the report, an official source told The Hindu.
The AIM will provide the framework to the government for encouraging and promoting self-employment as a career option for young people for whom India needs to generate 115 million non-farm jobs over the next decade, according to the report.
The AIM seeks to combine innovators from universities, consultants and private sector enterprises with those in government. Recognising the “urgent need for disruptive change”, the committee has recommended that the AIM promote lab culture, bring cross-functional expertise together to brainstorm and agree on a solution, and not solve problems in a sequential and hierarchical way.
It will also create capacity and measures and indicators for measuring success in implementation as well as accomplishing the objectives, according to the report.
According to the recommendations, the Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog will serve as the chairman of the board of the Mission. Directors on the board will include Secretary-level officials from the Ministries for skill development, industry and commerce, IT, finance, science & technology and agriculture.
In addition, the board will also have independent directors who will be chosen from outside the government.
The board will also have a Chief of Innovation or an MD who will have to have prior exposure to government working as well as 5-7 years experience in a global company, fund or research institution.
The AIM would have four working groups to execute the different functions to perform various activities related to innovation.
The first group, Idea and Networks, will institutionalise collaboration among national and international academia and civil society.
The second group, Angel Funds will be a fund of funds and will ensure effective venture capital and angel funding for innovations and disruptive ideas.
The third group, Governance Innovation, will be responsible for bringing leading international practices of good governance and encourage intrinsic innovation for solving daily governance challenges.
Finally, the Missions (or Special Initiatives) group will take ideas from concept to implementation, with targeted outcome based approach with support from all levels of governance.
