Innovation and technology should be used to address the basic needs of the country and these can bring in social development, BVR Mohan Reddy, chairman of Nasscom, said here on Friday.
He was speaking at the inaugural of ICTACT Bridge 2015, organised by ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, here on Friday on “Innovate for Make in India”. Mr. Reddy urged the participants to look at innovation in education, create a start-up ecosystem and use technology to address several basic requirements.
About 55 per cent of global outsourcing comes to India and it is only growing year-to-year.
The right environment should be created to encourage innovation. “We need to promote entrepreneurship so that job creation does not become a challenge,” he said.
In order to create more jobs, the country should have more innovators and start-ups and the youth need to be trained to become entrepreneurs.
There should be innovation hubs and the incubators in the hubs need mentors. The Nasscom also has plans to encourage start-ups. There is tremendous change in technology and the change is rapid. Technology is the driver for internet of things. In the long run, India’s competitiveness will come from knowledge economy, he said.
According to Ashutosh Vaidya, chief delivery officer of Dell Services, many customers for Indian IT industry say that what attracted them to the Indian companies was cost but what made them continue with these companies is the quality of the service offered. “It will grow because of innovation and value addition.”
The Nasscom is trying to collage data on companies that provide innovation and value addition.
The starting point for innovation is ideas and usually people are reluctant to share their ideas. Organisations should create an environment where innovative ideas are acknowledged and encouraged. It will bring in collaboration too. Students who have knowledge of technology should also gain domain knowledge so that they are able to apply the technology for different sectors. “Make in India will happen only then. We should move from people who do what is told to people who are able to co-create,” he said.
P.V. Ravi, chairman of Park Group of Institutions, urged students to think differently and to have a desire to succeed.
Efforts towards innovation in any field can be successful if the initiatives are supported by the Government, he said.
M. Sivakumar, chief executive officer of ICTACT, said the academy had expanded to 12 more States and focuses on faculty and skill development and entrepreneurship development.
It has opened a regional office in Madurai and opened one here on Friday. It plans to organise summits in Madurai, Coimbatore and Chennai this year.
The academy also presented the student innovation awards on Friday. Over 2,400 projects were received for the awards under five major categories.
