Powai - home to IIT Bombay, and Gurgaon and Bengaluru can be the innovation hubs for the six billion people that inhabit the developing world, stated Union Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha on Friday.
Mr. Sinha was addressing the inaugural function of Global Business Forum (GBF), an initiative of IIT Bombay Alumni Association which kicked off at the Goa University on Friday.
The event was inaugurated by Prof. Devang Khakhar – Director, IIT Bombay in the presence of Mr.Sinha, Mr. Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Environment, Forest and Climate Charge and Mr. Manohar Parrikar, Minister of Defence.
“In order to encourage innovation in India, we need to invest in Indian start-ups that address Indian problems. As a market we have tremendous opportunities in India, and the same innovations are finding markets in other economies too. The way we see it, these factors place our future in our own hands,” said Mr. Sinha.
Mr. Prakash Javadekar who spoke about ‘green shoots of technologies that will solve problems in the water sector’ said, “Access to clean water is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity today, and the problem is particularly daunting for the underdeveloped and developing economies.
“ In order to encourage innovation in India, we need to invest in Indian start-ups that address Indian problems. ”
The Silicon Valley based entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr. Romesh Wadhwani set the tone for GBF 2015 by presenting a playbook during his keynote address, titled “Accelerating India’s economic and job growth
simultaneously’. Says Dr. Wadhwani, “GBF 2015 is a far-reaching initiative of my alma mater, IIT Bombay, and will go a long way in proposing an integrated policy agenda that leverages India’s demographic dividend. This is a great beginning and promises to be biggest and most ambitious forum for a dialog between government, industry and academia driving the nation’s growth.
Designed as a multi-disciplinary platform, GBF will focus on technological innovations in products and services with an objective to transform dialogues into insights, insights into agendas, and agendas into impact.
GBF 2015 will conclude on Sunday and will have participation from key Union Ministers, 200+ industry partners, 50+ patrons, 50+ global experts and 1500+ attendees.
The objective of GBF is to create an ecosystem that fosters technology innovations and converts them to marketable products. The event will showcase 235 innovations and products from the IIT Bombay community, including students, alumni and faculty.
