New patenting norms may put India's software innovation into sleep mode

Patenting of software applications could virtually become impossible in the country if the draft guidelines on computer-related innovation come into force. The rules, the first ever for software applications in the country, were recently issued by the patent office and mandate each new software to be "machine-specific" and packaged with "new hardware" to qualify for a licence. Technology experts argue the guidelines defeat the very objective of most software applications - to be hardware agnostic and interoperable.

Also, implementing such a premise for software patenting may force Indian companies to file for patents abroad and adversely affect multinational technology companies' India plans.

Ron Somers, president of the US-India Business Council, goes so far as to say that the guidelines are not only inconsistent with major patenting jurisdictions like the European Union, the US and Japan but run contradictory to India's own international trade obligations. "We note that the guidelines may implicate the WTO (World Trade Organization) agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual  Property Rights (TRIPs)," he told the Indian Patent Office in a signed letter, reviewed by Business Standard.

It is imperative for high-value services and products to be patented. This protects the 'idea' against theft, besides acting as a crucial differentiator in an industry that is becoming highly competitive, say experts. "The software ecosystem in the country is just about taking off right now and such guidelines could scuttle it in its infancy," said Vipin Aggarwal, chair of the Business Software Alliance's (BSA's) India committee for 2013.

Industry associations like BSA and Nasscom, along with companies like TCS, have put in representations before the Controller General of Patents Designs and Trademarks, calling the guidelines "restrictive" and a "hindrance" to the patent regime in India.

There has been a steep increase in filing for patents in the country over the past couple of years - about 9,000 a year as of 2011.

Patents related to electronic and telecom products have also seen a significant jump. Scores of technology start-ups getting born each day are finding a lot of interest from angel investors and venture capital funds, too. According to Nasscom statistics, "the number of patents filed by Indian IT organisations grew at an annual rate of 78 per cent over the past three years and the cumulative patent filing by top three Indian IT companies increased to 858 in 2012 from 150 in 2009".

Seeking amends, Nasscom said in its representation that the "no-new-hardware-no patent" approach, if adopted, would render all software-based innovations non-patentable. "This will not only erode the competitiveness of companies with primary business in India but, over a period, discourage innovative activities from being carried out in India." Most Indian companies were already obtaining patent protection for their products in the US and EU jurisdictions, it added. "The patent ecosystem in India should nurture the software industry by adopting a receptive approach to establish a culture of innovation."

BSA is of the view that the norms would have a "deleterious effect on the emerging software sector in India, as well as on investment in the country from multinational software companies." Allowing patents for hardware but not software encourages development and implementation in hardware instead of software. "So, it is strange to encourage old technology and not a new one - the very opposite of the purpose of the patent system."

An official of the Indian Patent Office said the guidelines had been prepared in line with the recommendations of Parliament's standing committee. However, it had received feedback on the rules from various bodies and would "review" the concerns. According to experts, the guidelines do not appear to be consistent with TRIPs' Article 27.1, which relates to the patentability of computer-related inventions and says patents shall be available for inventions in all fields of technology, assuming they satisfy the other criteria for patentability, such as novelty, inventive step and industrial application.

However, an IPR expert points out that most companies are perturbed with the term computer programme "per se" used in the draft guidelines and, though they may not violate the agreement, the suggested rules add to the existing ambiguity around patenting software applications in India. The Indian IT industry had seen a rapid growth over the past decade and a balanced approach to patentability of computer-implemented inventions, in line with the practice in other major patenting jurisdictions, would further boost growth, especially in software, said Somers in his remark.

"We encourage further thought to be given to the guidelines and India's obligations with respect to Article 27 of the TRIPs agreement."

Frugal innovations to keep India healthy

From a smart medicine pack that keeps a tab on a person taking tuberculosis medicines to technology that identifies the right blood vessel for an intra-venous procedure, innovations are now coming in small packages.

 

And research competitions are challenging these “Edisons of tomorrow” — students, scientists and entrepreneurs — by encouraging them to think-up novel solutions in healthcare.

 

Prototype development

Take the ‘Grand Challenges in Tuberculosis Control’ programme for instance. Winners get $30,000 as a grant for six months to develop a prototype. And those who scale this challenge get $100,000 each to integrate the innovation into India’s healthcare system.

The TB-control challenge, an initiative from IKP Knowledge Park, has the US Agency for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as partners.

Big innovations are required and will continue, but the idea here is to open opportunities for effective, high-volume and low-cost solutions, says Gopichand Katragadda, Chairman and Managing Director of GE India Technology Centre (GE-ITC). GE’s Edison Challenge gives the winner a Rs 10-lakh grant, and the runner-up, Rs 5 lakh.

 

Exposure to market

The challenge gives university research an exposure to market needs, as perceived by the industry, he says, adding that GE would be open to absorbing an innovation that “fits the bill.”

Globally, such initiatives are not unknown. In fact, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, collectively founded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, among others, also looks to russel up the excitement around science and research.

One of the 15 recipients of IKP’s first round of funding for TB-control solutions is Bill Thies, a researcher with Microsoft Research India. His team’s innovation helps ensure that a patient takes the TB medicine regularly and without the direct supervision mandated in the Government-run system.

The innovation involves giving numbers, hidden behind the pills in a strip of TB medicines. On taking the medicine, a four-digit code is revealed to the patient, who has to combine it with a six-digit number printed on the pack and give a missed phone call to that number. And this gets captured at the monitoring end.

TB control falters, since patients default on taking their medicines regularly. Thies’ team’s innovation seeks to plug this gap. The grant money goes to Innovators in Health, a non-profit organisation in Bihar that partners and co-evaluates the initiative, says Thies.

In the GE Edison challenge, this year’s winner was a mobile application to diagnose skin cancer and related abnormalities from IIT (Kharagpur). And last year’s runner-up, Vellore Institute of Technology’s VeinLoc (blood-vessel detector), has taken the innovation a step further, by applying for a patent.

The five-year Edison challenge encourages awardees to continue interacting with mentors at GE — a no mean exposure — since GE’s centre at Bangalore is its largest multidisciplinary research, development and engineering centre outside the US.

 

Intellectual property

Explaining the academia-industry misfit, Katragadda says universities are flush with funds, but are not tied to deliverables and market insight. Besides, there are trust issues between universities and the industry on matters such as intellectual property.

The Edison challenge looks to bridge the gap, by including interactions with technology resource persons and angel investors, to awaken researchers to market-place realities.

Africa's first start-up bus hits the road

Imagine a bus, jam-packed with uber-geeks from different countries, taking on a four-day brainstorming marathon across Southern Africa.

Well, imagine no more because it has just become a reality.

 

Founded by Elias Bizannes in 2010, StartupBus is a voluntarily run programme by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs who are devoted to problem-solving around the world through technology.

StartupBus has completed several journeys throughout Europe and the US since 2010, and now for the first time it has touched African soil, completing 1,500 miles from Zimbabwe to South Africa.

"I'm very excited about StartupBus Africa because the growth potential of Africa is enormous and we have had a huge interest," says Fabian-Carlos Guhl, co-conductor of StartupBus.

More than 200 people applied and from them only 30 entrepreneurs were chosen - the ones with the most proven track record - along with 10 mentors.

'In Africa, for Africa'

The organisers believe an initiative like StartupBus can really flourish in Africa - a continent that is in the midst of a technological revolution.

StartupBus co-conductor Chris Pruijsen explains why the bus is oiling the wheels of creativity

While most business opportunities for satisfying basic needs have been exhausted in Europe, Africa is still thirsty for solutions to all kinds of problems, such as access to healthcare, education and electricity.

And, according to StartupBus co-conductor Chris Pruijsen, mobile technology is where most of the answers lie.

"We can do a lot more here with mobile technology than we could in Europe. In Europe people just don't use their mobile phones in the same way as here."

He adds that it is not about the West coming to solve Africa's problems, but about "the innovation that we do together - Africans and people from the West, in Africa and for the African continent".

'Tangible demo'

StartupBus Africa 2013 began its journey in Harare and stopped over in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein, before finishing up in Cape Town.

In each of these cities local industry experts were invited to take part in the activity, creating a tech hub where thoughts and ideas could be exchanged in order to add local flavour to the experience.

The bus covered 1,500 miles across Southern Africa, starting in Zimbabwe and finishing in South Africa

On day one, competitors - or "buspreneurs" - had to pitch themselves to the rest of the group by making their individual experience and expertise known.

The bus was comprised of designers, developers and business experts. Once they had mingled and found skill overlaps, they formed teams of four or five members.

 

Over four days on the bus, each team had to identify and solve an existing, local problem by using technology - coding and collaborating as they travelled from one city to the next.

"We need a tangible demo at the end - a product that is actually marketable, testable and potentially even investor ready," says co-conductor Chris Pruijsen.

A lasting difference?

One of this year's competitors, Benedikt Wahler, and his team created an app called Greenback.

As Mr Wahler explains it, every time you donate money, view an advert on the app or make a purchase at participating sponsors, "you generate Greenbacks - points that will turn into energy hours for African families".

By doing the little things you do everyday - like shopping, booking a flight or using public transport - you can make a difference, he says.

"Buspreneurs" work as they travel and have to make use of what little workspace is available

Another start-up called Bribed created an app that pinpoints and aggregates the accepted amount to be paid for bribes within a certain area in order to avoid people being ripped off by officials.

At the end of the road trip, each team had to pitch their start-up idea to a panel of judges and investors, but there was no prize nor was there any guarantee that their start-ups would gain funding or investor interest.

So will the apps being created actually make a lasting difference?

Mr Pruijsen insists that the important thing about StartupBus is not the longevity of the apps being created, but that "everyone is in it to make a really good product and for the experience of building".

Mr Guhl adds that the real difference is what entrepreneurs take back to their communities once they get off the bus.

"They go back into the local communities in more than 15 countries and they bring back what they learnt on the bus in order to improve the lives of their people and become change makers."

Google Glass update lets users wink and take photos

 

Google said the wink feature could have various potential uses in future

Google has introduced a new feature to its Google Glass, which allows users to take a photo with a "wink of the eye".

Google said the feature was faster than the camera button or the voice action and works even when the display is off.

The update to Google Glass, dubbed version XE12, also adds a screen lock feature and the ability to upload and share videos on YouTube.

Technology firms have been keen to capture the wearable gadgets market, seen by many as a key growth area.

Google said the wink feature in its Glass could have various other uses in the future.

"Imagine a day where you're riding in the back of a cab and you just wink at the meter to pay," the firm said in a blogpost.

"You wink at a pair of shoes in a shop window and your size is shipped to your door. You wink at a cookbook recipe and the instructions appear right in front of you - hands-free, no mess, no fuss," it added.

Privacy concerns

The launch of Google Glass was accompanied with concerns over its impact on privacy. The worries were triggered by its potential to gather images, video and other data about almost anything a user sees.

Some have argued that privacy will be "impossible" if Google Glass and similar products become widely used.

Analysts said the ability to take a photo by just winking an eye would make it very difficult for people being photographed to notice that someone had taken a picture of them.

"It is a remarkable progress of technology and the possibilities of innovation around it limitless," Manoj Menon, managing director of consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

"However, it comes with new issues that we need to understand, not least the worries over security and privacy.

Firms have introduced a range of products in the wearable technology sector in recent months

"There needs to be discussion about how, and in what environments, gadgets like these can be used openly," he said.

Mr Menon added that as the technology behind these gadgets matures and companies push more for their mainstream adaption, regulations were likely to come into place "to govern their usage".

Potential growth

The wearable technology market is expected to see robust growth in the coming years.

However, analysts differ over the potential size of the market.

According to Juniper Research, the sector is expected to have annual sales of $19bn (£11.9bn) by 2018, up from $1.4bn this year.

Analysts at the bank Credit Suisse have been more upbeat and have suggested a figure of $50bn figure by the same date.

Research firm Gartner has been more cautious about its predictions. It has said it expects $10bn sales for 2016. But one of its analysts suggested the sector would grow more quickly if businesses decided to equip their workers with such technology.

Growing competition

A Japanese firm has showcased glasses that can translate menus

Google Glass is one of a number of wearable gadgets that have been launched by firms as they compete to take a a major share of the growing market.

In October, Nike launched its second generation wristband, Fuelband, which helps users track their physical activity.

In September, Samsung unveiled a smartwatch, Galaxy Gear, that can be used for voice calls and run apps.

Also in September, Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo demonstrated glasses that can translate a menu by projecting an image of translated text over unfamiliar characters.

Earlier this year, US-based Heapsylon said it was developing sensor-equipped socks that would help their owners monitor their balance while walking or running.

Meanwhile, Chinese firm Shanda, has unveiled the Geak Ring - a finger-worn device that can unlock a user's smartphone or pass data to others

Aggressive tax policies sending ‘wrong signals’, says Kiran Karnik

A good article on the challenges of the Indian IT Industry

 

The Centre’s policies and adverse attitude towards IT/telecom companies are turning out to be counter productive for the sector. Besides, issues such as taxation and frequent industry-government conflicts are sending out wrong signals, said Kiran Karnik on the sidelines of a CII conference.

Karnik, the former President of IT industry body Nasscom, is now a member of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and the National Innovation Council.

The whole “attitude” of the Government has turned “aggressive”. It has taken on corporates over taxation-related issues, imposing heavy penalties. This has not just hampered the industry but also strained its relationship with the Government, Karnik said.

“Government policies, to me, have been very counter productive. They have been more on how much revenues come to the Government. That’s now what the Government is all about. It’s about benefiting the people,” he said.

Referring to the IT-Telecom sector, he said, “Instead of now saying, how do I promote this industry, it is now how do I milk it?”

 

Taxation

Karnik said the Government’s aggression over issues related to taxation has “very definitely” sent out “wrong signals”.

“…Very definitely. The Government has to put in place a fair tax policy. But the general perception shared across the board (by both multinationals and small companies) is that they are very aggressive…” he said.

Significantly, the sufferers of the Government’s overdrive are not the “predatory wolves” or those who have the wherewithal to challenge the I-T Department’s tax calculations in a court of law. Rather, it is the smaller companies that lack resources for such a fight, pointed out Karnik.

 

Nokia tax case

Citing the Nokia tax issue as a case in point, Karnik maintained that it is a perfect example of mishandling the situation. Nokia’s Chennai factory, once considered a show-piece unit, is now facing possible closure if the tax issues are not resolved.

The I-T Department has said in court that the company owes it Rs 21,153 crore (including penalites).

“May be the demand (made by the I-T Department) is justified. But the manner in which they (the I-T Department) went about it and the timing is absolute disaster…” he said, adding that “the only alternative” -- if the issue remains unresolved – would be “to close the factory”.

“Suppose something happens, do you think anyone will come here (for hardware manufacturing) with this sort of example…” he asked.

 

Change in attitude

According to Karnik, the problem arose with the Government viewing the industry as a mature sector that could stand on its feet.

Following the various crises, including the scams and scathing CAG reports, the bureaucracy and the Government seem to be “backing off” from supporting the sector.

Pointing out the difference in attitude, Karnik cited the example of The Philippines which has gone out of its way to woo IT investments.

“The point is, every country around the world supports the winner. You have a potential winner and you back that. Why don’t we see that here is a sector (IT) in India that can lead the way,” he asked.

Romesh Wadhwani: The Renaissance Man

Award: Distinguished Non-Resident Philanthropist
Romesh Wadhwani
Age: 66
Why He Won: For creating institutional frameworks for entrepreneurship in India. The Wadhwani Foundation has created a resource network for young entrepreneurs to dip into and is working to get policy bottlenecks removed.
His Trigger: He wanted to focus on key issues like job creation.
His Mission: His Foundation aims to help create 15,000 to 20,000 startups, and half-a-million new jobs by 2022 and skill 5 million people.
His Action Plan: His model is based on leveraging financial resources from stakeholders —institutes, government, corporates—in the 10:90 ratio (Foundation:stakeholders).
His Next Move: To strengthen existing initiatives; work with government agencies to ease the process of setting up startups; improve the innovation grant environment and convince governments to include startups in their procurement policy.


It was the afternoon of January 25, 2012. Most researchers and faculty members at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore had gathered at the sun-lit colonnade to hear Romesh Wadhwani speak. The billionaire entrepreneur was there with his wife Kathy to inaugurate a new research centre named after his late mother Shanta Wadhwani. He made a brief address—he explained why he was investing in the centre that would pursue world-class research, an area in which India didn’t have much to talk about. After that, he pressed a key to remotely unveil the plaque. But it didn’t work. He turned to his hosts and softly said: “This is where you should be using an Apple [computer].”

He brought it up later again, only to realise that, as government institutions, many places like NCBS are bound by government rules, sometimes archaic and impractical. Buying an Apple computer for official work is unthinkable for the most part.

Wadhwani, after nearly a decade of intense philanthropic work in India, has come to appreciate this constraint. Which is why a small part of the endowment to the Shanta Wadhwani Centre is used for some seemingly trivial purposes, such as allowing a researcher to fly a foreign airline (Indian institutions can only reimburse Air India tickets) or paying for some technical lab work—like getting a genetic mouse model made in Germany—in foreign currency.

For a centre that is trying to do cutting-edge work in cardiac hypertrophy and brain development disorders, collaborating with global counterparts is the name of the game where even a tiny, but enabling, travel grant can make a huge difference.

The Shanta Wadhwani Centre may be the newest, and hence the smallest, initiative in the Wadhwani Foundation’s pantheon of programmes, but it epitomises Romesh’s style of philanthropy: Getting the microscopic and the telescopic view in one shot. “He is a renaissance man; it’s amazing how he can span the level of abstraction, from the big picture to nuts and bolts,” says K Srikrishna, executive director of National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN). A 10-year-old initiative of the Wadhwani Foundation, NEN is now entering its next decadal phase where it hopes to be a force multiplier in entrepreneurship.

The Sure Thing
Soon after Wadhwani entered the world’s rich club, primarily on the back of selling Aspect Development to i2 Technologies in 1999, he set up Wadhwani Foundation. He wanted to make sure he gave away a significant part of his wealth to help people in emerging economies where there is no well-established pattern or culture of philanthropy. At a time when biomedical research, education and health care were philanthropists’ favourites all over the world, he chose two new themes—job creation and economic acceleration—with focus on scale and the highest possible impact.

When you create a job, you help a person for life, you help their family and its succeeding generation for life, he says. “Other philanthropic activities are important but they don’t necessarily translate into lifelong value,” says Wadhwani.

In 2003, when NEN was started, no college or university in India had any entrepreneurship programme. Today, more than 500 of them have it and are part of NEN, which has created entrepreneurship clubs in 350 of them. Nearly 3,000 faculty members have been trained—1,300 in the last one year alone—and a mentor resource network of 3,500 successful businesspersons and venture capitalists exists to provide free consultation in 30 cities.


Wadhwani is most passionate about the entrepreneurship initiatives, though four other programmes—skill development, mainstreaming disabled, innovation and research and Indo-US policy—have been taking shape under the foundation. “Every country has found that the best way to create jobs is to create entrepreneurs who will start and grow companies,” he says.

If you can fulfil potential job opportunities then you help companies grow; these, in turn, will create more new jobs, he believes. Über entrepreneurial philosophy, one could say; first-hand-experience, he’d counter. A serial entrepreneur who has probably created more than 40,000 jobs in his career of more than 30 years, his laser-like focus on employment is understandable. India does have a crisis: Only 15 million jobs have been created in the country in the past seven years.

Under a skills development initiative, his Foundation is aiming to skill 5 million people in 10 years. The math is being done accordingly, from choosing skills that will add up to that number to selecting partners who have their skin in the game.

“He has an amazing level of drive and focus, which he also brings to philanthropy. He is very clear about what he wants to achieve,” says younger brother Sunil Wadhwani. As a co-founder of Mastek, which morphed into iGate Global Solutions, Sunil is a force to reckon with in the entrepreneurship world. As a child, he recalls, Romesh was extremely driven by outcomes, even in the toddler years when he underwent a series of surgical procedures for polio. “Sometimes he would run a high fever, but always topped his class,” says Sunil.

Often, Romesh turns a raconteur to inspire his team. In October, when he was in India, he told NEN employees that even though by most measures he is a successful individual, creating a reasonably good number of jobs in his career, what NEN could achieve is way beyond his own accomplishments.

Two years ago, Wadhwani signed The Giving Pledge that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have been championing. But that is more for learning the best practices from other philanthropists. The Pledge requires the rich to commit 50 percent of their wealth, but Wadhwani and Kathy had already committed more than 80 percent to philanthropy much earlier.

Devil is in the Detail
It would be a mistake to consider the large numbers of startups and jobs his Foundation talks of as aspirational. Wadhwani has put excruciating details in place to ensure that they don’t remain aspirational. For instance, three years ago, the Foundation was directly able to trace 200 startups to NEN. Last year, it was 700, and this year the Foundation expects to list 1,200 to 1,500 startups as a result of its entrepreneurship initiative. If this growth continues, then it’s not hard to imagine that 10,000 to 20,000 companies will be formed by 2022. As for jobs, each startup creates six direct jobs and five indirect ones. By that count, even if 15,000 startups are formed, some half a million jobs will be created.

But for things that are not measurable, says Srikrishna, Wadhwani is willing to take a nuanced view. If five guys in a Durgapur entrepreneurship cell get placed in TCS due to leadership skills and not an engineering degree, is that an NEN impact? It would be fair to say NEN is the precursor to what Peter Thiel, billionaire tech investor, is doing with Thiel Fellowship or what third-generation venture capitalist Tim Draper at Draper Fisher Jurvetson is doing with University of Heroes for student entrepreneurship in California, US. Apart from other things, one big difference is that while Thiel and Draper are directly putting money in the student startups, Wadhwani wants to steer clear of seed funding. He doesn’t want the Foundation to be picking winners or losers as that would damage its neutrality. “People will start playing political games and position themselves to get the seed grant,” he says.

Yet, he recognises that risk capital for startups is scarce in India. He is relying on a tested US model, where under the Small Business Innovation Research programme, 13 US government agencies gave seed grants to startups. This, over the decades, has been the most catalytic contributor to America’s innovation and entrepreneurship system. Wadhwani thinks if Indian PSUs and ministries gave away even 1 to 2 percent of their annual budget as innovation grants to startups, thousands of companies could be funded. The Foundation has written a white paper on this and is going to circulate it among all government agencies.

It is not money alone that fuels entrepreneurship. India’s tortuous labour laws, which he believes prevent Indian non-IT companies from scaling up, and the absence of a market place, nip many startups in the bud. Through NEN programmes and in his own interaction with the government, he has been raising awareness about this.

The revenue department doesn’t audit your books before your taxes are paid. The same logic must be applied to entrepreneurs, he says. “Give them the benefit of the doubt; do not treat them as if they are criminals and need to be checked out before they’ve started,” he says. Because of this attitude, it takes weeks and months for a company, again non-IT, to be incorporated.

Regulations should follow entrepreneurship, and so should the marketplace, as has been demonstrated by the US and Israel. Since 30 percent of actual purchases are made by the central and the state governments, he would like to convince them that they keep aside 10 to 20 percent of procurement for startups.

An equal amount of detailing has gone into developing skills as well. Once the skill is identified, the Foundation swings into action to build technology delivery platforms, train project managers, make best practices playbook and stitch partnerships. The Foundation chose nursing as one such area, as India will need more than 2 million nursing aides over the next 10 years. It is collaborating with Narayana Health, which had already developed a nursing curriculum, to convert classroom courses into online courses that large and medium hospitals and village clinics can use.

The next channel for the Foundation is schools. Working with the Union ministry of human resource and development and the state governments of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, the Foundation has rolled out a best practices programme in four occupations in 40 schools that impact 15,000 students. Discussions are on with Karnataka and Bihar for similar exercises.

In one of his pursuits, Wadhwani has been holding discussions with Union minister Kapil Sibal about setting up community colleges for skills development, and laying down the framework for what these colleges would mean for India. The government has finally committed to setting up 200 of them. Wadhwani says if the government fulfils its commitment, rolls out physical infrastructure for these colleges, and recruits the right kind of faculty and teachers, his Foundation will fund the entire knowledge infrastructure, including the technology platform that would integrate online and classroom learning in these colleges. It would also provide the connectivity between community colleges and the employer community—a key link that would ensure students are rightly placed and the colleges are skilling for the right kind of jobs.

It’s a gargantuan effort, and open-ended at that. To put it in perspective, what constitutes one sub-stream for the Foundation is the entire business for Coursera or Udacity, the much-popular MOOCs (massively open online courses) that are aiding, if not disrupting, university systems across the world.

The ROI trap
Was Peter Buffett, son of billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett, right when he created a storm by writing in The New York Times that with business-minded people getting into philanthropy, business principles are becoming essential elements to philanthropy? Buffett said people have begun asking for ROI (return on investment).

Wadhwani says the business thinking he applies to philanthropy is about setting very clear objectives and outcomes that he has to measure. “I don’t measure ROI. If I invest $100 million, create 10,000 startups, a few more thousand jobs and several other indirect jobs, I have no way to measure what the ROI is. What were the other influences in that person’s life that caused them to form companies, succeed and create jobs?” he asks.

How staff engineers drive innovation at Maruti Suzuki

To get the best output, employees at the senior and top management levels should be thoroughly involved in the process — this is Maruti Suzuki India’s mantra. The carmaker believes in an open door policy to boost the spirit of innovation among young recruits.

Maruti, which launched operations in the early 1980s, completes 30 years on December 14. It has 110 patents (around 20 in the production line alone), and most of these have been developed by its young engineers. Many more patents are on the way.

 

The company has over 1,000 engineers, several of whom are working on such projects.

“The idea behind such initiatives is to encourage engineers to go for innovation and encourage out-of-the-box thinking,” M.M. Singh, COO-Production, told Business Line.

“Many engineers nowadays do not want to join a manufacturing company thinking they will end up doing the same thing every day. But, we have bust that myth.”

 

Trip to Japan

Singh, who joined Maruti as a technician in the painting department, said one of his biggest achievements is the involvement of young engineers in the company. For example, labour union leaders are being sent to Japan for a week, where they get to meet Suzuki Motor Chairman Osamu Suzuki.

Once in a while new recruits are sent to Japan (to the parent company) for idea exchange and to learn new processes that can be adopted here.

Singh said engineers are being given the freedom to innovate on the shop floor or the assembly lines or to apply “anything they have learnt from their colleges” that could be new for the company or the industry.

“The result has been good, and many products, such as robotics that are used in our plants, are made by the engineers and are patented. We just provide these young engineers with materials and whatever investment is required,” he added.

The machines at Maruti’s plants include automated multi-level parking for the produced cars, welded planks for eliminating operator fatigue and automation, such as host casting, vehicle testing and calibration.

“Technology upgradation is one subject that has given us a lot of mileage.

 

Setting an example

Even Ratan Tata (in the early 1990s) once came to see our plant to see how the Japanese culture (in terms of production) can be adopted in India,” Singh recalled, adding that many companies in India and globally have started to follow the Total Quality Management system, better known as TQM. But, Maruti follows its own (Suzuki’s) system, which is different from others, he added.

As part of its sustainability programmes, factories of the company follow a ‘zero exit’ programme, which means there is no wastage.

“It is not only environment-friendly, but also ensures that waste from our factories go to different industries, such as cement and steel,” Singh explained.

Technopark, Brussels join hands

Technopark’s Technology Business Incubator (TBI) has joined hands with the Incubation Centre Arsenaal Brussels (ICAB) to provide better exposure and collaboration opportunities for start-up companies in the ICT sector.

 

A memorandum of understanding was signed by P.H. Kurien, Principal Secretary, IT; K.C. Chandrasekharan Nair, Chief Financial Officer, Technopark-TBI; and Julien Meganck, president, ICAB; in the presence of Belgium’s Princess Astrid of Belgium and Celine Fremault, Minister of Economy Brussels, in Chennai on Thursday. A 300-member trade delegation from Belgium led by Princess Astrid was in India last week to boost trade and investment ties between the two countries.

The MoU will facilitate exchanges and cooperation between Belgium and Indian SMEs, enabling them to establish businesses in both regions. It will also promote business development and technical collaboration. The Technopark TBI has offered free office space from three to six months to the Brussels companies that wish to do business with India on a reciprocal basis. They will guide these companies with practical cooperation plans and priority will be given to companies that are directly recommended by ICAB.

 

The co-incubation tie up was announced at a press conference here on Saturday by Mr. Nair and Jean Vereecken, Managing Director, ICAB.

 

Mr. Nair said the co-incubation pact would help SMEs from Kerala to expand at a faster pace. “This is a win-win situation for start-up companies here, especially those interested in the European market. Apart from free office space provided by the ICAB, they can also reach out to countries across Europe,” he said. “T-TBI and ICAB will also arrange for networking meetings and promote each other’s activities in their respective regions,” he said.