Young leaders, entrepreneurs and students should work to grow innovation as a culture, according to Dr Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the Prime Minister of India on public information infrastructure and innovation.
Delivering a lecture on ‘Leadership and innovation: Ideas for India' at the Technopark here on Wednesday, he said a single-minded focus on innovation is what the country needs to drive itself toward greatness.
EXCITING TIMES
The lecture was organised jointly by the Aspen Institute India and Group of Technology Companies in Kerala (GTECH).
“We are living in very exciting times when evolution of Internet has changed the world like it has never been,” Dr Pitroda said.
Today the Internet is bringing the entire global community together and this offers very different ways of looking at challenges that stare at us.
We must look at meeting these challenges in an innovative manner. The spirit of innovation also facilitates the unique opportunity to change the very paradigm of conventional development.
The Government has been trying to bring innovation to the way it conducts itself, Dr Pitroda said.
The seed for the same has already been sown as becomes clear in the several new initiatives proposed in the various areas of e-governance, banking, health and education.
Dr Pitroda called for the need to bring about new innovation even as we dispensed with the old systems of governance. People with great ideas will definitely have the opportunity to pursue them to fruition with the right funding.
But he felt that the country has a dearth of domain expertise, which was posing was a major challenge to the growth of its economy.
“We have been growing at over eight per cent and have over 550 million youngsters below the age of 25.
DOMAIN EXPERTISE
We also have lot of interesting technologies at our disposal that could offer unique ways of addressing various situations and concerns,” Dr Pitroda said.
As a nation, India has got what it takes to build a great power of itself; all what is needed of our leaders is the statesmanship of a high order to ensure that various pieces of the nation-building puzzle fall in the right places.
Mr Shaffi Mather, Fellow, Aspen India Leadership Initiative; Advocate, Supreme Court of India; a public policy analyst and entrepreneur; and Mr. V. K. Mathews, President, Group of Technology Companies, also participated in the discussion.
Meanwhile, speaking to newspersons separately, Dr Pitroda once again sought to dismiss reports of his having recommended a hike in railway passenger fares in the capacity as Chairman of a high-level committee on Railways.
These are speculative bits and pieces of information being pushed by interested parties and lack any concrete base, he added.
Earlier this week, reports had suggested that the expert committee had recommended a 25 per cent hike in railway passenger fares. It had also wanted to index railway fares to inflation.
NO PROPOSAL YET
Dr Pitroda said the committee is still some days away from submitting its recommendations, which would be publicised then and there. He denied having taken any decision on proposing a hike in railway fares.
The expert committee was set up last September to recommend modernisation of the Railways with a view to improving overall efficiency and safety.
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