Let Us Make India Innovative

Thanks Amol for sharing valuable information about NIF (national innovation foundation) of India has been established by The Department of Science and Technology, on 28^th Feb.2000. The foundation has main aim to support Grassroot Innovators by bringing their creativities and ideas to the formal system. It also takes initiative to protect their intellectual properties as well as supports to maintain a database of 10,000 innovations. NIF has various other objectives and achievements as discussed in an earlier post entitled “NIF- Helping hand for Grassroot innovators” by Amol. NIF not only helps grassroot innovators also protects our Traditional Knowledge.

Personally NIF has influenced me to think about grassroot innovators who have vast knowledge pool but not aware about how to protect and make commercial use of it. As a student of intellectual property rights and citizen of India, I think it is my responsibility to make people (innovators) educate about their rights and also help to protect them. By protecting and commercially utilizing various innovations from across the country will definitely make India as global leader in sustainable technologies as well as develop economically stable society. Protection of green grassroots innovations will help India become an innovative and creative society.

Next week I will be part of a Shodh Yatra(http://www.sristi.org/cms/shodh_yatra1) to Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh. Shodh Yatra is a pilgrimage to the remote area for the search of knowledge, creativity and innovations at grassroots. The main aim of the journey is to understand and make document of traditional knowledge, grassroots innovations that have not only simplified the lives of men, women and farm workers but have also significantly contributed towards the conservation of bio-diversity and those help to solve or minimize the problems of the society. This journey is not only to gain knowledge is also about the sharing of knowledge.

NIF- Helping hand for Grassroot innovators

NIF provides an institutional platform for the knowledge-rich, economically poor people. It is committed to making India innovative by documenting, adding value, protecting intellectual property rights of the contemporary unaided technological innovators, as well as outstanding traditional knowledge holders on a commercial as well as non-commercial basis. A National Register of green Grassroots Technological Innovations and Traditional Knowledge has been developed for the purpose. Alongside, there would also be a separate database based on people’s knowledge (PKD) which would act as repository of knowledge with direct inputs from Peoples’ Biodiversity Register (PBR) as well as directly from knowledge holders or through collaborators. Even those practices, which are not considered acceptable for national register, may be kept in the PKD so as to understand and benchmark the way society thinks about various issues. It will also help in targeting certain specific beliefs, which may even need to be questioned and changed.

Objectives of NIF
1) To help India become an innovative and creative society and a global leader in sustainable technologies by scouting, spawning and sustaining grassroots innovations.
2) To ensure evolution and diffusion of green grassroots innovations in a time bound and a mission oriented manner so as to meet the socio-economic and environmental needs of our society.
3) To facilitate scaling up of grassroots green innovations, seeking self-reliance through competitive advantage of innovation based enterprises, and application of people generated sustainable technologies at grassroots level.
4)To influence public policy and conduct, co-ordinate and support research, design and development efforts in the country on grassroots innovations so as to attain and maintain technological competence. To enable protection of the intellectual property rights of the knowledge holders wherever applicable.
5)To build linkages between excellence in formal scientific systems and informal knowledge systems and create a Knowledge Network to link various stakeholders through applications of information technologies and also otherwise.
6)To promote wider social awareness and possible commercial and non commercial applications of know-how generated as a result of above and encourage their incorporation in educational curriculum, developmental policies and programmes.

Milestone achieved by NIF
(i) Technology Transfer
Eighteen technologies have been licensed primarily through GIAN West and lately through GIAN Northeast and also through SEVA, Madurai. The benefits have been shared with the innovators as per the Prior Informed Consent framework. An incubation committee has been set up to advise NIF on the incubation process. An on line incubation monitoring system is also being developed.
(ii) Intellectual Property Rights Protection:
NIF and its various regional offices viz. GIANs have filed 67 patents and three design registrations in India out of which two patents and one design registration have been granted in India. Also, seven patents were filed in the USA out of which 3 have been granted in USA through the pro bono help of THt and a Boston based IPR firm.
(iii) Business Development:
• Eighteen technologies have been licensed to one/multiple parties per technology, primarily through GIAN West and GIAN North-East and also through a regional collaborator viz. SEVA, Madurai. The benefits have been shared with the innovators as per the Prior Informed Consent framework
• Facilitated development of more than 61 enterprise developments for manufacturing and marketing the innovations.
• Micro venture finance and incubation support have been arranged for more than 60 innovation
• A good number of international business queries are also being received.

Naarm savours Prof. Cahoon' Potpourri

It had been a taxing week and was still to be followed by week of baffling challenges. The students of Post Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property & Technology Management, NAARM, Hyderabad were destined to capture earnestly the moments we had vouched for since the time we first heard and understood the concept of Tech Management. The reason for this overwhelming statement is well justified.

The next seventy two hours presented us with a wonderful opportunity! to have Dr. Richard Cahoon, Cornell’s technology licensing and marketing arm, amidst us. Dr. Cahoon, Prof, Cornell University and RS Cahoon & Associates was with us in a three day long workshop on Agripreneurship: Managing Agricultural Innovation & Enterprise Development, scheduled from August 24-26, 2009. The students, in pin striped dark blue formal suits were ready for the event. Along with them were senior level scientists from ICAR institutes in Hyderabad belonging to multifarious disciplines of agriculture (poultry to biotechnology!). This added flavor to the rich taste created by Mr. Cahoon’s presence.

The workshop commenced with a brief introduction of Dr Cahoon who talked of his 20 years experience in various aspects of technology commercialization, including research and development, invention, project management, product development, marketing, engineering and entrepreneurship. The maneuvered moves in his professional career rendered the onlookers with their brows raised, everybody just set in a mode to listen more and grasp more. Professor quickly assessed the heat of the moment and started with the conceptual facts that lay behind in Agripreneurship. The significance of invention and innovation in Agri world was highlighted with real time case studies with laid emphasis on the fortune that an inventor is able to amass once they let the expert technology managers to lay their hands on his invention.

The post lunch session was designed so as to ensure healthy participation of each member present in the hall. Thus, it involved assigning of projects to the students organized into five separate groups. We were expected to analyze the cases, understand the crux of the given situation and apply the strategic tools (to be learnt) at the end to present our cases on the last day of the workshop.

The day two focused on factual cases referring to challenges posed when a technology is set forth for commercialization and I would personally congratulate Prof Cahoon for the blueprint he fabricated to envelope and thereby deliver major aspects of Tech Transfer in such a short span.

The day third was the test day for us students. Prof Cahoon listened to us more talking of plan of action for technologies. The late night discussions, the last minute additions, discussions all went for grand applause from the Prof and faculty. The Prof complimented each team for the efforts taken and the approach adopted to validate the proposed ‘plan of action’ they had undertaken whether it was commercialization strategy of HYV Sorghum for biofuel production or seedless fruits or insect resistant tomatoes or antimicrobial extract of honey. The workshop finally terminated with a short valediction ceremony and a promising note to see our Prof again for advanced business models…