Catapulting India to be the Leading Start-Up Nation Mr. Amitabh Kant CEO, NITI Aayog

CATAPULTING INDIA TO BE THE LEADING STARTUP NATION “We are trying to help the entire pipeline of innovation and entrepreneurship”

AMITABH KANT, CEO

Mr. Kant, you have been a key driver for several policy initiatives including ‘Make in India’, ‘StartUp India’, ‘Incredible India’, FDI Policy and Promotion, which has seen India rise to the 39th spot in Global competitive ranking from the 55th. How would you like to describe your current role at NITI Aayog, its impact on innovation and vision to transform India?

NITI Aayog is the think tank of the government. In its present role, many initiatives have been taken to bring States into the focus for achieving the national objectives and targets. NITI Aayog is implementing Atal Innovation Mission, which is the Govt of India’s effort to strengthen the country’s Innovation-driven Ecosystem. My role is to establish this Mission as the heart of India’s innovation efforts, so it can expand and create the platform where India’s innovators can connect and thrive together. I am helping create a culture of promoting innovation in India, within and outside the government. Innovation will come from all our youngsters, within the government and outside, and the system needs to give them the space to experiment new things, which in turn requires a new mindset. All of us need to work on creating this mindset.

For a country that is even smaller than the state of Kerala, Israel has enough chutzpa to run with the title of ‘Startup Nation’. India currently stands 3rd in the Global StartUp Ecosystem. Do you see India taking up the mantle of start-up nation in the coming years?

India definitely has the potential of being the world’s leading Startup Nation. We have a well-educated, energetic, and self-driven young demography that wants to do their part in changing the world. We have excellent science and technology, and increasingly we are starting to see a solid ecosystem that can convert that science and tech to products to serve expanding or new markets.

Presently, India is credited to be the third in terms of no of startup. In the last few years, young engineering and management graduates have started thinking in terms of applying their new education and knowledge in either starting or working for a startup, rather than joining an existing large corporate. It is these startups of today that will grow up to be India’s multinationals of tomorrow. I’m very confident that it’ll be these young women and men who help India take leadership in not just startups, but innovation and improvement in quality of life generally!

In the Atal Innovation Mission, we are trying to help the entire pipeline of innovation and entrepreneurship. In the Atal Tinkering Labs in more than a thousand schools nation-wide, we hope to encourage and enable millions of students to make new things with their hands, deploying the latest new technologies for rapid prototyping, such as 3D printing, electronics and micro-processors, vinyl cutters, etc. The Atal Incubation Centres program will support entrepreneurs at more than 100 centres around the country, creating the soft infrastructure and ecosystem where young entrepreneurs can mould and shape their business models and products. With AIM Social Impact Challenges, we aim to spur innovations for socially relevant areas. These programs are targeted to support innovation and entrepreneurship across the entire value chain.

What are the major challenges/pitfalls India needs to overcome to become as successful as Israel?

Israel’s system of bringing technologies to market has seen committed participation from VC funds and investors, supported and guided by its government’s programs. India’s angel and VC investment ecosystem is rapidly growing, but is yet to gain the maturity that Israel’s has, in terms of being able to bring new tech to market. In the last few years, the mindset of being risk-averse is starting to change, but this is just the beginning. As you may know, the government has already sanctioned a fund of Rs 10,000 crore to participate in Indian Venture Capital Funds. This Fund of Funds is managed by SIDBI on a purely commercial basis, and has the mandate to seed an ecosystem where Indian entrepreneurs get support on market terms from investors to scale up their technologies and business models. I feel this initiative will have the highest impact in the long term, apart from our work to create new incubators, etc.

As a culture, we have strengths that we now need to harness to create products for the entire world.

We will need better connections between our labs and markets, through investors. We believe India, with

support from the government, is on the way to achieving this in the next couple of years.

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam remained passionate and committed to what he called Vision 2020 – transforming India with a focussed manifesto for change. Do you see India achieving that in the near future? What is your vision for India in the next 5 years, and what role do you think innovation would play in accomplishing that?

Former President Kalam and our Prime Minister have given a clarion call for a New India, a transformed India. This India will have sustainable public service delivery and equal opportunity for every citizen to achieve their individual potential.

In order for every citizen of India to have a safe, healthy and comfortable living, innovation will be needed in how we use our natural resources, such as water, energy, soil, etc. Agriculture will need to see more innovation, so we can maintain our leadership in this space around the world.

As an example of the ‘pull’ factor for innovation, the Atal Innovation Mission is going to organize a couple of programs such as Grand Challenges and the Social Impact challenges, seeking innovations for specific problems. We want to create a culture where innovators look to solve India’s problems, and those solutions can be scaled up to other countries also. Grand Challenges-type of programs focus the attention of the community of innovators/researchers on specific issues, and can play a catalytic role in coming up with more innovation over time. This is a kick-start to innovation in the socially-relevant areas.

As our markets deepen and innovation becomes ubiquitous, we will see new technologies, products and business models being developed focused on the Indian consumer, rather than force-fitting of technologies developed for other countries.

If I was able to foresee the innovation, I would be the one doing it or at least benefiting from investments in innovative startups! But since I can’t foresee them, I can tell you that we are trying to get the best ecosystem ready for India to be able to harness that ecosystem.

2016 was marked with the sentiment of anti-globalization dominated by Donald Trump’s win, Brexit and popularity of right-wing parties across Europe. Do you see the effects of these transcending to India and hampering your vision for India?

One strength of innovators and entrepreneurs is to accept the working conditions the way it is, and work with them to make the world a better place, design a better product or create a new model. Whatever be the world’s specific situation or context, Indian entrepreneurs are working to make the world a better place. I believe that every ‘crisis’, if you see it as one, also has the seeds of its solution. With a positive mindset and enthusiasm to solve problems and build bridges, growth and development can be continued.

As part of Atal Innovation Mission to promote culture of innovation & entrepreneurship, you must have come across the whole gamut of disruptive life defining technologies. Which is the most important piece of innovation that has connected with you the most in past few years?

I see new innovative technologies day in and day out. Whether it be young students finding ways to manage urban waste, or young entrepreneurs finding new solutions for digital payments through feature phones, I see impressive innovation often. NITI’s Atal Innovation Mission identified 20 new social impact-related technologies and innovations in partnership for the Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas. Indian innovators are finding new business models in areas as difficult as sanitation, coastal transport, cotton-picking, etc. It was fascinating to see the new technologies and the energy in the innovators. I believe the biggest impact will come from technologies in the social entrepreneurship space, areas where services can be improved, or where resources can be used more efficiently.

I come across innovations across the spectrum. Recently, I came across a young Indian guy, an MIT and Stanford graduate, who is designing a potential backbone for India’s Internet of Things, and is planning to launch a satellite as part of the system. When it comes to bringing high technology in service of the nation, someone was recently telling me about a team of innovators who are trying to bring down the cost of MRI machines by a factor of 10, by focusing on improving the magnets that are required to create the magnetic field. It is these kinds of core innovations that are required to serve India’s new emerging middle class and aspiring middle classes, without laying the kind of burden on the environment that often we see in other countries’ development models. Let me give you another example on the other end of the spectrum, I came across a young girl in Assam who created a small system to bring in her mother’s laundry sensing rain, so that she and her mother don’t have to rush out every time it rains, which is quite frequently. I have seen students connecting farmers to markets, and for creating widgets for monitoring new energy sources. All of these innovations are addressing real challenges, and that really excites me about my current responsibilities.

Considering Entrepreneurship is a very demanding and lessstable career choice, what do you think is the factor driving India’s youth to become entrepreneurs?

The opportunity to create something new, a technology, a business, a legacy, to solve a problem or create a market is the main driver why anyone chooses the difficult path of entrepreneurship. India is seeing this energy being channelled into entrepreneurship and I think this is a great development. I see that the new generation has far less aversion to risk than I used to see in my generation. They are not afraid to take chances to try a new business or a new technology. Some of this is because career paths have become less linear, so you can try your hand at a new business model and then seek a job later, or other such changes. This lower risk situation is great for supporting entrepreneurship. We want India to build its own destiny, without resorting the paths beaten by other countries.

Up till recently, India did not have a Bankruptcy Bill to encourage innovations, with the development of such a bill has there been a significant increase in the innovative entrepreneurial spirit? Are Indian’s now more will to accept failure than before?

Fail early, Fail Fast has to be the motto of every startup ecosystem. If failing businesses will exist for too long, they will take up resources that can be used by another startup. Legally, a failed business needs to go through bankruptcy quickly, so that the resources can be deployed elsewhere.

I think the entrepreneurship story spurred on by the PM’s Startup India movement is increasing the spirit, and legal and policy changes such as the Bankruptcy Bill will make it easier to use this energy for more efficient entrepreneurship.

NITI Aayog is working across sectors to introduce structural reforms. What kind of reforms can we expect to see in the next two-three years to foster innovation & entrepreneurship?

Our roadmap for supporting innovation and entrepreneurship has been laid out in our public documents, including the Tarun Khanna Expert Committee report. Our reforms for improving the ease of doing business are underway, as well as creating incubators where young entrepreneurs and startups can get the right assistance. Now, it is less about policy and more about implementation, which I’m really excited about.

RELENTLESSLY ACCELERATING INNOVATION

“Our vision is to foster entrepreneurship, build entrepreneurial capabilities at scale and strengthen early support for tech start-up’s in the country”

R. CHANDRASEKHAR,

PRESIDENT

NASSCOM being the flag bearer of the Indian IT sector, how do you see your various programs and initiatives catalyzing entrepreneurship and innovation in India? How do you see NASSCOM 10,000 StartUps initiative changing the entrepreneurial landscape in India and what vision do you have for the program in the coming years?

Startups are leveraging technology to solve problems that have been plaguing the country for decades. Rapid growth of Indian startups has created significant growth opportunities for every stakeholder within the ecosystem. Further, start-ups are providing an exciting work culture along with attractive financial benefits to attract new and retain existing talent. When we started with the NASSCOM 10,000 Start-up initiative, entrepreneurship in India was dispersed. It lacked a proper organization which brings together key stakeholders of the ecosystem including start-up incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, start-up support groups, mentors, and technology corporations. Our vision is to foster entrepreneurship, build entrepreneurial capabilities at scale and strengthen early stage support for tech start-ups in the country. As we move forward in our fifth phase, we are continuing to script success for this initiative of ours.

Since the launch in April 2013, we’ve done about 800 events in 25 cities of the country which were attended by a whopping 30,000 attendees and received 17,800 applicants, 2934 start-ups shortlists. In 2016 alone, the program received over 4000 applications of which 658 startups were shortlisted, 130 women leaders were inducted and 300 influencers were involved in mentorship. To further accelerate digital transformation at the startup level, we have launched various initiatives, that serve as centralized hubs for India’s tech ecosystem city by city providing information and resources to help turn ideas into businesses, deliver valuable tools for tech startups, and connect citizen entrepreneurs to opportunities in the tech ecosystem.

At NASSCOM which sectors do you believe would make radical transformation through the use of ICT to increase access, enhance efficiency and enable innovation considering technology is eliminating certain kinds of jobs and certain skills are no longer required.

Technology disruptions are reshaping enterprises and providers are focusing on building technology led platforms that can redefine how their services are delivered. Technology today has moved from being just a support function to becoming a crucial driver behind important business decisions. The use of technologies, especially newer technologies such as AI, Big Data, IoT is on the rise not only in companies from the IT industry, but also across sectors as these technologies help eliminate inefficiencies, enable innovation, enhance productivity and profitability. While we have seen technology being adopted across financial and banking, healthcare, education, governance and infrastructure domains, it is also being heavily adopted in the manufacturing industry.

However it is important to note that implementation of technology does not eliminate jobs. While some jobs may be made redundant due to the adoption of technology, it also leads to an additional requirement for subject experts and skilled professionals who are needed to work with the new technology.

Ground Breaking Innovations are often associated with StartUps. Do you think Innovation is applicable only to StartUps or Corporates can also innovate?

Large businesses at times get weighed down by the complex existing processes, and are at time too rigidly structured to create and execute new ideas. Compared to them, on the other hand, start-ups start afresh, so they have more opportunities to ideate and innovate. The autonomy and freedom that entrepreneurs have access to, in start-ups are far less freely available to the leaders of large corporates. However in the fast moving world, it has become imperative for large firms to innovate internally as well, or risk fading away while others race ahead into the future. Innovation cannot and should not be restricted to any particular type of business.

The Israeli government grants nearly 80% funds to early-stage startups. How do you believe this model can be incorporated into the Indian startup space?

We believe that one of the reasons for Israel gaining the reputation of a startup nation is the active encouragement of government and private enterprises. Similarly, the Indian startup ecosystem is receiving strong