Orbit Change Conversations

Sramana writes that India is poised to see an entrepreneurship boom in the next 10 years. She is right! There are four different innovation ecosystems that have formed in India. They are all at varying stages of maturity. Things look promising for all of them.

I wrote sometime back that entrepreneurship is going global (see Transplanting Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship). VCs are partly responsible. Also playing a role is the spread of entrepreneurship education.

High quality entrepreneurship education centers have sprouted in all the major cities. Bangalore has NSR Center of Entrepreneurship Learning at the Indian Institute of Management. Hyderabad has Wadhwani Center of Entrepreneurship Development at Indian School of Business. Chennai has the prolific TeNeT at IIT Madras. Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad has the Center of Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship. Mumbai has Society of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IIT there. And Insead’s International Center of Entrepreneurship will also setting up shop soon.

More, of course, needs to be done. The product ecosystem, in particular, needs attention. Last year I had written a discussion paper for NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum where I listed out things that needed attention…

While there is a reason to be optimistic, there is much that remains to be done. Listed below are top five missions that will be required for building an ecosystem to catalyze product innovation

1. NASSCOM to take leadership to separate out the kaizen ecosystem from the Silicon Valley ecosystem, so that each may develop and thrive in its own right.
2. NASSCOM and TiE to join in a project to grow the number of product managers, product architects and product release managers, by getting universities involved in the process and by nurturing special communities for practitioners.
3. NASSCOM can launch a mission to multiply TeNeT type partnerships across the country.
4. Industry collaborates with academic institutions, regulatory bodies and government agencies to create standards for emerging local markets
5. NASSCOM lobbies to open up defense related technology work for local companies

In addition to these, there is a need to preserve the supportive government regulations on tax holidays, patents and job-hopping (i.e. keeping “post-employment covenants not to compete” as unenforceable). More can also be done to encourage a Bayh-Dole type act to accelerate commercialization of technologies from the university. And finally, almost needless to say, continued focus on infrastructure improvement is clearly necessary.

Of the five recommendations, the first three are getting attention. More evangelizing is needed for the remaining two. I remain optimistic about the future.