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In a recorded message to the symposium on 'Innovation and Entrepreneurship' organised in Chennai by the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT Chicago), Sam Pitroda said, "Without a business model, holding a number of patents will be of no use."
Sharing his observations on how innovations have changed India and the world in recent years, he said, "Almost every company is focussed on innovations and creating entrepreneurial drive within the organisation to get things done. Innovation requires a different mindset, a different work culture."
"It requires an ability to see things differently," he added. Sam Pitroda called entrepreneurship a journey with ups and downs, and added that success is not assured. He said that innovations alone are not enough. "A right business model is also critical."
"India needs more people focussed on innovation and more entrepreneurs," he said. "Today's entrepreneur has to be global, has to understand the dynamics of the market."
Illinois Institute of Technology offers four of its master's degree programmes in India at its Bangalore campus via Internet: software engineering; software engineering and telecommunications; micro-electronics and VLSI design and network engineering.
In fall (autumn) 2006, the university will begin offering the master of manufacturing engineering, in Mumbai as well as at other sites.
Patrick Whitney, Steelcase/Robert C.Pew Professor and director of the Institute of Design at IIT Chicago and innovation in his address spoke on bridging innovation gap that exists between companies that have unprecedented knowledge and technology, and can make anything.
At the same time, there is unprecedented confusion about what to make next. "Users are in control," he said. "We have moved from economy of scale to the economy of choice," he said. He described the methods the IIT Chicago Institute of Design has developed to help companies innovate by making strategic use of user experience.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, member of parliament and founder of BPL Mobile and chief executive officer, Jupiter Capital spoke on how India's entrepreneurship and business landscape has dramatically transformed in the last decade.
Noting that first-generation entrepreneurs have emerged and have created world-class companies and organisations, such as BPL Mobile, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Jet Airways, Wipro, he said that now barriers are lower.
"Access to capital has been amazingly transformed. Today, there is a competition of ideas," he said. There has never been a more exciting time to be an entrepreneur in India," he said.
Harsha Angeri, head, business unit lead of strategy & market sensing at Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab discussed innovation in the global context and described his experiences in driving innovation in emerging economies.
He described how Honeywell had built a "new innovation engine" with diverse idea sensing mechanisms to create new businesses through process innovation and business model innovation as well as technology innovation.
According to Sam Pitroda, innovation has a great impact on corporate structure. He said that the traditional structure no longer works. One reason is that the narrow boundaries of innovation have disappeared.
"Innovations now happen faster, and they require collaboration and a multidisciplinary approach and they don't happen at one place," he said.
Noting that today's innovators and entrepreneurs have more tools to work, he said: "Access to information has changed how innovations are made."
He cited an example of searching for prior art - information that has been disclosed to the public - when making a patent application. The search used to take months. Now with the Internet, it takes only half an hour.
"The Internet makes it so easy to find out what others are doing. As a result, you must be on your toes. Local events can become international instantly," he added.
