Bridging Academic R&D with Product Innovation - a few case studies and a way forward….

Abstract : India's contribution to the world's R&D and Intellectual Property is steadily increasing. In certain specialized areas such as Nanotechnology, India is among the top 3 countries in the world in terms of research publications and patent filings. Despite the low percentage of GDP spending for R&D in India, Indian researchers have excelled in research output, when measured in terms of the number of research publications. Though these are excellent achievements, the situation is entirely different when one looks at the innovation or the product development potential in the country. For example, India ranks very poorly on the Global Innovation Index (GII), and the research undertaken by institutions, whether public or private, has hardly resulted in any major technological breakthrough of significant commercial value. Given this scenario, in order to make the Indian research competitive and sustainable in terms of innovation and product development, a multitude of initiatives have recently been contemplated and launched by the Govt. of India at the national level. In this talk, we will discuss the changing scenario for product innovation in Indian academic institutions, and also see how one can accelerate the culture of product innovation in Indian academic institutions

About the speaker : Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao is currently the Director, IIT Delhi. Before joining IIT Delhi as Director in 2016, Dr. Rao was a P. K. Kelkar Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Chief Investigator for the Centre of Excellence in Nanoelectronics project at IIT Bombay. Dr. Rao has over 400 publications in the area of Electron Devices & Nanoelectronics in refereed international journals and conference proceedings and is an inventor on 34 patents (including 13 issued US patents) and patent applications, with many of his patents licensed to industries for commercialization. He is a co-founder of the company NanoSniff Technologies Pvt. Ltd. at IIT Bombay which is developing products in the area of Nanotechnology. Prof. Rao's work is recognized with many awards and honors in the country and abroad. He is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Sciences in 2005 and the Infosys Prize in 2013. Dr. Rao also received the Swarnajayanti Fellowship award from the Department of Science & Technology, IBM Faculty award, Best Research award from the Intel Asia Academic Forum, Techno-Mentor award from the Indian Semiconductor Association, DAE-SRC Outstanding Research Investigator award, NASI-Reliance Platinum Jubilee award, J.C.Bose National Fellowship, Prof. C.N.R.Rao National Nanoscience award and the Excellence in Research Award from IIT Bombay. Prof. Rao was an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices during 2003-2012 for the CMOS Devices and Technology area and currently serves on the Editorial boards of various other international journals. Dr. Rao is a Fellow of IEEE, the Indian National Academy of Engineering, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Indian National Science Academy. He is a Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Electron Devices Society and interacts closely with many semiconductor industries including Intel, IBM, Infineon, Applied Materials, Maxim and Texas Instruments. Dr. Rao is currently a Vice-President of the Materials Research Society of India. He also served as a Vice-Chairman, IEEE Asia Pacific Regions/Chapters sub-committee during 2007-2013 and was the first elected Chairman for the India section, American Nano Society during 2013-2015.