Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 8 th Annual - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Gopalakrishnan - Deshpande Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship IIT Madras Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 8 th Annual Deshpande Symposium 11 June 2019 | Lowell, Massachusetts

Panel Overview Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 2

Our Panel KV Anand Krishnan Balasubramanian James Chung Raghu Rao Instructor, GDC Professor, IIT Madras AVP – Research, GWU CEO, GDC Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 3

India: Challenges in Innovation Ecosystem  Indian economy growing to $10trn by 2030 from under $3trn today  Population - 1.25bn; Income distribution and affordability highly skewed • Per capita income: Top 1% - $35,000; Next 19% - $5,000; 80%- ~$1000 • OECD per capita income ~$39,000  Most innovations in developed world are designed for the affluent; they bypass the bottom of the pyramid in India (a billion people)  Yet India has ~15,000 start-ups, the most in the world after USA • Most of them are not sustainable, nor do they have a deep impact; • What’s missing? Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 4

India’s Innovation Ecosystem: Missing Pieces  Low level of R&D in the country • R&D spend ~0.8% of GDP (USA - 3%; China – 2.5%, Korea -4.3%)  Private sector spend on R&D almost non-existent (except in pharma and biotech)  Few universities have a systematic process for managing IP creation, including monetization  Very little domestic venture capital • A very high proportion of the VC investments in India comes from foreign investors • Small number of local angel and seed investors Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 5

India’s Innovation Ecosystem: The Oasis…  Where are the successes in Indian innovation? • MNC research labs setting up labs in India to tap the cream of Indian scientists • A few government institutions have R&D but they are not in the commercial sphere • A few corporates and universities focussing on frugal innovation - e.g. digital payments, micro- finance, cardiac, ophthalmology, space,… • Finding resourceful and ingenious workarounds to overcome difficult practical problems - not amounting to scientific / technological breakthroughs Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 6

Innovation Ecosystem at IIT Madras Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 7

The culture at IIT Madras IP Eco-system Innovation Eco-system Incubation Eco-System Post-Incubation Eco-System Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 8

LANDSCAPE OF OUR IPR ECO-SYSTEM Search Tools Incentives Search Engines Rewards IP Companies Recognition Responsive Marketing IP Cell Corporate Simplified Process Start-ups Awareness Publicity Students Reach Stakeholders P O L I C Y Faculty Media https://www.iitm.ac.in/

IIT-M ENTREPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEM Pre- Ideate 02 Incubate Support 01 Incubate 03 04 IITMEF - IIT Madras Entrepreneurship Forum Nirmaan E-Cell M.S. Entrepreneurship Innovation Ecosystem Project On Campus Off Campus https://www.iitm.ac.in/

Bringing unlike minds together The Innovation ecosystem

How ow is II IITMRP TMRP structured tructured fo for In Inno novat ation ion? Innovate to Survive Support entities for E&I, IP, Legal, VC, Angels, ….. 12

Cha haracter acter of of ou our In Incub ubates ates at at II IITM TM In Incub ubation ation cel ell  IITM Incubation Cell houses sector-specific incubators which include….. Rural ral Technology chnology & ⊶ Business siness In Incubator cubator Bio io In Incubat ubator or ⊶ MedTech dTech in incubat bators ors ⊶ 13

George Washington University - Straddling the Innovation spectrum - Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 14

I-Corps Nodes and Sites

GW Global Network

Comparables (Capacity Building) Developed Countries Developing Countries  US  India  Korea  Mexico  Japan  Brazil  Singapore  Philippines

Our Experience In India - GW Institutional Culture:  Researchers: deep & diverse technologies, markets, capabilities & work ethic • Staff: strong commitment, effort, and capabilities, but not enough scale • Customer Discovery by Teams  Interview Quantity: Averaged 75 interviews v. 100+ in US NSF I-Corps. Comparable to other • developing countries, but less than NSF I-Corps. Interview Quality: High • Mentorship:  Not enough, and some mentors struggled with the process. • Local Infrastructure:  US > Korea > Japan > (India=Sao Paulo=Manila) > Mexico City • Challenges in India include curriculum oversight, instructor training, mentor oversight, team • management, recruitment, and metrics Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 18

From I-Corps to I- NCUBATE… Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 19

Key Differences: US and Indian Universities What we need to be mindful of as we do a Lab to Market initiative in India…  Business-Academia are considered to be mutually exclusive; Faculty not keen to get involved in business and entrepreneurial activities  Lack of strong incentive structure for entrepreneurship  Economic compulsions turn entrepreneurs (students, researchers) away  Guru Sishya relationship – Ascription by Status  Learning by Studying v. Learning by Doing Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 20

Key Differences between I-Corps and I-NCUBATE The operating environment of I-NCUBATE in India -  There is no NSF equivalent in India  A shoe-string budget  Our teams work in an environment with scant or unreliable market information  Huge variation in capabilities across organisations impedes efficiency of interactions and the customer discovery process  Team composition – almost all are engineers; E.g. No MBAs or business majors Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 21

Some Steps We have taken to streamline customer discovery under I-NCUBATE  Additional class room sessions – a Pre-Course introduced Extra exposure to management and marketing concepts for students and researchers with a • pure engineering/tech background  Extending the program by 1 week – to get more acclimatizing runway for teams to understand the difficult external environment  More practice sessions on conducting customer interviews  Laying down some rules for team composition  Workshops for on-boarding Mentors  Encouraging Faculty to “be around”; teams with active faculty perform much better Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 22

Finally… Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 23

In Conclusion 1. Innovation required for India is very different from innovation required in the developed world Price sensitive economy – affordability; bargaining culture • Socio-economic context of India very different (language, literacy levels, not DIY, etc.) • Two key policy objectives of start-ups – to stimulate employment; to reduce exclusion of under-privileged sections • 2. Redefining research – slant of innovation is towards low ticket size (<10% of western costs) & large scale 3. Diversity across participants in an I-NCUBATE cohort is very high The emphasis on process in I-NCUBATE helps immensely • 4. Challenges in maintaining curriculum standards and metrics for correct outcomes Syllabus, pedagogy, context, local business practices, • Gaps in the innovation ecosystem –lack of mentors, prototyping facilities, angel/venture funding,… • Cultural aspects – learning styles, teacher-student relationships • 5. Absence of a “carrot” and a “stick” (no NSF equivalent) – new levers for motivating teams Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 24

A typical innovation under I- NCUBATE… Scaling Innovation for the Forgotten One Billion 25

Burning problem in India … ~ 1 mn burn 0.14 mn About 7 mn victims deaths every burn injuries hospitalized year due to every year every year burns Can something be done to help the burn victims? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY One of the problems faced by these patients is the small area of healthy skin available for grafting Small surface burn Large surface burn

Key learnings from our Customer Discovery exercise…. 1. The #1 problem in treating large burn wounds is Infection – not the wound itself. 2. The biggest reason for infection is Lack of availability of sufficient skin to cover the large wound. 3. Burn surgeons suffer from high level of fatigue and severe stress due to extreme workload. 4. Surgeons treating vitiligo patients also encounter problem of limited availability of healthy skin.

Our Solution …. Increasing the skin expansion ratio from the current 1:4 to 1:25 can save the lives of thousands of burn victims Our Innovation – A Skin Spray Gun Sprays skin pieces to cover larger burn wounds Much better than the existing methods of treatment Lower infection rate Less Surgeon fatigue Lesser deaths ; faster healing Better surgery outcome