CII’s National Committee on Technology was constituted way back in early nineties and the Chairman of CII’s first National Committee on Technology was Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. CII works in various areas like technology promotion, facilitating Industrial R&D and Industry’s investment in R&D, facilitating partnership developments for technology/R&D collaborations, capacity building and facilitating technology exports, providing advisory and technical services for implementing technology projects benefiting society and common man all towards creating innovation eco-system in the country and many more. Some of the major activities are:
Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) - Global Innovation and Technology Alliance (GITA)- A not-for-profit society (under establishment) jointly promoted by CII and the Department of Science & Technology for implementing India’s designated bilateral Industrial R&D fund for supporting industries in R&D and International Partnership Development Activities. (www.gita.org.in). Presently GITA is handling Indo – Canada S & T Cooperation Programme, Indo – Israel Industrial R & D (I4 RD) and Indo –Taiwan S & T Cooperation Programme.
Technology Exports Development Organisations (TEDO) – TEDO, a unique Public – Private Partnership project between Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology, Supported by Ministry of Commerce to enhance market linked technology competitiveness of the Indian Industry. The main objective is to promote Indian Technical Know How, Technology Intensive Products /Services/Projects in global markets. Presently TEDO is focusing in Capability building to enhance export competitiveness & Facilitating Market Access for 120 Indian SME’s in six focus sectors. (Automotive Components, Process Plant and Machinery, Casting and Forging, Engineering Services, Agro and Food Processing and Dies and Mould).
India Innovation Initiative (i3) - A joint initiative by DST, Agilent and CII will be launched
.i3 is a nation wide innovation competition for all innovators above 18 years including innovations students, innovators from R&D Institutes & Labs, Industry professionals and individual innovators / Entrepreneurs, grassroots innovators etc. 1.The top innovators will be awarded cash prizes & supported to take their innovations to the market or connected to Industry thus enabling wealth generation and societal benefit. IIM-A is partnering this joint initiative by providing funding and Incubation support for making business proposals and for commercialization of some of the best innovations.
CII-Raunaq Singh Innovation Grid - Innovation Grid is a web-based networking portal for bringing all the stakeholders of the innovation to market process on one single platform. The aim is to facilitate faster innovation commercialization.
Global Innovation Index -- Global Innovation Index is a analysis report on the competitiveness of various countries based on certain innovation parameters. It is being prepared by Prof Soumita Dutta from INSEAD.
Creative India - Creative India is a joint initiative of DSIR and CII for creating a platform to showcase & promote innovations, to network with & learn from the world’s best innovators and to share expertise & success stories in innovation.
Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science (IRIS) - IRIS is a joint initiative of CII, DST and Intel, for encouraging and promoting the innovators among school students. Completed 3rd successful year in 2008, having received around 1000 innovative projects from school students, 28 out of which were selected as top innovations. 6 of them represented India at Intel Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF) in USA in May 2009.