“India is undergoing tremendous advancement and has been showing incredible growth from missiles, AI, superconductors to covid vaccines. Every country has its own strengths, therefore each and every country needs to share its technological strengths with the world for co-existence”.

says Dr Parvinder Maini, Scientific Secretary, Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India at the CII Global Science, Research and Innovation Summit held at IIT Delhi

During her special address at the Inaugural session of the CII Global Science, Innovation and Research Summit held on 2 May 2023,  Dr Parvinder Maini, Scientific Secretary, Office of the PSA to the GoI mentioned that there is an increasing realisation on technological partnerships in industry and academia with lot of growing focus on diversity and inclusiveness for enhanced ecosystem of innovation and research. She further highlighted that science and technology has been deeply engraved in achieving remarkable success of India’s technological breakthroughs like National Hydrogen Mission, National Quantum Mission, and National Superconductor Mission etc. She also added that it is imperative to take collective responsibility to amend the challenges of funding, inadequate training and awareness through strategic approach for R&D ecosystem to reach greater heights.

Prof Rangan Banerjee, Director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi mentioned that ideas and research done by the students and faculties have the potential of creating an impact in the society with active engagement of the industry. He also stated that there is a need for creating opportunities for the trained and skilled workforce of the country to build an ecosystem of innovation for competitive advantage in technology. He further highlighted that long term strategic engagement with the industry can mature the prototypes of research and innovation taking place in institutes.

Prof KP Sudheer, Ex-Officio Principal Secretary, Science and Technology Department, Government of Kerala emphasized the partnerships between the industry and academia as crucial to drive the nation growth through innovation. He further highlighted that it is crucial to inform and aware the start-ups, entrepreneurs and the industry about the science and technology challenges and demands for their enhanced contribution in the development of technology for the society.

Mr Ryuhei Nishi, First Secretary (Science and Technology), Embassy of Japan in India mentioned that India has experienced huge growth and is one of the global leaders on science and technology. He also highlighted that there lie exciting synergies between the two countries in various field of AI, green technology, quantum technology and nano technology etc. He further emphasized on increasing the people to people exchange between the two nations to accelerate the tech collaborations.

Mr Vipin Sondhi, Chairman, CII National Mission on Technology, Innovation & Research mentioned that Innovation will happened only when researchers and industry work together in cohesive manner with utmost enablement and support f the government. He also stated that innovation of new products and services based on strong research has to become part of our DNA to become the innovation superpower in the coming years.

Mr Alok Nanda, Co-Chair, CII National Mission on Technology, Innovation & Research and CEO, GE India Technology Centre & CTO, GE Aerospace – India talked about the innovation as novelty which brings out value in terms of commercialization and deployment but also strengthening social and economic growth of the country. He further emphasized on the new ideas to come out as potential active products and services.

Dr Ashish Mohan, Executive Director, CII delivered the Vote of Thanks at the Inaugural Session.

The aforesaid summit was organized as part of CII National Technology Mission to discuss and deliberate on mechanism for encouraging investment in R&D, fostering Industry-Academia-Research- startup collaboration (National Research Quad); encouraging Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (o/PSA), NITI Aayog, CSIR, TIFAC, IGSTC, DRDO, and IIT Delhi were the Partners of the Summit.

A Special Panel on ‘Nurturing Future-Ready Skilled Workforce’ was also jointly organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India (o/PSA) under the aegis of India’s G20 Presidency. o/PSA leads the G20 Chief Science Advisers Roundtable (CSAR) track, and the CII leads the Business-20 (B20) Engagement Group.

The summit also witnessed the release of three Thought Leadership Reports on Advanced Materials, Women in STEM, and Building a National Research Quad.

The summit also saw the participation of more than 300 government dignitaries, thought leaders, Industry leaders, and eminent academicians.

2 May 2023

New Delhi