Tag Archives: government

Intel & DST’s Launch Event for Startup Acceleration Programme (Pune/Bangalore) – 20 May

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Pune’s startup community, and other technology innovators, are invited by Intel Corp., IIM-Ahmedabad’s CIIE, and the Government of India’s DST, to an event to launch the Intel and DST – Innovate for Digital India Challenge, at 11am on Wednesday, 20th May, at Westin Pune.

This event will feature Dr. Gopichand Katragadda, CTO of TATA Sons, Mr. Sachin Kelkar, Head – Developer & Partner Program (APAC), Intel India & other dignitaries.

The event will launch the Digital India Challenge – which is essentially an accelerator/funding/grant/mentorship program for startups in Pune and Bangalore. The program offers startups the following:

  • 3-month accelerator program in Pune and Bengaluru
  • Access to grants and equity investments of up to Rs. 1.5cr
  • Product kits based on Intel architecture to develop MVPs
  • Industry connect across various phases
  • Mentorship, field immersion, and productization opportunity

For more details about the program, see http://www.innovatefordigitalindia.intel.in/.

The launch event on Wednesday morning at the Westin is a free event. Please register here

Event: R&D in Publicly-Funded Labs In India -by Sourav Pal, Directory NCL

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National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, is one of the top R&D institutions in the country. With approximately 200 scientific staff working here, it is an interdisciplinary research center with wide research scope and specializes in polymer science, organic chemistry, catalysis, materials chemistry, chemical engineering, biochemical sciences and process development. It houses good infrastructure for measurement science and chemical information.

There are about 400 graduate students pursuing research towards doctoral degree; about 50 students are awarded Ph.D. degree every year. NCL publishes over 400 research papers annually in the field of chemical sciences and over 60 patents worldwide. It is a unique source of research education producing the largest number of PhDs in chemical sciences within India.

InnoVidya and IUCAA present a talk by Dr. Sourav Pal, the current Director of NCL, on Research and Development in Publicly Funded Laboratories in India, on Saturday, 23 Aug, 2014, at Bhaskara 3 Hall, IUCAA. This is the next talk in the InnoVidya/IUCAA SPARK lecture series.

Abstract of the talk:

Publicly funded Research and development laboratories play a major role in promoting scientific research and development of technology in India. In this presentation, Dr Pal will relate his experiences of working in such laboratories and presently as Director, NCL. He will highlight the role of these institutions in leading scientific research. He will bring out the expectations that the Government has from such publicly funded institutions.

About the Speaker – Dr. Sourav Pal

Dr Sourav Pal is the Director, of National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, and Director, Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI), Bhavnagar. He holds an integrated Masters degree in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and a Ph.D. from Calcutta University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg, Germany . He was a visiting Professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA and at the Institute for Molecular Sciences, Okazaki, Japan. Dr. Pal has been recognized by several awards and honours for his contribution to science and technology including the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Chemical Sciences, the SASTRA-CNR Rao Award in Chemistry & Materials Science. He is a Fellow of all the three National Academies of Science in India and the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. He has published over 215 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, guided over 25 Ph D thesis, delivered more than 100 lectures in important conferences and is serving on the editorial boards of international journals.

About the InnoVidya IUCAA Spark Program

The SPARK program is a series of events jointly conducted by InnoVidya and IUCAA. These are special events that <spark> imagination & curiosity of our young, build bonds between participants of different disciplines, catalyze interactivity & promote peer links

About InnoVidya

InnoVidya is a group of educators and industry professionals who want to reach out to students, teachers, trainers and working professionals and catalyze significant improvements in their learning ecosystems. In addition to the InnoVidya website and the InnoVidya mailing list, we also hold public lectures on the 4th Saturday of every month. Lectures usually involve talks by senior educators, industry visionaries, or social and/or for-profit entrepreneurs working in the space of higher education.

If you’re interested in the state of education in India, please subscribe to get updates by email

Event Details

The event is on Saturday, Aug 23, 2014, at 11am, at the Bhaskara 3 Hall, IUCAA, at University of Pune campus.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Register here. There is ample parking at the venue.

National Conference on Cyber Security – focus: Defense & other Govt Agencies

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The Defense sub-committee of MCCIA Pune has organized a national conference on Cyber Security, with the intention of bringing together people/companies who are interested in working in the area of cyber security with the key policy and decision makers from defense, police, and other government bodies. Should be a great conference for CEOs/CTOs/Domain experts interested in working with the Indian Government in the area of cyber security.

The conference is a 1-day conference, on 26th July, at MCCIA, SB Road Pune. Register here

Overview

Cyber warfare is emerging as the new dimension in warfare and cyber security is attracting lot of attention globally. Impact of problems in this domain is felt across all sectors including defence, governmental institutions, industries and commercial organizations and many others. Interactions and learning from collective experience is one of the best ways to prepare for meeting these challenges. The main propose is to initiate interactions and dialogue between users and practitioners from Armed Forces as well as IT and ITES companies and experts on cyber security.

Needless to mention that this topic has gained prominence in the recent times and Government of India has appreciated the importance and the need to seek private sector participation in this vital area of National Security. You would therefore appreciate the importance attached to this event for creating the much desired awareness among the private sector to support this endeavour of the Government in general and the Defence Forces in particular. A small concurrent exhibition is also being organised for industry to display their capabilities.

Programme

  • Innaugural Session
  • Technical Session – I: Cyber Warfare And Cyber Security – Defence And Homeland Security Domains
  • Technical Session – II: – Systems And Processes As Defence Against Cyber Threats
  • Technical Session – III: Equipment And Solutions Canvass For Cyber Security
  • Technical Session – IV: Armed Forces And Civilian Cooperation Models
  • Valedictory Session

Program Facilitators:

Senior officers from services HQs, Army CERT, DIARA, HQ Southern Command, DRDO, DGQA, MCTE and other relevant establishments. Also senior officials from Police, IB, NTRO & CRPF for participation. There will also be a substantive participation from civil cyber security fraternity.

Who Should Attend

The conference will offer an excellent opportunity for those who are interested / working in the vital domain of cyber security to hear and interact with key decision makers and policy makers from Defence and government agencies about national policies and perspective plans. These plans will necessitate participation and cooperation between government, Defence and civilian experts whether for equipment and systems, training or enforcement

Fees and Registration

This event is open for anybody to attend, and costs Rs. 2000 (1500 for MCCIA members). Please register here

LiveBlog: Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan’s address at VLSI Conf Pune

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(This is a live-blog of the keynote address of Prithviraj Chavan, CM of Maharashtra, at the 26th International Conference on VLSI Design that is currently going on at the Hyatt, in Pune. For those who didn’t know, Prithviraj Chavan is an electrical engineer from BITS Pilani and Univ of California, Berkeley.)

The semiconductor industry in India started first in Bangalore, and then in Delhi/NCR. Pune is late to this game. But we have the potential to better than Delhi/NCR, and even Bangalore.

These are the things that need to happen for Pune to become a semiconductor hub:

  • Government should create facilities where the expensive EDA tools are setup, and various companies from industry can sign up for use of the tools.
  • Work on increasing the quality of manpower in and around Pune. We have to potential of having one of the highest ratios of high quality – low cost manpower. We need to work with universities and other educational institutions in this area.
  • We should continue trying to attract fabs to come and setup in Pune

We are a large customer of mobiles and other electronic devices. As we continue to grow at 8-9%, we will become an increasingly attractive market. And there will also be many opportunities to create specialized devices for local markets. This can drive innovation and incubation.

The CM said that he is completely committed to working with us (i.e. the tech community in Pune) to ensure that Pune gets put on the semiconductor map. He announced that any company investing in semiconductors in Maharashtra will get a rebate on their VAT until they recoup their investment. In addition, he hopes that the government will be able to help jumpstart this industry by these means:

  • Government will set up the physical infrastructure
  • Government will put up the initial funding for the expensive tools
  • Government will set up training facilities to get people started on this
  • We should together set up server farms, and other infrastructure needed to get started

Maharashtra is larger than most countries in the world, as large as Mexico, and larger than any European country. It attracts 33% of the FDI that came into the country. Maharashtra is well positioned to become the chip destination of India.

Very high-powered India/US education conference in Pune – Dec 5-7

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From 5 to 8 December, Pune will play host to a very high powered conference on education, featuring some of the top names in education from India and US. And by top names, I really mean the top: everyone’s listed as speakers and panelists, from ministers (Sharad Pawar, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde, and others), Governors, bureaucrats (from planning commission, AICTE, UGC), heads of various universities and colleges too numerous to mention (including Kadam, DY Patil, Navale, Karad, Mujumdar – all the big names in Maharashtra’s higher education), and a whole lot of others.

From the US there are members of congress and senators, top officials from Princeton, UC Berkeley, and a bunch of other universities. Just look at the detailed agenda for a full list. This is the first time this conference is being organized, so there is no track record, and I don’t know whether all the listed speakers will indeed show up, or there will be bunches of last minute cancellations, but even if a fraction of them show up, it will still be one of the most impressive collection of movers and shakers in the higher education space. Just look at the delegation coming from the US

The conference is organized by three organizations: Alliance for US India Business (AUSIB), State Legislative Leaders Foundation (SLLF), and Dr. D Y Patil University.

For more details, see the AUSIB website.

You can register for the conference here. It costs Rs. 5000 per person.

Seminar on “European Perspectives on Patents”

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As lot of collaborations are taking place between Pune based firms and German companies, and considerable amount of trade also takes place between both the countries which is likely to be affected by the current European Patent legislation, it is felt desirable to create an awareness among Indian manufacturers and service providers about the current trends in patenting in Europe. LES India in association with URDIP, Pune is organizing the seminar on the theme of “European Perspectives on Patents “ with a particular focus on the automobile and IT sectors.

URDIP

URDIP is a specialized service unit of CSIR, which helps organizations to meet the challenges of the new knowledge era. CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India have jointly set-up a Unit for Research and Development of Information Products (URDIP) at Pune. The mission of URDIP is to develop and distribute science, technology and industry related information products in electronic, online and web based formats. URDIP will also host third party databases.

It has been extensively involved in building patent databases and various patent analysis and mapping activities and has conducted a variety of comprehensive global patent search and analysis studies for clients in public and private sector. URDIP also provides training programmes in the area of Patinformatics.

URDIP is based in Pune. For more information, see http://urdip.res.in/

About the speakers

Prof. Dr. Heinz Goddar – a German Patent Attorney, as well as European Patent and Trade Mark Attorney.

He is particularly involved in international patent and licensing matters, including litigation and arbitration. He teaches Patent and Licensing Law as an Honorary Professor at the University of Bremen, Germany. He is also a Director at the Global Institute of Intellectual Property (GIIP), Delhi.

He is a Past President of LES International and of LES Germany.

Mr. Damien Trotereau – He has an engineering degree in electronics and control. He has passed the European Qualifying Examination for patent professional representatives. He has nearly 13 years of experience as Patent Examiner at EPO and also as resource person for EPO patent training programmes.

LES India

LES India is a not-for-profit company responsible for LES International activities in India. It is a professional society that encourages high professional standards among individuals engaged in the transfer and licensing of technology and industrial, or intellectual property rights.

LES India assists its members in improving their skills and techniques in licensing through self education, the conduct of special studies and research, the sponsorship of educational meetings, the publication of statistics, reports, articles and other material, and the exchange of ideas related to domestic and foreign
licensing.

One of the important mandates of LES India is to make available to its members the latest, most accurate information on licensing.

For more information see: http://www.lesindia.org/

Got Cool Technology? Maharashtra wants to give you a free Trade Fair Stall

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Do you have some cool new technology that you would like to showcase? In that case, now is your chance to show it for free at the India International Trade Fair 2010 that’s happening in Delhi starting on 14th November, 2010.

India International Trade Fair Logo
Science and Technology Park (STP) Pune, wants to give you a stall at the India International Trade Fair, 2010, at Delhi. Are you eligible? Click on the image to see more PuneTech posts related to Indian Government Organizations.

Basically, Maharashtra has been allocated 11000 sq. ft. at this trade fair to show the coolest stuff from Maharashtra, and out of that 3000 sq. ft. has been allocated to Pune. The Science and Technology Park (STP) has been given the responsibility of using this space to highlight the achievements of Pune. They have decided to try to find a few innovative companies/technologies and showcase them (for free).

Specifically:

  • It should be a company or product that actually exists (not just an idea or a concept)
  • It should be something that is interesting or innovative. Something that shows that Maharashtra is on the cutting edge
  • Specific domains of interest include CleanTech, GreenTech, Environment, e-Governance, m-Governance; but entries need necessarily not be limited to these domains
  • The Trade Fair starts on 14th November, and will be at Pragati Maidan, Delhi

If you are a company who fits this description, or if you know some other company who does, please get in touch with Rohit Srivastwa (rohit.srivastwa @ scitechpark.org.in), Advisor, Science & Technology Park, Pune. If you are a company/product from Mumbai or elsewhere in Maharashtra, don’t give up hope. You can still apply, and if found interesting enough, they’ll try to accommodate you.

That’s it. Easy, no?

(Note: the website of the India International Trade Fair is here; but sadly, it has not yet been updated with 2010 information.)

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Pune engineer’s solar-powered crop irrigator covered by MIT Technology Review

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Pune-based Padmakar Kelkar has developed a solar-powered crop irrigator that can be a huge boon for farmers in these times of failing monsoons and 14-hour rural power cuts.

I had no idea what pivot irrigation is, so I looked it up in wikipedia, and to save you the trouble, I’ve copied the relevant paragraph here:

Center-pivot irrigation (sometimes called central pivot irrigation), also called circle irrigation, is a method of crop irrigation in which equipment rotates around a pivot. Central pivot irrigation is a form of overhead (sprinkler) irrigation consisting of several segments of pipe (usually galvanized steel or aluminium) joined together and supported by trusses, mounted on wheeled towers with sprinklers positioned along its length. The machine moves in a circular pattern and is fed with water from the pivot point at the center of the circle. The outside set of wheels sets the master pace for the rotation (typically once every three days). The inner sets of wheels are mounted at hubs between two segments and use angle sensors to detect when the bend at the joint exceeds a certain threshold, and thus, the wheels should be rotated to keep the segments aligned. Centre pivots are typically less than 500m in length (circle radius) with the most common size being the standard 1/4 mile machine (400 m). To achieve uniform application, centre pivots require a continuously variable emitter flow rate across the radius of the machine. Nozzle sizes are smallest at the inner spans to achieve low flow rates and increase with distance from the pivot point.

MIT’s Technology Review (India Edition) covered this a couple of weeks back (the same article also appeared as a featured innovation in DARE magazine). Kelkar’s technology was one of the featured innovations in the IITB-Alumni Association’s Innovations conference in 2008 that happens every year in Pune. (By the way, Innovations 2010 is happening in a couple of weeks – you should consider attending).

The TechReview article points out the advantages of this irrigator:

The solar panels charge the battery, and this in turn runs the machine when there is no sun. “We have run the machine 19 hours continuously without solar energy at all,” says Kelkar. The use of solar panels could be a boon for farmers in those states that get ample sunlight but not enough electricity.

Other advantages include water savings of about 30-50 percent over other pivots, zero land erosion, 30-50 percent more yield, higher return on investment, and minimum labor requirements. Compared to the drip irrigation, Kelkar’s pivot is more cost-effective. “Drip irrigation may cost around Rs 35,000 an acre, whereas my machine costs around Rs 45,000 an acre. But the cost in case of drip irrigation includes laying it out in the field every time and taking it out once it gets damaged, and you may have to spend another 15 percent every year. On a long-term basis, the cost of my machine comes out to be much less,” he adds.

Having already spent 20-25 lakhs of his own money in developing the technology, Kelkar is now looking for funding to start commercial production. One of the sources he is considering is the Government of India’s Technopreneurship Promotion Programme (TePP). (PuneTech had covered TePP about an year back.

In his efforts at finding funding, he is being helped by Pune’s Venture Center. You can see all of our coverage of Venture Center’s activities here. Thanks to @kaushikgala for tipping us. Also, you can follow MIT Technology Review’s India Edition here.

38 organizations where a tech startup can apply for funds

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The Venture Center is a not-for-profit technology startup incubator hosted in the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune. One of the services they provide their incubatee startups is a guide to the various government funds and schemes that a technology startup can avail of at different stages of their development, depending upon meeting certain criteria.

This is information that most entrepreneurs are not aware of. With this in mind, Venture Center has put out this guide to the Financing Landscape in India for Technology Ventures. This guide is a must read for all startups interested in funding.

You can simply browse this information, and read the rules and regulations of each of these 38 funds/organizations. Or, if you want to be handheld your way through the maze, you can avail of Venture Center’s advisory services.

For more information about Venture Center, you can see PuneTech’s interview of Kaushik Gala, the business development manager for Venture Center.

A perspective on The Indian Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2006

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Government of India - Lion Capital of IndiaOne of our favorite Pune Bloggers, Dhananjay Nene, has written a blog post analysing the the Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2006, that was passed by the Indian Parliament last month. He has described the important points of the bill like:

  • Wireless networks are now added to the defintion of computer networks
  • The “hacking a computer system” offense is expanded to include sending and forwarding of material that is offensive, intimidating, etc.
  • Definition of pornography is slightly expanded. (And transmission and publication is an offense, but as far as Dhananjay can make out, consumption of pornography is not an offense.)

But Dhananjay’s main reason for writing the post is the fact that this law is being widely misconstrued and/or misunderstood, and he wants to provide a contrarian view. He points out:

I wasn’t quite sure how to react to blog posts like “India Sleepwalks To Total Surveillance“. However I really can’t respect the way the bill has been represented. Some of the bold statements in the post say, “Thou shall not author a joke. Not even forward one”, “Thou shall not surf Bollywood news” and ” Thou shall not watch porn”. I really could not find any evidence to support such views whatsoever. The sad part is that such posts get picked up in articles like Blogger Writes from Inside the Newest Police State on the Planet, discussions such as slashdot – India Sleepwalks Into a Surveillance Society and tweets such as these. I have spent about 6 years in US, and the remainder in India. I have always been very happy with the freedoms I have received in India, even though I do know that very unfortunately a small proportion of the population does get victimised or harassed due to the stringent laws from time to time. I won’t be surprised if a substantial proportion of Indian Citizens actually support the clauses against pornography. And finally the draft bill has been under discussion since 2006 so I couldn’t understand how the world’s largest democracy sleepwalked into something (though I am certain this and another bill got completely fast tracked after the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks). The fact of the matter is that this has always been a state of stringent laws, with laws which don’t always agree fully with the western world. I think we should rate our laws based on our aspirations and desires. While I shudder at the privileges the government has in terms of eavesdropping, I am quite ambivalent on the strictures against pornography and greatly welcome the enhancements related to electronic signatures and increased accountability in terms of online communication and network security maintenance. Its really a mixed bag in my opinion. If at all India is to be considered a police state as in some opinions, in my opinion it is certainly not because of this bill.

Read his whole article to understand this important development in detail.

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