India Innovation Summit- Day-1 Session-I

After a brief tea break, which allowed people to socialize a bit, the first session was quickly on. It was Ashish Chatterjee (Director, Asia Connect + Develop Head, P&G) who set the context on the Power of Networks. While introducing the Open Innovation model at P&G that really opened up the R&D front to over 2 million scientists worldwide, Ashish did very well in providing the structure to the discussion. He talked of three models of engagement, viz: Power of Networks; Collaborative Competition; and Open Source. Power of Networks could be leveraged via- Scouting Teams; Intermediates; or by tapping into Network of Networks. Collaborative Competition can manifest itself on the lines of accruing- direct collaboration, competitions through grand challenges, and for mutual benefits. He also depicted Open Sources instances such as Linux, Human Genome Project and Drug Discovery. A well set context.

The first talk of the panel was by Wolfgang Lehmacher (CEO, GeoPost Intercontinental). Talking about the extent of collaborative innovation at the company, Wolfgang depicted the enablers of innovation as- Local Autonomy; Lean Centre; De- Centralization; Policies, Processes and Incentives; and an Entrepreneurial spirit. He also gave instances of process, product and business model innovations.

Next was Girish Wardadkar (President KPIT Cummins) who illustrated the benefits of adopting an Open Source model of software development and deployment. He presented some very interesting stats from the company.

Now it was the turn of a pharma company to talk about innovation networks. Swaminathan Subramaniam (Director- Licensing and External Research, Merck & Co) laid out the challenges of R&D in the pharma space and how open innovation is getting increased acceptance. The models he depicted were: Leasing and Research Collaboration (19 scouts at Merck globally); External Discovery & Preclinical Science (Virtual R&D); Co-opetiton -I (AstraZeneca and Merck); and Co-opetition -II (Lilly, Pfizer and Merck). He also gave instance of Puretech Ventures where likes of Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Abbott, Lilly, Pfizer and Merck have come together to develop technologies and machines.

Next talk came from Deepam Mishra (CEO, i2 India Ventures), where he shared his experiences from the trenches in nurturing product development for India, leveraging breakthrough technologies. Allegedly, i2 Ventures exist in a space which is the confluence of market, people and technology, and best way for innovation is proactive deal creation. With a focus on Water, Energy, Waste and Agriculture, Deepam maintained that venture for India come from need driven ideas, aided by technology. The talk followed a round of Q&A, though the questions weren't well articulated, in fact most were suggestions. But in all a well received session. People left of lunch as it was well past 1 PM.