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Recently, an agreement has been signed between CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) and iCreate to harness the country’s technological strength.
iCreate is an autonomous centre of excellence of the Gujarat government and is India’s largest institution for transforming start-ups based on tech innovation into businesses.
CSIR
- CSIR is known for its cutting-edge Research & Development and Industrial knowledge base in diverse S&T areas.
- It is a contemporary R&D organization.
- CSIR has a dynamic network of 37 national laboratories, 39 outreach centres, one Innovation Complex, and three units with a pan-India presence.
- CSIR has a patent portfolio of 8366 Indian patents and 7806 foreign patents.
- CSIR covers a wide spectrum of science and technology – from oceanography, geophysics, chemicals, drugs, genomics, biotechnology and nanotechnology to mining, aeronautics, instrumentation, environmental engineering and information technology.
- It provides significant technological intervention in many areas concerning societal efforts.
- Societal efforts include environment, health, drinking water, food, housing, energy, farm and non-farm sectors.
Further, CSIR’s role in Science & Technology human resource development is noteworthy.
Highlights of MoU
- Under the MoU, CSIR and iCreate intend to establish a collaborative support system for promising tech start-ups by making combined resources available for entrepreneurs and innovators in the country.
- The partnership will also catalyse scientific innovation and the marketability of high-tech start-ups.
- Fintech, neobanks, and e-commerce players make the most of the digital environment and their enterprise can leverage it to the fullest as well and ride the digital boom.
- Further, iCreate will help set up new incubators at identified CSIR labs.
- Such start-ups will access CSIR’s equipment, facilities, and scientific manpower.
- CSIR will provide intellectual property support and explore methods of financially supporting innovative start-ups from India to boost emerging entrepreneurs.
- iCreate will also leverage its deep industry connections and market linkages to identify real needs that can be addressed through scientific innovation by CSIR scientists.
- It will thus lead to faster commercialisation of the innovations coming out of CSIR.
State of Start-ups in India
- Today, India is the third largest start-up ecosystem globally (by number of start-ups) with more than 15,000 start-ups established in 2020, up from 5000 in 2010.
- The underlying enablers of this startup ecosystem include smartphone and internet penetration, cloud computing, application programming interfaces (APIs), and a national payments stack in place.
- Additionally, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, India has witnessed more number of Unicorn startups (startups having valuation of over USD1 billion) in just 2021 than it did in the period 2011-20.
- However, still there are many challenges (Building and Scaling an Indian Startup, Diversity and the Digital Divide, Complex Regulatory Environment) that act as a hindrance in realizing the true potential of startups in India.
SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT
