Chandigarh April 17, 2018: On the second day of the symposium, the dignitaries took part in a Round Table Meet, ‘Enhancing University-Industry Ecosystem in India’ moderated by the leading light of Industry-Academia in India, Dr. Anil Wali, Managing Director, Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT), IIT Delhi.
Prof. B S Ghumman, Vice Chancellor, Panjabi University, Patiala; Dr. Jitendra Sharma, CEO, Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone, Vishakapatnam; Ms. Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, Chairman and CEO, IKP Knowledge Park, Hyderabad; Dr. Manu Chaudhary, JMD, Venus Remedies Ltd., Mr. H.S. Cheema, Cheema Boilers Ltd.; Mr. Kundana K Lal, 00O, Ativitti AI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.; Mr Vikram Hans, MD, Multi-Overseas Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi were some of the dignitaries along with the delegates from UK to attend the round table meet.
Prof. S.K. Das, Director, IIT Ropar suggested that students should be allowed a few months off for starting a start-up/venture so as to provide the students a flexible and enabling environment. He further suggested that the ‘Professors of Practice’, a concept prevalent in the European countries, can be adopted in the Indian scenario and that the academicians should be involved in the industries for a specific time period during the academic year. Prof. Sir Wiiliam Wakeham, Former Vice Chancellor, University of Southampton, UK stressed on the fact that there are a large number of initiatives in India, however they need to be collated and operated systematically.
While discussing various strengths of the system and the hitches faced in collaborative research, it was articulated that for attaining growth in a sustainable manner it is necessary to achieve a base level and then source for the next level. Slowly and gradually the trust is increasing between the industry and the academia, mutual strengths are being recognized, redesigning of modules has been initiated. The panel unanimously voiced the need for little more flexibility in terms of operations and making them rather simple. However, it was also stressed that dexterity & flexibility also need to be held at an individual level for evolving open innovation models.
It was strongly advocated that for driving innovations and for generating successful start-ups, researchers with entrepreneurial bent of mind should be given
the responsibility of mentoring young researchers in the academia. A few more suggestions that emanated from the discussions were – redesigning of pre-PhD coursework for giving the students an experience of the industrial sector; industry personnel, after their super annuation from the industry, should be taken up as faculty by the academic institutions; review of all operations and initiatives should be external.
An IPR Workshop, ‘Best Practices for Boosting IP Commercialization and Technology Transfer’ was conducted during the afternoon session of the Symposium. This workshop was conducted by Dr. James Hudson, Senior Associate Consultant, Oxentia, UK & Mr. Siddhant Chouksey (Assistant Manager, CIPAM-DIPP, GoI, New Delhi).