Airtel’s Sunil Mittal has an advice for India Inc: Be prepared for global innovation to shift to India – BusinessToday

The chairperson of India’s second-largest telco Sunil Bharti Mittal has said the country was well on its way to becoming the innovation hub of the world. After the west and east Asian economies, such as Japan and China, it was now India’s turn to provide ingenious solutions to the world.

“As you all know, India’s biometric-based Aadhaar was lauded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [official] who spoke about how India is digitalising its economy, especially on the services side in a very meaningful manner,” noted Mittal while delivering the keynote address at the first edition of IInvenTiv-2022, a research and development forum (R&D) organised by 23 premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi on Friday.

Mittal was referring to an observation by the deputy director of the multilateral development bank, Paolo Mauro, who had said on Thursday that despite India’s size and scope it had accomplished a noteworthy feat with the Aadhaar card.

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“That to my mind is a remarkable turnaround, for the country is now receiving a tremendous amount of foreign direct investment as well as becoming a nation which is thriving on research and innovation,” remarked Mittal, adding, “These are world leaders who are looking at India and feeling astonished how well we are moving ahead.”

Touching upon the subject of the synergy between academia and industry, Mittal agreed that it was presently a weak area. He was, however, optimistic that things would change as the engagement between India Inc. and institutions such as IITs picked up traction.

In this regard, he especially praised the New Education Policy (NEP).

“Things are changing. The NEP has brought some of the early signals of how this can be developed through a flexible curriculum where students can go and work in an industry and yet not be deprived of their academic credits,” he said.

Responding to data regarding American universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Standford spending $800 million to $1 billion, respectively, on research annually, he said that Indian institutes could rival them through the creation of strong synergies with the industry.

“I do not doubt that with the industry participating in a big way with our institutes of higher learning like IITs, we can also achieve that number. We spend a lot of money in silos. And I am not just talking about digital, I am talking about the entire spectrum of the industry!” informed Mittal.

He asserted the only way to resolve the challenge was through collaboration.