1. ICT Solutions - TCOE India Value Proposition by Shri Saurabh Srivastava, Co-Founder, NASSCOM & VC
Profile
Mr. Saurabh Srivastava is one of India’s leading entrepreneurs and institution builders. He is widely acknowledged in India and globally, as one of the architects of the Indian IT Industry and as leading the creation of a vibrant entrepreneurial eco system in India. In March this year PM Narendra presented him an Award for contribution to the Indian IT Industry. He is a cofounder and past Chairman of NASSCOM, NASSCOM Foundation and the Indian Venture Capital Association, Chairman Emeritus of TIE Delhi-NCR (was on the global board of TiE) on the National Executive Committees FICCI( was also on CII Exec Committee). He co- founded India's first and extremely successful Venture Capital fund in the private sector, Infinity (creating companies such as India Bulls and Avendus) and also founded the Indian Angel Network (IAN), India's first & possibly the world’s largest angel group with over 350 members, comprising the who's who of successful Indian entrepreneurs and CEOs, with operations in 7 cities (including London) and a portfolio of 100 companies.
2. SIDBI Venture Funds for Innovations, Shri Ramesh Dharmaji, SIDBI Venture Capital Limited.
Shri Ramesh Dharmaji has 3 decades of experience in the areas of Development Banking, Credit Administration, evolving of structured products, Portfolio Management, Profit Centre Operations, and Relationship Management in the financial service sector. He has the Distinction of having indepth exposure to a number of SME industrial clusters /sectors across the country. Mr. Dharmaji has been a member of a number of important and high powered committees set up by Development Commissioner (Small Scale Industries) Government of India, SIDBI, state level RBI empowered committees.
3. Accelerator Program for TCOE Technologies, Shri Vikram Upadhyaya, GHV Accelerator
Mr. Vikram Upadhyaya is the founding Member & Chief Mentor at GHV Accelerator. A Graduate from University of Tokyo and Real Time Operating System Researcher started his entrepreneurial journey way back in 1999. Founding Board Member of India’s Biggest Incubator, Indian Angel Network-Incubator. Nominated Advisor by Telecom Center of Excellence-TCoE, (Govt. of India’s PPP Innovation Program, operating under esteemed academic institutes of India).
4. TCOE Innovations and Incubations, Prof Abhay Karandikar, TCOE IIT Bombay
Prof .Abhay Karandikar-Professor and Head-Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He is the coordinator of Tata Teleservices IIT Bombay Center for Excellence in Telecom where he has initiated many projects in the area of broadband wireless networks. Dr Karandikar has 5 US patents issued and several patents pending, contributions to IEEE standards, contributed chapters in books and large number of papers in international journals and conferences to his credit.Dr. Karandikar is a two time recipient of award for excellence in teaching at IIT Bombayin 2006 and 2011. He is also a recipient of the VASVIK Industrial research award 2010, NASI-Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee award 2012, Dr Vikram Sarabhai Research award 2010, Prof. S. V. Aiya Memorial Award 2005-06 by SVC Aiya Trust Pune, Prof. K. Srinivasan Award 2005-06 by IETE and Dr PK Patwardhan Technology Development award.
5. Digital Mandi: From Lab Innovation to a Commercial Service – Dr Rajesh Hegde, TCOE IIT Kanpur
Prof. Rajesh M. Hegde is an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur, where he heads the Multimedia and Sensor Networks Lab. He was also a P. K. Kelkar Research Fellow in the same department from 2009-2012. His current areas of research interest include multi-media signal processing, multi-microphone speech processing, pervasive multimedia computing, ICT for socially relevant applications in the Indian context, and applications of signal processing in wireless networks with specific focus on emergency response and transportation applications. He has also worked on NSF funded projects on ICT and mobile applications at the University Of California San Diego, USA, where he was a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering between 2005–2008. He is also a member of the National working group of ITU-T (NWG-16) on developing multimedia applications.
6. Wireless Telecom Semiconductor Innovations – Shri Parag Naik, CEO, Sankhya Labs
Mr. Parag Naik is a serial entrepreneur with over 23 years of industry experience, out of which 15 years have been in high technology startups. At Saankhya he has been the CEO since April 2014.He is a named inventor on 19 US and India patents in the areas of CPU/SDR architecture, Digital Communications, Signal Processing and Hardware-Software Co-design/ Code generators.
7. Communications Last Mile through Power Lines - Shri Bhoopesh Raghav, Director, Advanced Telecom & Power Networks Pvt. Ltd.
Mr. Bhoopesh Raghav has worked on international business in Reliance Communication, Tata Communications; developed ILD business & NGN for Idea Cellular and pan India network for Loop Telecom. He has rich experience of working on international networks and in management of submarine projects in India, South Asia and Africa. He is currently providing consultancy support to state & private utility companies in forays into telecom using OPGW & ADSS network and developing network business for growing companies in India and Africa. Profile Mr. Satya N Gupta is an international expert in NGN technologies, Regulation, Interconnection and Broadband policy with 35 years of experience in all aspects of Telecom He is a triple master in Electronics Technology, ICT Management and Telecom Regulation and Policy. Internationally known as “NGN Guru” he is a trainer and coach for telecommunication technologies, policy and regulation and a Govt. Affairs and Regulatory advocate.
8. Mobile based Women and Child Development and Monitoring Innovation – Ms. Simi Bhatia, PM, Airtel
Ms. Simi Bhatia heads Government Solutions at Airtel Business. She leads all governance projects. She’s been the juggernaut curating unique solutions to help government departments embrace automation. One of her solutions, mChallan that automates the erstwhile manual challan process has been successfully running in four states within the respective police departments. Another, mHealth, was created to address the dire need of having an automated record of the well-being of expecting mothers. She’s been with Airtel for the last 8 years, managing sales and product development.
9. E100-Location Based Platform – Shri R. Venkateswaran, Senior VP, Persistent Systems.
As the SVP of Engineering, Dr. Venkateswaran (Venki) is responsible for building high-quality and innovative products that form a significant non-linear revenue stream for Persistent Systems. He joined Persistent Systems in 2002 and has undertaken various roles over the years, including that of CTO, Head of Strategic Initiatives as well as Business Head for Telecom Business. He holds multiple patents in the area of ATM Multicasting, and has authored numerous research papers that have been published in reputed journals and conferences.
10. Smart Shehar – Shri Dipesh Mohile, COO and Co-Founder
Mr. Dipesh Mohile is Co-Founder & COO of SmartShehar. Before joining Mr. Chetan Temkar (Founder/CEO) to start SmartShehar; he was part of the Strategy Team at Cisco Systems; responsible for providing strategic insights to the global leadership team. He is also part of MTF (Mumbai Transport Forum), which is a Mumbai based think-tank working to solve urban transport issues & citizen initiatives to improve local governance.
11. Solar WiFi and other Solutions for Last Mile Shri R. R. Yadav, DGM, BSNL
12. Setting up and managing a Successful Commercial Venture, While Promoting their Technology based Innovation by Shri Ravi Pani
Mr. Ravi Pani is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Law Graduate, with over 30 years of experience in Corporate Risk Management, Finance, Treasury, Project Advisory Services, Legal and Statutory Compliance. Has been associated with following sectors – E-commerce, Telecom, Information Technology, Reality & Infrastructure, Insurance, Health Services and Hotel Industry.
Department of Telecommunications (DoT) along with Telecom Centre of Excellence (TCOE) India organized first TCOE India Innovation Meet at New Delhi. Mr Rakesh Garg, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) inaugurated this event. Senior officers from Government, Telecom Service Providers, Investors and innovators were present in this august gathering.
Telecom Centres of Excellence India (TCOE India), a Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative of Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Government of India, with industry and academic institutions are established at 8 premier academic institutes of the country with the objective of creating an ecosystem for a sustained, high rate of growth of Telecom in the country. TCOE India proposed to create Rs 1000 Crores Innovation Fund for 1000 Start-up.
Speaking at the event Joint Secretary (Telecom) Shri V Uma Shankar stated that the Telecom Centre of Excellence has been created in 2007 to strengthen the R&D ecosystem in ICT where Government as a facilitator, Industry as the ultimate user, and academia as the research unit have generated lot of success in last eight years. However, to address the gaps, these Centres have now opened up its research platform to all the stakeholders of ICT sector. It surely has the potential of providing the right impetus to Hon'ble Prime Minister's Make in India' and 'Digital India' vision.
Smt Aruna Sundararajan USOF Administrator and Additional Secretary Telecom, advocated the need to Innovate for survival. She mentioned four important pillars where start-ups should focus on; Telecom manufacturing, Rural Access, Smart City and Futuristic Internet of Everything (IOE).
Inaugurating this event Shri Rakesh Garg, Secretary DoT & DeitY emphasized the need for IPR creation, frugal Innovations and Design led manufacturing within the country. He stated that, while we have made a good beginning in designing of products, a significant percentage of the world’s design work takes place in India today; however, it is largely carried out as service work for multinational companies. As a result, even though significant design works gets carried out in India, it does not result in Indian-owned IPR and Indian products. This initiative is first step in that direction.
Speaking at the event Dr Saurabh Srivastava, a well known Venture capitalist while applauding the Government, shared his experience in entrepreneurship and nurturing of start-ups. He stated that Indian start-ups are growing at 14% whereas for USA it is 7% and China it is 4%. With this pace, we will be No 1 by 2020. TCOEs are sitting at the intersection point of Government, Telecom Industry, Telecom service providers, Academia and Entrepreneurs. It will create a platform with different pieces joined together. We can have different types of business models, including where Government is willing to fund along with private sector, for better synergies.
Sharing his thoughts leading Angel Investor Shri Hemant Kanakia requested for creation of pull factor within the country for start-ups in ICT sector. This will ensure lots of investments flowing into start-ups of India. With availability of talent pools in India they can develop the best quality ICT products here in India.
Several innovators shared their innovations in this platform and requested for this process to carry forward.
Telecom Centre of Excellence created in 2007 to strengthen the R&D ecosystem in ICT where Government worked as a facilitator, Industry as the ultimate user, and academia as the research unit. Now, these Centres have opened up its research platform to all the stakeholders of ICT sector to provide the right impetus to Hon'ble Prime Minister's Make in India' and 'Digital India' vision. It’s a National Imperative to seek Inputs from Think tanks to help create Policy Environment to encourage, recognize and Support home grown Innovations
The ecosystem will strive for creation of pull factor within the country for start-ups in ICT sector. This will ensure lots of investments flowing into start-ups of India and develop the best quality ICT products here in India.
Four important pillars for focus by start-ups were announced in domains of Telecom manufacturing, Rural Access, Smart City and Futuristic Internet of Everything (IOE). Start-ups were encouraged to work on solving customers interests by working backwards from problems and solving them using technology.
The solutions from Innovators for further encouragement and handholding were decided as follows:-
a) Digital Mandi roll-out in other states by BSNL
b) Wireless Telecom Semiconductor Innovations by Saankhya Labs
c) Communications last mile through Power lines By ATPN Pvt Ltd
d) E100 location based platform by Persistent Systems
e) Solar WiFi and other solutions for last mile by BSNL
Speaker Profiles for the 2nd TCOE India Innovation Meet
1. Technology Innovation Programme (Srijan)-P. R. Basak
Mr. P.R. Basak is a Director in the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), an autonomous organization of the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India. He is the Head of the TIFAC-SIDBI Technology Innovation Programme (SRIJAN).He has been associated with many other technology developments and commercialization programmes in TIFAC and played a key role in formulating, planning & implementing projects through networking among all the stakeholders and effective industry - academia - R&D linkages. He has also been responsible in initiating and coordinating many specialized and technology foresight studies in the domain of renewable energy, bio-products, chemical industry etc.
2. Accelerator Systems and TCOEs-Vikram Upadhyaya
Mr. Vikram Upadhyaya is the founding Member & Chief Mentor at GHV Accelerator. A Graduate from University of Tokyo and Real Time Operating System Researcher started his entrepreneurial journey way back in 1999. He is the founding Board Member of India’s Biggest Incubator, Indian Angel Network-Incubator. He has been nominated Advisor by Telecom Center of Excellence-TCoE, (Govt. of India’s PPP Innovation Program, operating under esteemed academic institutes of India).
3. Scorecard methodology for assessing Start-ups-Prajakt Raut
Mr Prajakt Raut is an entrepreneur and entrepreneurship evangelist. Prajakt advices startups and early-stage companies on building meaningful business plans and investor pitch decks. He mentors early-stage companies on strategy, business model &monetization, fundraising/bootstrapping and on preparing the company for growth. Prajakt was previously a part of the founding team of The Hatch for Startups, co-founder of Orange Cross, Asia Director for TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), and head of operations of Indian Angel Network
4. Emerging mobile technology ecosystem and how entrepreneurship and innovation can be promoted at college campuses in India –Anirudh Suri
Anirudh Suri is Founding Partner of the India Internet Fund, and heads the Delhi and Mumbai offices for IIF Advisors. Anirudh previously served as a policy advisor to the Minister of State for Communications and Technology in the Government of India. Prior to that, he worked at McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs, serving clients in the consumer, retail, healthcare, energy and the public sectors. Named the Most Promising Young Indian Professional by India Empire and a Goldman Sachs Global Leader by the Goldman Sachs Foundation, Anirudh has also been the recipient of the Carnegie Endowment Fellowship, the C.V. Starr Fellowship and the Singapore Airlines Scholarship.
5. Network of Networks-Manish Kapoor
Manish has worked in different roles in the Indian IT and Telecom industries for the last 22 years, in the last few years he has had the opportunity to work in the cloud computing, mobility and applications space. Some of the projects he has been involved in include Audience measurement system, Automated Water Meter Reading & Automated Metering Infrastructure, Weapons & Asset Tracking, Telecom Network Management, Trouble Ticket and Workforce Management.
6. Smart City Market verticals-Mr. L. N Reddy
Mr L. N Reddy is Director – Engineering at Lekha Wireless. He is responsible for development of Wireless products in the areas of defence and LTE .He is the system Architect for WaveGuru Product. WaveGuru is Lekha's Innovative Test and Measurement Solution. He has sequentially worked on four 3G /WiMAX base station development projects and took a task leading role in three of these projects. He is focused on design, implementation and enhancement of L1 and algorithm development.
7. Data Analytics for analyzing Call drops- Bhupesh Daheria
Bhupesh Daheria is the managing Trustee of Aegis Knowledge Trust,,Founder m University, Aegis School of Business & Telecom and Aegis Graham Bell Awards Bhupesh Daheria has over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, telecom, skilling and education. His life is focused on eradicating the birth penalty through offering quality education to the masses at affordable cost. He founded mUniversity (mobile University), which is market place for education with integrated MOOC platform. In 2002 he founded Aegis School of Business and Telecommunication a leading school of Telecom Management, Big Data Analytics and Cloud Computing. He also funded Aegis Graham Bell Awards which is world’s largest innovation award for TIME and SMAC (Telecom, Internet, Media, Edutainment, Social, Media, Analytics and Cloud).
8. Real Time Pollution Monitoring & Analytics-Amiya Kumar Samantaray
Amiya Kumar Samantaray has been with Phoenix Robotix Pvt. Ltd. since August 2014. He is the founder and CEO of the company. He is an alumnus of NIT-Rourkela and holds honors degree in Electronics and Instrumentation. His determination and passion for electronics and to take India ahead in the field of electronics product design has motivated Mr. Amiya to reject the his lucrative jobs from Verizon Communications and come up with a Startup. In this short span of less than one year, He has made it to top 20 teams in India for “Innovation for Digital India Challenge 2015” organized by myGov, DST, Intel and CIIE, IIMA.
9. Rural Connectivity and Smart Villages-Michael Ginguld
Michael was born and raised in a kibbutz in Israel. He has more than 20 years of experience working in ICT, community and rural development projects in India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal, and Israel. Michael worked in the non -profit and for-profit sectors with start-up grassroots organizations, advocacy groups, large international NGOs and commercial enterprises working in developing countries. He is the CEO of AirJaldi.Org, a non-profit organization dedicated to R&D and capacity building work in the field of Wireless networks. Michael holds a B.Sc. in Ag. Econ. from the Hebrew U., Jerusalem, Israel, an MA in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, the Netherlands, and an MA in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
10. Green Solutions using Bio waste-Mateen Abdul
Mateen has 15+ years of experience with automotive majors and energy start-ups where he built businesses from concept to execution. At Maruti Suzuki, Mateen was part of the core team which set up Industry first, new businesses in financial services. At Ford, he was part of the corporate team to plan and execute $100 million retail expansion in India. Mateen completed his MBA from Babson (Global #1 program for Entrepreneurship). Post Babson, he co-founded Grassroots Energy, a Boston based renewable energy start-up providing off-grid energy solutions in South Asia. At Grassroots, he is responsible for operations and business development in South Asia.
11. E-Learning Technologies-Tarun Malik
Tarun got on board with Takshila learning in May 2015 to lead and drive hyper growth of the education ventures. Tarun has been associated with Samsung as Director and Head of South West Asia for Digital Services for the Android & Tizen Store. Amongst the many first he has to his credit the launch of Tizen OS globally .Previous to this he spent fourteen years with Microsoft in various roles in India & United States. In his last role he was leading the Internet business & competitive strategy for Microsoft in India. A marketing veteran Tarun has held various roles in Enterprise and Product Marketing and has been responsible for leading strategy & marketing for “Microsoft Office”, the largest brand for Microsoft with over 300 Million USD revenue stream.. Tarun was responsible for leading and launching Microsoft’s rural consumer strategy as part of the emerging markets expansion group. He has been associated with the IT industry for seventeen years in India & globally. Tarun is an advisor to CII western region on Rural Business and also associated with PMI as a honorary Vice President India chapter.
TCOE India scouts innovators in the field of Smart Cities
After the resounding success of the first TCOE India Innovation meet on 31st August 2015, the 2nd innovation meet was held on 18th September 2015 in New Delhi showcasing technologies and innovations from Innovators and Entrepreneurs from across the country. The focus of this meet was on Smart Cities and technological solutions interwoven around it. The meeting was chaired by Mr N Sivasailam, Additional Secretary (Telecom), Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Senior officers from Government, Telecom Service Providers, Investors and Innovators were also present in this august gathering.
Telecom Centres of Excellence India (TCOE India), a Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative of Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Government of India, with industry and academic institutions are established at 8 premier academic institutes of the country with the objective of creating an ecosystem for a sustained, high rate of growth of Telecom in the country.
Speaking at the event Additional Secretary (Telecom) stated that the Telecom Centre of Excellence should offer this Innovation meet platform to all stake holders i.e. government, industry and venture capitals. He welcomed all VCs/Angels to work together to develop and nurture this innovation ecosystem in the country. He said that it surely has the potential of providing the right impetus to Hon'ble Prime Minister's Make in India' and 'Digital India' vision.
This meet addressed an important element on the “Go to Market” strategy and nurturing the entrepreneurs from various parts of the country. It was also emphasized that we need to look beyond talent and potential from the IIT’s and IIM’s to uncover new-age entrepreneurs in India from Tier 2 and 3 Cities Institutes and villages.
Speaking at the event Mr Vikram Upadhyaya, VC, GHV Accelerator stated that “In India 99% of the incubated start-ups are not fundable. He also emphasized that the success stories of TCOE’s should be showcased beyond government and private parties”.
Ms Tulika Pandey, Scientist F, DEITY advocated, “Need for Telecom Centre of Excellence to be at the forefront of all innovation activities in Telecom and ICT. She mentioned that TCOE should provide a platform for all Government –led innovation programs and integrate all initiatives from Different arms of the Government”.
Inaugurating this event Mr N Sivasailam, Additional Secretary (Telecom), Department of Telecommunications (DoT) emphasized on the need for Entrepreneurship education in all educational institutes across India.
Several innovators shared their innovations in this platform on Smart Cities and technological solutions interwoven around it and requested for this process to carry forward.
The 3rd TCOE India Innovation meet focused on innovations on Internet of things (IOT) and big data has been announced to be held on 30th October at C-DOT, Bangalore.
Key Takeaways from 2nd TCOE India Innovation Meet 2015
After the resounding success of the Inaugural TCOE India Innovation meet, the 2nd round showcased technologies and innovations from Innovators and Entrepreneurs from across the country. The focus of the 2nd TCOE India Innovation meet was on Smart Cities and technological solutions interwoven around it.
Telecom Centre of Excellence has been created as a PPP initiative by the Department of Telecommunications , Government of India to strengthen the R&D ecosystem in ICT where Government worked as a facilitator, Industry as the ultimate user, and academia as the research unit. With the new project management framework underway, TCOE India is positioning itself as a key stakeholder in championing the cause of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in India.
This meet addressed an important element on the Go to Market strategy and nurturing the entrepreneurs from various parts of the country. It emphasized on the need to look beyond talent and potential from the IIT’s and IIM’s to uncover new-age entrepreneurs in India from Tier 2 and 3 Cities and villages and Institutes. The Venture capitalist shared the insight from an E&Y report that particularly in India 99% of the incubated start-ups are not fundable. Hence, we need to create
a) methodology for TEST POC for assessment of start-up Ideas i.e Evaluation of Team of Founders, Execution capability, Scalable Business model and POC in place, before ideas and start-ups are funded
b) We also need to create an Incentive model where Innovator, Researcher and Faculty all are incentivized to deliver value from TCOEs.
c) Highlight success stories out of TCOEs
The solutions from Innovators for further encouragement and TCOE collaboration for TCOEs support for technology Research & Development support and Funding for Pilots and growth were decided as follows:-
a) Network of Networks by, GAIA Smart Cities
b) Telecom product Innovations by, Lekha Wireless
c) Real Time Pollution Monitoring & Analytics , Phoenix Robotix Pvt. Ltd. d) Green Solutions using Bio waste, Grass Roots Energy
4th TCOE India Innovation Meet was held on 09th February 2016 from 10:00 AM to 13:00 PM at 13th Floor, Conference Room, Sanchar Bhawan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi 110001
Vision and Mission of IMADE program, Mr. Peesh Chopra, VC, PVC
DealMOnk, a DTU student mobile startup that focuses on student deals
Industry perspective, Mr. Rajesh Tuli, MD, Coral Telecom
13:00 Onwards
Mr. Saurabh Srivastava is one of India’s lead
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