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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: TSPL TBIO TNGD TPHY EINV SIPR TINT SCUL ECPS IN
SUBJECT: EMERGING TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE FOCUSES ON ADAPTATION, NOT
INNOVATION


1. SUMMARY: EmTech India '09 was MIT Technology Review's first ever
emerging technology conference held outside the U.S. The conference
was billed as a forum to discuss technological trends and showcase
India's latest cutting edge technologies in information and
communications technology, clean and green technologies,
nanotechnology, biotechnology and homeland security. Instead, the
conference focused on technology adaptation and investment
opportunities to serve the most impoverished 800 million Indians -
collectively known as the bottom of the pyramid (BOP.) The
conference also launched the Indian edition of MIT's Technology
Review in collaboration with Indian technology publisher CyberMedia.
Mr. Jason Pontin, Editor-in chief of MIT's Technology Review, said
India was chosen for the new magazine and conference because MIT saw
a growing trend of Indian origin innovators identifying ideas in the
U.S. then setting up enterprises in India, and also because of
India's development of inexpensive and innovative technologies
focused on the emerging lower-end of the market. END SUMMARY

MICRO ENTREPRENEURS AND VENTURE CAPITALISTS


2. Prof. Anil K. Gupta from the Indian Institute of Management,
Ahmedabad and also Executive Vice Chairperson of the National
Innovation Foundation (NIF), said that the NIF helps catalogue,
facilitate value addition, and market technologies developed by
rural entrepreneurs. In the last 2 years, rural innovators had
registered over 100,000 inexpensive innovations which address

specific needs of the rural community but require funding and
technical support to develop into useful products. Some of the
examples he gave were:

-- A water tap that generates electricity through flowing water.
-- A foldable lightweight ladder-type device.
-- A bicycle which is both an exercise bike and washing machine.


3. Other BOP-market technologies discussed by multinationals during
the conference included:

-- An add-on device for mobile phone-processing of secure
transactions. Mr. Sanjay Swamy, CEO, mChek, said that this had
enabled over 2 million rural people and small businesses to pay
their bills via mobile phone and thus save time and money.

-- A Global Positioning System based, tamper-proof Auto Rickshaw
(three wheeler)/Taxi fare meter developed by students at
Indraprastha University, Delhi and partly funded by HP.

-- A technology to create a national identity number for all Indians
linked to their mobile phone, being developed by Alcatel Lucent in
collaboration with the Government of India (GOI).

-- An enterprise management system developed by Microsoft in
collaboration with the GOI, and used by an industrial cluster of
5000 textile units to manage their operations and supply chains.

-- A voice web technology being developed for the rural community
which does not require computer literacy and can be implemented in
any language. Developed by IBM India, this technology has been
tested in villages in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The opportunity
to use voice rather than written characters is particularly
appealing in a country where so many languages are spoken and a
large percentage of the population is illiterate.


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-- A light and strong fiber-based material for making fishing nets
for rural fisherman developed by Honeywell.


4. In 2008, venture capitalists from the US, India and other
international groups invested USD 864 million in 80 deals in India
in business and financial services, IT related technologies, energy
& utilities, and biotechnology. Sateesh Andra, venture partner of
Draper Fisher Jurvetson India, said that besides IT and healthcare,
rural and education sectors were the emerging areas of interest to
venture capitalists, and that the biggest challenge was in reaching
out to the BOP market. Aruna Sundararajan, CEO of Infrastructure
Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) said that to reach out to the
BOP market it was very important to have a proper marriage between
technology and business innovation. Both emphasized looking at a
five to seven year cycle when investing in this market.

ICT FERTILE GROUND FOR INDIAN INNOVATION


5. Information and communication technology (ICT) dominated the
conference, with nearly every session referencing ICT in some way.
Many of the discussions revolved around ICT-enabled software and
hardware run from mobile technology which is being used in
education, health care, e-governance, banking, traffic management
and homeland security. Indian companies including Infosys, Tata
Consultancy Services, Tuple Technologies, Iridium Interactive and
Wipro, as well as US companies IBM, Intel, HP, Yahoo, Texas
Instrument, Freescale Semiconductor, and Microsoft, all identified
their interest in developing this technology and indicated only the
tip of the iceberg was discussed during the conference.


6. Most speakers felt that India was ahead of the curve in
maximizing the advantages of mobile technologies - partly from a
lack of adequate bandwidth and connectivity infrastructure for
conventional technology, and partly from the accelerated spread of
inexpensive mobile phones in India. A United Nations Development
Program 2005 report notes that India has higher mobile phone
literacy (82 percent) than it does Internet literacy (55 percent).


HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION


7. Health care and both formal and informal education were
identified as growth areas in India, since a majority of the people
still have no access and/or cannot afford them. Dr. Reddy, the
founder and chairman of Apollo hospitals, talked about using
telemedicine to connect specialty hospitals with other specialists,
individual doctors in suburban areas, and rural health centers in
order to deliver affordable and quality health care. He said Apollo
was actively engaged with more than 2000 villages. Wipro, Tuple
Technologies, Hindustan Computers limited, and Infosys, as well as
small and medium entrepreneurs associated with academic institutions
and US companies like Intel, Texas Instruments, HP and Agilent are
also working to address this market. In the Eleventh Five year Plan
(2007-2012), the GOI initiated a mission to develop inexpensive
medical instruments and tools to facilitate telemedicine-based
services and the Indian Space Research Organization has ongoing
programs with Indian educational institutions to develop
telemedicine and teleeducation capabilities.


8. To reach the large number of undereducated children, several
organizations focused on innovative education delivery technologies,
including:

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-- The "One Laptop Per Child" project, a part of the GOI's "Sakshat"
education program.

-- Mobile phone based education delivery in villages by Value Based
Skill Academy, run in Western Uttar Pradesh by entrepreneur Bijender
Khokhar.

-- IT buses in rural India that provide mobile computing classrooms
to spread IT literacy among rural school students.

-- The Indira Soochna Shakti - "Empowering a quarter million
schoolgirls through ICT" project in Chhattisgarh, India

CLEAN ENERGY AND GREEN TRANSPORTATION


9. Lack of appropriate panelists hampered any meaningful discussion
on clean energy and green transportation, though it was allocated
multiple sessions in the conference. A recurrent theme was the need
for clearer guidance from government; the panelists felt that
development of infrastructure was required before any new
technologies - such as biofuels, electric vehicles or solar energy -
would be effective. Panelists noted that REVA was India's only
electric car manufacturer, and the hybrid car market in India was
virtually nonexistent.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY


10. The GOI is investing heavily in funding and capacity building
for both nanotechnology (REFTEL A) and biotechnology, and panelists
believed that the recent increases in GOI funding were starting to
show. Agilent technologies mentioned that in 2008 they sold more
than 25 Atomic Force Microscopes to Indian academic and R&D
institutions - a huge jump from previous years. Prof. Vijay
Chandru, Chairman and CEO, Strand Life Sciences, said that India was
poised to be a leader in not just data generation but also
interpretation, and highlighted the example of Strand's developments
in virtual organ models and a gene sequencing platform called
"Genespring." He claimed it was the world's largest and cost only
USD 5,000, compared to a similar system that cost USD 3 billion in

2003. (NOTE: The purchase of additional equipment does suggest
expansion of programs. However, the actual qualitative impact of
the increased funding is less clear and does not appear to be
uniform across government and academic institutions, due in part to
a shortage of qualified scientists and professors. END NOTE)


11. Dr. M. K. Bhan, Secretary of the GOI's Department of
Biotechnology, listed India's biotechnology priorities as genetics,
vaccines, diagnosis and imaging, low cost health technology,
agriculture and energy. Challenges India is facing right now
include an unfavorable investment climate, a shortage of 500-600
scientific leaders in both industry and government, and need for a
long-term outlook and sustained funding for both private and
government labs. Highlighting the drug industry, Dr Bhan indicated
that India's regulatory system was weak and that when industry
regulation improved and drug companies started doing their job on
the regulatory front, costs for medications would probably increase
10 fold.

HOMELAND SECURITY DISCUSSION A NONSTARTER


12. In the light of the Mumbai attacks, we expected good

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discussions in the homeland security technology session. However,
the panel did not include any GOI personnel currently associated
with homeland security, and the conversations were light on
substance. Mr. Nath, former Special Director of Intelligence Bureau
and currently CEO of the Indian Institute of Security & Safety
Management, said that the GOI lacked a policy for homeland security
and more importantly both the GOI and the private sector had yet to
accept the need for and invest in security. Tuple Technologies,
Honeywell, and HP mentioned that they were working with the GOI to
develop smart sensors, data mining systems, image processing and
other ICT-enabled services to address the homeland security related
issues, but did not provide details.


13. COMMENT: Very little truly emergent technology was discussed
at the conference, which focused more on adapting existing
technologies into low-cost and accessible products for the
impoverished 800 million people that have not benefited from India's
recent accelerated growth. Only half of the initial list of
companies and invitees attended the conference and several sessions
lacked quality panelists. Attendance by venture capitalists and the
relatively stronger business presence suggest commercial interest in
emerging opportunities in India's technology market. END COMMENT.


BURLEIGH