Karnataka Govt and IT Industry: Dialogue for Future, and Continued Engagement to Strengthen Ecosystem

The state government of Karnataka took a further step to solidify its position as the leader in the science, information and biotechnology sectors in the country. A dialogue and interaction with all industry and government stakeholders was held today, organised by the department of IT, BT, and S&T of the Government of Karnataka, to discuss the ecosystem challenges and opportunities in the IT and related sectors, as well as to strengthen industry-government relationship and to chart the future path for the state. The interaction was also to announce the BTS 2019 plan drafted by the state government.

Led by the Honourable Deputy Chief Minister Dr. G Parameswara, who also holds additional charge as Minister for IT, BT, S&T, the interaction and discussion addressed policy making, infrastructure and other the unique challenges of the industry, today. Senior leaders from the industry, technology experts, R&D professionals, and international trade bodies and delegations - members of the Global Innovation Alliance, participated in the interaction at the Taj West End in Central Bengaluru.

Delivering his keynote address, Dr. G. Parameshwara highlighted the efforts taken by the Government to strengthen the IT & BT, S&T ecosystem in Bengaluru and to create further areas of opportunity and growth across the state.

He congratulated the ecosystem partners for contributing towards making Bengaluru a hub of IT & BT, S&T and helping Karnataka in being a home to global captive centres and assured complete support from the State Government towards strengthening these sectors.

He stressed on the need to create a talent pool and updating the syllabus at institutional level in order to keep our home talents up-to-date about the ever-changing technology and innovation in the global level.

Spread over three sessions, the interaction consisted of a breakfast meeting with CEOs and heads of the leading IT, BT, AVGC, ESDM and startups and heads of industry associations. The honourable Dy CM and IT Minister focused on the need to invest in the human potential and to ensure a future ready workforce. He stressed on the need for training and development, and to invest in R&D facilities.

The Deputy CM also held one-on-one interactions with leaders to discuss specific issues and opportunities. The final session saw trade bodies, international delegations and members of the Global Innovation Alliance reaffirm their support for the IT BT sectors in Karnataka, and discuss further avenues for cooperation. This session also saw participation from the heads of various startups and firms that took part in the incubation and accelerator programmes of the state, including winners of Elevate and Grand Challenge. This networking session allowed these young entrepreneurs to strengthen their ties with industry and government.

Dr. G Parameshwara emphasized on the need to hold interactions of similar manner in future in order to make Bengaluru a livable, innovative and leading city. He said a meeting with leading industry leaders every quarter or six months would be ideal so as to make Bengaluru a centre of excellence in every sector.Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, Axilor Ventures, Kiran Mazumdar, Chairperson and MD, Biocon, Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, Gaurav Gupta, IAS, Principal Secretary, It & BT, S&T, R. Girish, Director, It & BT, S&T and Industry leaders from IBM, TCS, BOSCH, Intel, WIPRO, Strand Life Sciences and others dignitaries graced the occasion.

Other important points
The Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for IT-BT, S&T participated in a dialogue and interaction with all industry and government stakeholders was held today, organised by the Department of IT, BT, and S&T of the Government of Karnataka and discussed the ecosystem challenges and opportunities in the IT and related sectors, as well as to strengthen industry-government relationship and to chart the future path for the state.

Addressing the gathering, the Deputy Chief Minister said that the interaction was organised on his insistence. There are two reasons to organise behind organising an interaction of this kind: one, to assure that the Karnataka Government is with the ecosystem partners and to lend an ear to the innovative ideas.

He assured that the Government will support the industry leaders and partners to its fullest. He appreciated that Karnataka and Bengaluru are home to new innovations and ideas. He asserted that we must take this ahead in order to make them available for the generations to come.

Dr Parmeshwara also felt it is necessary to create a new talent pool. On building the relationship between industry and academia, he suggested industries must approach the institutions where there is a direct access to talent. He said this would enable the industries to communicate what is required for the industry, in terms of hands-on training. This will make the young talents relevant and up-to-date. He also said the academic syllabus needs to be updated every four years to stay relevant.

He requested the industry stakeholders and partners to take up researches related to agriculture in order to address issues such as drought, diseases, price regulation etc.

The Minister noted that although there are 6,500 well equipped public health centres, the people in rural areas face challenges reaching out when it comes to health related issues. He sought cooperation from the industries to address this immediately. Dr Parameshwara further said that each sector and leaders are important will be involved to resolve challenges faced at various aspects of technology, infrastructure and development.

Addressing one of the most talked about challenge in Bengaluru –Connectivity and traffic, the minister said: “Being the Minister for Bangalore Development, I have a road map and will see to it that connectivity issues are resolved at the latest. He said Rs 50 thousand crore will be spent on connectivity and said that Metro Phase 2, which will be completed in a few years will cater to 20 lakh people every day.

Responding to one of the suggestions of creating twin cities, he said that there are plans to create a new city like Bengaluru that will have best of infrastructure and could be compared to any part of the world. He sought ideas to prepare a plan for the same.  

He remarked that as Bengaluru has overtaken Hyderabad in becoming the dynamic city, the challenge is to make the city more livable, innovative and leading city in terms of electronics, science and other sectors too.

The Minister expressed interest in participating in interaction with industry giants on quarterly or six-month basis to make Bengaluru a better, well-known and a centre of excellence.

Key points of discussion from Deputy Chief Minister’s interaction with Consulates
Consul generals of different countries including Germany, Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland shared their inputs from their association with the Government of Karnataka and Department of IT&BT, S&T.  

The Deputy Chief Minister welcomed consul generals to Bengaluru and went on to request and welcomed the consulates of various countries to the hotbed of innovation and growth of start-ups, in order to efficiently partner with Government of Karnataka and move towards innovation and technology.

Key points of discussion from Deputy Chief Minister’s interaction with Startups
Deputy Chief Minister Dr. G Parameshwara in his remarks, said that, Government of Karnataka has been supportive of innovation. It has been encouraging of institutes that come to Bengaluru to make way for innovations.

He said: "Few years ago we were the first state to introduce with the start up policy in India. This initiative has encouraged us and other states in India and as a result, we have 12,000 startups in Karnataka alone. This has also motivated us, the companies and talented youngsters to launch their startups."  

He added that the Government has introduced policies to solve the problems of ecosystem partners such as infrastructure facilities, new age incubation etc. He added that the advantage that Karnataka has is of the young talent pool. This is also the major reason behind the ITBT success story in Karnataka, the Minister opined. He said that the state boasts of the largest technical manpower and this factor enables the state immensely.

Dr Parameshwara assured to encourage and offer benefits in every aspect to take the state further ahead in technology and innovation.

Skilling young talents
He saw the need to train and skill the students with new-age, cutting-edge technologies and update them technically with a thorough understanding of the present scenario in the field of science and technology and biotechnology.

He expressed happiness to have taken part in the interaction programme and assured that the interactions with the ecosystem partners will take place more often in the future.

Other dignitaries also spoke. Kiran Mazumdar said that Karnataka was the first state in the county to come up with rare disease policy which has been in the draft state. it has been decided to redraft the policy. The DCM was requested to pass the policy by next budget.Regarding the huge debate around bio diversity and bio diversity act. The Minister was pressed to take the lead and look into the matter. Karnataka government needs to focus on improving connectivity and mobility in the country so that we continue to lead in the country.

Debjani Ghosh, president of NASSCOM, remarked that Karnataka is seen as the leader of India but raised a pertinent question that What do we have to do to stay relevant and stay as leaders? The talent in the state will make a biggest differentiation. To encourage talent, All of us in the state must be able to access skills and technology. The Minister was asked to enable a business model which will allow companies to co-create.

Vijay Ratnaparkhe, R&D Centre, Bosch, noted that there are new opportunities for smart cities and there is a need to leverage the talent in Bangalore and Karnataka to solve the problems such as traffic.He suggested throwing challenges like traffic to public and run it up as quiz in order to receive better solutions. He also suggested using data analytics for health care. Vijay also requested for a competence centre for electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles which could not only solve the city’s but also world’s problems.

Nivrutti Rai from Intel said that there is a need to work closely with government in order to develop basic necessities like infrastructure. She noted that Karnataka needs to focus on connectivity and network, security and AI as they will power agriculture and smart mobility etc.

Prof. Vijay Chandru, IISc, spoke about genomics and said there is a need to in larger components of bio science in to work. He said that the idea of Karnataka genome centre is being worked on. He suggested that Karnataka can work on translational research in rare diseases, which are strengths of the state. He stressed on the idea of digital hospitals which can be beneficial at a larger extent.

Here are few other important discussion points raised by industry leaders:
* Investment in personal data by the government,
* use of Deep Tech and AI to solve societal problems such as agricultural related issues and health care to improve the living conditions of farmers and people.
* Need to fund the biotechnology start-ups to stop them from migrating to greener pastures.
* Need to work with Agricultural sector as it lacks innovation at higher level.
* Making Karnataka the hub for intelligent electronics as it would be of help in terms of planning and innovation.
* collaborations with think tanks in order to find a solution for the traffic congestion.
* A holisitic target of 100 bn of export in a few years in order to energise the entire science and technology space.
* Increase outreach and participation in world economic forums
* Climate change: Karnataka has been suffering its effects of climate change. The State can take a lead in supporting the environment studies.
* Holistic approach towards public-private partnerships. Need a new model to think about ppp in Karnataka.
* To improve first and last mile connectivity
To make Bengaluru the electric vehicle capital of India
The idea to have twin cities of Bengaluru – A city that is closer to Bengaluru, which is well developed.