New Delhi: A clutch of top executives from firms including Persistent Systems, Intel Ventures India, Zensar and Deloitte have joined forces to form ‘i4C’ that will focus on scouting and mentoring innovators to enhance the product innovation market in India.
A non-profit organisation, i4C (Inter-Institutional Inclusive Innovations Center) is a product of public private people media partnership model. “There are a huge number of ideas that people in this country have that would make for great products. However, we often don’t hear about them for various reasons. Through i4C, we will work towards a common goal of promoting the culture of innovation in India,” Persistent Systems CMD and founding director of i4C Anand Deshpande said.
The primary objective of i4C is to scout, showcase and mentor technology innovators and help them market products, which have the potential to positively impact the lives of people, he added.Other prominent members of i4C include Ganesh Natarajan (vice chairman and CEO at Zensar), Kirloskar Brothers president (Innovations Society) Pratima Kirloskar, KPIT chairman and CEO Ravi Pandit, Deloitte partner Hemant Joshi and Sakal Media Group chairman Prataprao Pawar, among others.
“We want to help ‘productise’ 100 innovations in the next three years. Innovators face a number of challenges ranging from funding to patents to right mentors and this is where we want to help,” i4C co-founding director Arun Jamkar said.
i4C will search for technology innovations in the fields of Healthcare and Diagnostics, Water and Energy conservation, Information Technology, Engineering, Environ-ment, Defence and Agriculture. As part of its efforts, i4C has announced the ‘i4C Idea Challenge-2014’, a pan-India Idea and Innovation competition to identify disruptive ideas for solving problems relevant to the population. The last date for submission of ideas s October 31, 2014. Mr Jamkar, said the group is attempting to “systematically harness” the creativity for solving problems.
