SME Times News Bureau | 30 Apr, 2018
The
1st meeting of the Global Leadership Task Force of Corporates on
Innovation constituted by the International Solar Alliance (ISA) was
convened, Saturday evening, in New Delhi.
The
meeting was chaired by Mr. Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO,
SoftBank Group Corp. and convened by FICCI as the convener and
secretariat of the Task Force.
This
Task Force was set up by ISA on March 6, 2018 to put forth
recommendations to promote innovation in the areas of, inter alia,
solar finance, solar technologies, solar applications, innovations,
R&D and capacity building.
The
Task Force will further aid in developing a proper innovation
strategy to address challenges faced by the member countries and
partner countries of ISA.
This
is a private sector-led Task Force under ISA, chaired by Mr.
Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO, SoftBank Group Corp.
Members
of the Task Force include GE from USA, TOTAL from France, LG Chem
from Korea, GCL from China, SMA from Germany, and State Bank of India
(SBI) from India. The meeting was organised by FICCI as the convenor
and secretariat of The Task Force.
The
meeting was attended by all members. Upendra Tripathy, Interim
Director General of ISA and Mr Anand Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of
New and Renewable Energy, Government of India addressed the first
meeting of the Task Force as special invitees.
One
of the key focus areas of the Task Force is to establish Solar
Technology Application and Resource-Centre (STAR-C) Centres of
Excellence in ISA member countries for creating local capacity for
solar innovation, solar R&D, standards, testing, certification,
quality control and skills building.
As
a run-up to the 1st meeting of the Task Force, ISA and FICCI along
with the support of NISE and INES (of France), organized on the
previous day (April 27, 2018) an interactive session with Renewable
Energy/Solar Energy institutes / R&D institutions of ISA
prospective member countries to initiate brainstorming on STAR-C
Centres of Excellence. A provisional DPR of STAR-C was presented for
deliberations and feedback.
R&D
institutes from countries such as Australia, USA, India, France,
Finland, Singapore, Kenya and Togo and other key research
institutions and representatives from National Focal Points of ISA
participated in this session.