SME Times News Bureau | 29 Nov, 2018
Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Harsh Vardhan, today
called upon the scientific community in India and ASEAN member states
to intensify collaborative research in science, technology and
innovation to address the economic and societal challenges being faced
by the two regions.
Addressing the first India-ASEAN InnoTech Summit, organised by FICCI in association with the Department of Science & Technology (DST) and the Ministry of External Affairs, Dr. Vardhan said, "The time now is for simple solutions for complex problems through innovation."
Under
the ASEAN-India Innovation Platform, 400 technologies were ready to be
commercialised in ASEAN countries, he said and called upon the
scientific community to pool and share technologies through the
platform.
India,
he said, has a lot to offer to the ASEAN countries. New age
technologies were being nurtured at the 38 laboratories of the Council
of Scientific & Industrial Research, he said and added that in the
global list of 1207 research institutions supported by government
funding, India stood at the 9th position. "Our mission is to
position India into the big league and be recognised among the top three
global leaders in Science & Technology," he said.
DST Secretary, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, said
that Science and Technology was a new dimension to the strong
India-ASEAN cultural bonds and complementary economic and political
systems. The need of the hour was to scale up collaborations in
nanotechnology, advanced materials and biotechnology, he said.
Prof. Sharma added that the ASEAN-India
Innovation Platform (AIIP) was a major element of the enhanced the
ASEAN-India S&T Development Fund (AISTDF), which is a part of
ASEAN-India Science & Technology Collaboration. The AIIP comprises
social innovations, product and processes innovation generated by
industry and research innovations from the academia and R&D labs. He
called upon innovators in ASEAN countries to explore the numerous
opportunities available in India and build partnerships for the common
good of the people in the two regions.
Mr. Moe Kyaw Aung, Ambassador of Myanmar to India, said
that the time was ripe to share the best ideas and build powerful
networks between the scientific community of ASEAN and India. He called
for creating sustainable national and international innotech projects to
build a continuous and dynamic science revolution.
