Conversations with India Seminar Series: Building Infrastructure for Innovation in India
A Seminar by Mr Sam Pitroda as part of the Conversations with India Seminar Series.
The Rajiv Gandhi Centre at Imperial College London provides a forum for lively discussion on ways in which Indian and UK organisations can understand each other’s strengths, needs and opportunities with a specific focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.
India faces enormous and varied challenges in maintaining the high GDP growth rate of the last few years. Innovation, through change in traditional mindsets and the adoption of best global practice, is crucial: in education, in attitudes to investment, in management practices, in scientific research and in the commercialisation of intellectual property, to name but a few. What are the broader social and economic consequences for India and the world? From the UK perspective, India’s growth provides new opportunities for engagement. Can we find ways in which British experience and best practice in innovation can bring benefit to Indian entrepreneurship? How can UK organisations help build and benefit from an infrastructure for innovation in India?
Mr Sam Pitroda is an internationally respected development thinker, telecom inventor and entrepreneur who has spent 40 years in Information and Communications Technology and related human and national developments. Credited with having laid the foundation for and ushered in India’s technology and telecommunications revolution in the 1980s, Mr Pitroda has been a leading campaigner to help bridge the global digital divide.
During his tenure as Advisor to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s Mr Pitroda headed six technology missions related to telecommunications, water, literacy, immunization, dairy and oil seeds. He was also the founder and first chairman of India’s Telecom Commission.
Currently he is Chairman of India’s National Knowledge Commission reporting to the Prime Minister. The Commission’s mandate is to offer a series of recommendations on how to leverage India’s knowledge strengths to help it become a knowledge economy. He holds close to 100 worldwide patents and has published and lectured widely in the US, Europe, and Asia.
With his entrepreneurial flair and his passionate commitment to building India’s innovation infrastructure, Mr Sam Pitroda is a charismatic speaker.
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To reserve your place
Please contact Shelley Meehan by email: rgcadmin@imperial.ac.uk or
Telephone: +44 (0)20759 41438. Places are limited, please RSVP by Monday 12 May
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