During the last few days, I met hundreds of creative people within and outside India-young and old, highly trained and not so educated, students and professionals- all bubbling with energy and wanting to make a difference. The common refrain: a) How can they get technical advice that would enable them to do better, b) Would somebody like to take their ideas to the market or help them do so, c) Can they get some funding to improve their prototypes and get them properly tested, d) How could they get to know about similar efforts elsewhere, e) How could they get patents for their ideas, and so on....

National Innovation Foundation can answer these questions for both, the innovators from informal sector and the children. When it comes to those in a formal set-up or the technology students, we have the platform of only techpedia.in platform developed by SRISTI.However, it cannot yet fund these ideas. Some day it will. Till then, this platform can only help encourage and link creative people with each other and mentors.

There are a large number of incubators and perhaps they too have constraints which prevent them from helping more than a dozen creative people. We are talking of tens of thousands of creative people having ideas for commercial or social diffusion.
But, why is it so difficult for us to support such creative people? Gujarat, which is one of the most prosperous states yet files only a few hundred patents a year, can easily surpass all the states.
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When I saw the innovations showcased by diploma engineering students from just three or four polytechnics from Surat, Mehsana and Vadodara, which are part of Gujarat Technological University (GTU), I was convinced that we, in this state, are working very hard to suppress the creativity of our young boys and girls. Despite GTU having a huge chunk of educational fees and other funds, the management is not allowed to invest in the ideas of students, provide assistance to file patents, or even incubate these ideas to take them forward. Why should it be difficult for state and central governments to invest in the ideas of young technology students?

Learning from the techpedia.in experience in Gujarat, Punjab Technical University is reported to have already sanctioned about Rs3.5 crore per annum to provide prototyping assistance to final year students with maximum of Rs25,000 per student. Dr Samir Brahmachari, director general, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and secretary, department of scientific and industrial research, was so motivated by the review of the exhibition organised on IIMA campus that he felt that there existed a natural synergy between CSIR-800 mission of CSIR and what GTU was trying through partnership with techpedia.in of SRISTI.

CSIR is likely to set up an Innovation Complex at Ahmedabad which will, hopefully, fill an important gap in the innovation eco-system.

By then, the state government might also recognise the potential of our young technology students in different disciplines and decide to invest in them through a non-bureaucratic channel of a system hungry for results.We also need to set up social innovation sanctuaries in inner cities and remote areas of every state to nurture and network the ideas of common people, promote collaborative learning and foster social and ethical networks. The growth impulses from such a model are bound to be more inclusive and intimate.

The author is a professor at IIM-A