'Countries like India and China have put pressure on the US to perform better'

Q&A: Gururaj Deshpande, co-Chairman, US National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Gururaj Deshpande, appointed co-Chairman of US President Barack Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, is the only India-born member in the council. Popularly known as 'Desh', he -- with the help of the other 25 members -- expects to help the Obama administration in developing policies that foster entrepreneurship, create jobs and drive economic growth. In a telephonic interview from the US, he tells Leslie D'monte how he plans to go about this task. Edited excerpts:

Congratulations on your new appointment. How do you plan to go about your new task?
Thank you. I believe the US has always been an economy which encourages innnovation and entrepreneurship. We spend around $60-70 billion on research. However, countries like India and China have put pressure on the US to perform better. The cost of living in the US is very high. So we need more ideas and entrepreneurs to creat new jobs and industries -- both locally and globally. This council will have its first meeting this September where we will draw the agenda and plan accordingly.

How is your experience helping you do this?
The challenge is to make ideas relevant to the real world. This is precisely what we do at the MIT Deshpande Centre for Technological Innovation (towards which Desh contributed $20 million). It's here that we show how innovation when combined with relevance results in 'impact'. I hope to draw on that experience to fulfill the task on hand.

How will your balance your current role with your other duties as Chairman of the companies you run?
Over the last 10 years, I have been spending around 50 per cent of my time with my profit ventures. The remaining time is spent on philanthrophy. (He has five businesses -- Sandstone Capital, Sycamore Networks, A123 Systems, HiveFire, Tejas Networks of which he is Chairman. He has also invested in Airvana Inc). Herein, I help in finding ways to help entrepreneurs translate ideas in the real world.

How are your India commitments panning out?
In India, my 'Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox' venture is making good progress. Being an organisation that helps NGOs incubate ideas (around 60-odd NGOs) near Hubli, the idea is to create a sort of mini Silicon Valley. Ten young men from the US, and students from MIT and Brooklyn University visit these places to incubate the ideas. We, then, plan to scale up these ventures by using a 'profit' model.

Do you often discuss ideas with Narayana Murthy (his brother-in-law)?
Very much. We meet at least six times a year. And I work very close with Sudha (Murthy's wife) and Murthy. In fact, we're working on a programme wherein 30 faculty members from the US are training engineer in India to improve the quality of engineering education in the country. Moreover, Sudha and Murthy are advisors to the Foundation (MIT Deshpande Centre).

Many India-born executives are being recurited to assist the Obama administration. What does this convey?
These are primarily the second-generation youngsters. Indians who have come to the US have done very well in entrepreneurial activities. They have broad interests and not just technology skills. The US provides them with many opportunities, and hence they thrive over here. You have prominent names like that of Vivek Kundra (CIO), Aneesh Chopra (CTO) and Sonal Shah (who heads the White House Domestic Policy Council’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation).

Any lessons for today's aspring Indians?
I believe India has the opportunities similar to the US since it's very open. It can leverage the strengths of its academic institutions. But it must not blindly follow Western methods. For instance. can research at MIT emulate what we do at Akshaya Patra -- a meal programme for impoverished school children? The scheme feeds nearly 1.2 million children throughout India daily. The target is to reach 5 million by 2020. All innovation is contextual and solutions need to be provided for demands from the real world. Today's think-tanks mostly mimic what is done in the West. This should stop. India needs cost-effective solutions. This is the real challenge.