Focus on innovation in "Indian way" need of the hour: Pitroda

The govt has allocated Rs 1 lakh crore for creating a public information infrastructure

National Innovation Council Chairman Sam Pitroda today said there is a need to focus on innovation in the "Indian way", to make affordable, sustainable and scalable solutions for the larger public good.
    
"If we focus on innovation in the Indian way, we will be able to find solutions that are affordable, scalable and sustainable," said Pitroda, who is also the adviser to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovations.

He was addressing a gathering at CII Western Regional Meeting here through video conference."Transforming the country will need us to go back to our roots. We need to revive our tradition to transform India. We cannot depend on western technologies and ideologies for this."We cannot go on copying the western model (for growth) which has worked for them, but we need to focus on the bottom of the pyramid and create our own model that is affordable, sustainable and scalable. Western model is not scalable and workable in many ways. We need to innovate in our way," he said.

The government has allocated Rs 1 lakh crore for creating a public information infrastructure and it can "transform the way we manage the country", he said.
 
By the end of this year, around 2.5 lakh panchayats would be connected by optical fibre, he said. "Also, the Unique Identification Authority platform and the Geographical Information System (GIS) platforms, which are being created, will help in bringing information to the people."