IIM-A, NIF to open doors of innovation for Malaysia

Innovation certainly seems to be the order of the day and the latest to join the fray is Malaysia. A Malaysian delegation, led by Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Maximus Ongkili, is on a week- long mission to India and Bangladesh and will be visiting the Ahmedabad on Wednesday to look at strategic partnerships with innovation agencies like National Foundation for Innovation (NIF) and Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A.

The purpose of the visit is to forge collaborations and exchange knowledge among others, especially in the areas of information and communication technology, renewable energy and innovation. The delegation comprising ministry officials, heads of agencies under the ministry and representatives from the Association of Computer and Multimedia Industry Malaysia (PIKOM) will also visit the Centre for Wind Energy Technology, Wind Farm Factory, Villgro (formerly Agriculture Innovation Network) and the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai.

Vipin Kumar, Chief Innovation Officer of NIF, who is coordinating the entire Ahmedabad visit of the Malaysian contingent says "This visit is a spillover of a workshop programme that was held in Malaysia in 2007 by the NIF as part of The Asia Pacific Centre for technology transfer in, post which several projects of incubation had been undertaken by the Malaysian Government. This visit will see strategic partnerships in different sectors. The minister will be visiting both NIF and CIIE (IIMA), so innovation is definitely top of their agenda. We have not discussed the segment in which a possible tie-up is expected hence the nature of the collaboration is open-ended."

Ongkili is also scheduled to pay a courtesy call on the Indian Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Kapil Sibal and Minister of Science and Technology, Pawan Kumar Bansal. Talking about the development Kunal Upadhyay, chief executive officer of CIIE said "Almost 40 of the companies based at CIIE are cutting across technology concepts so we are definitely looking at exploring a lot of synergies with the Malaysian contingent. Our primary explorations would be with regards to either setting up of some of these companies in Malaysia or even tie-ups with the firms there."

Ongkili is also slated to witness exchange of memorandum of understanding (MOU) documents for a new collaboration between MIMOS Bhd and Mindteck (India) Ltd to develop an enterprises knowledge management portal for life science, utilising a MIMOS-developed technology platform, according to an official statement.

Under the agreement, Wing Technology International, a MIMOS technology recipient, will commercialise the MIMOS Net Tablet in Bangladesh through its partnership with Digital Bangladesh Technology.