Karna govt intends to strengthen edu institutions to make them

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan on Tuesday said the government intends to strengthen educational institutions in the state so that they drive innovation.

"Today we are seeing most of these (technology based innovations) are driven by the industry. Actually, it should be other way round. It should have been driven by the institutions.

Since the institutions have not grown very strong, the industry is leading the initiative," he said.

Narayan, who holds the portfolio of higher education and IT and BT, was speaking at a press conference to announce the three-day Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS-2019), starting from November 18.

In the days to come, Narayan said, the government wants to strengthen institutions so that they can drive innovation and come up with out-of-the-box ideas.

He said the state government was trying its best to facilitate the industry to thrive and connect to various countries in terms of global innovation alliance, helpdecide the legal framework and come up with the IT policy.

"We will be coming up with the IT policy for 2019. Probably next few days we will be completing the entire process and will come up with the IT policy so that we can encourage IT in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities also," he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Biocon Chairman and Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw emphasised that innovative products should be affordable and accessible to the people of the country.

"What is happening is we are coming up with unique business models. These are very exciting times.

Any idea that can leverage technology to generate this big business is really the big opportunity that we are all looking at," Shaw told the gathering.

She cited examples of people running big hotel chains, big taxi services and large scale logistic company without having a single restaurant, a taxi or even a truck.

All this was made possible through technology, she added.

About 3,500 delegates from about 20 countries are expected to participate in the BTS-2019 at the Bengaluru Palace.

There will be about 200 speakers and 250 exhibitors and about 12,000 visitors on a daily basis, the organisers said in a statement.