Pvt sector should support unheralded innovators: Vardhan

The private sector in India should come forward to support unheralded innovators in rural areas who are devising solutions to everyday problems but do not have opportunities to promote and market them, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said today.
Inaugurating the first edition of the India International Science Festival (IISF) at IIT-Delhi today, he said, "We need an inclusive approach to entrepreneurship and there is a lot of potential in the informal sector that the private sector too can tap."
The National Innovation Foundation in Ahmedabad has identified a number of grassroots-level solutions, some of which have been developed by innovators from tribal communities, that can be scaled up, he said.

The minister added that the value of scientific research to the country's economy is estimated to be at between Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 2 lakh crore every year.
"An independent study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research has shown that weather forecasts by IMD alone have benefited the fisheries sector to the tune of Rs 34,000 crore annually," Vardhan said.
Describing the festival as a landmark event, he said that IISF is not just another routine programme that runs for three to four days, it is the stepping stone for realising the dreams of great leaders -- from the first prime minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru, to the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi -- to make India a leading country of the world.

IISF-2015 is organised by the Ministries of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences in collaboration with Vijnana Bharati, with the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) as the nodal agency.

Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Ashutosh Sharma, and Director General, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Girish Sahni, expressed the hope that the festival would go a long way towards promoting Indian science and technology.
Vijnana Bharati President and eminient scentist Vijay Bhatkar and Sachin Mandavgane, Member Secretary, Scientific Programme Committee of the Festival, noted that a salient feature of the festival was that it had different elements to cater to people from different walks of life.

They said that there are interactions between scientists and students, screening of award-winning science films and documentaries and the Science and Technology and Industrial Expo.