Bengaluru: The 3rd edition of India Innovation Forum (IIF) concluded successfully on 23 July 2017 witnessing the presence of prominent industry stakeholders such as Entrepreneurs, VC and PE investors, corporate leaders and academic luminaries over the two days. The participants and key speakers included dynamic personalities like Anshu Gupta, Founder, Goonj; Dr. A. Velumani, Creator and MD, Thyrocare; Kanwaljit Singh, Founder, Fireside Ventures; Ajay Kumar Dixit, CEO, Alumina & Power – Vedanta Limited; Ishan Gupta, MD, Udacity India; Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder & CEO, Bluestone.com; Ganesh Rengaswamy, Co-founder, Quona Capital; Mridual Arora, Principal, Saif Partners; Sarajit Jha, Chief Digital Officer, Tata Steel, among others.
The focus of India Innovation Forum 2017 was on innovation focused on “Build for India”. The event aimed to serve as a platform for extensive discussion on opportunities prevailing in India as well as success stories based on the increasing local consumption across sectors, the needs and aspirations of Indian consumers and the potential for growth for big and small scale businesses.
Speaking on the occasion, Mohit Jain, Co-Founder, Northwest Executive Education said, “Innovation ecosystem in India is evolving constantly having seen dizzying heights and terrifying lows over the last few years and a critical aspect of this evolution for those who have successfully survived and grown is the unmitigated focus on the Indian consumer and consumer behaviour. With increased penetration of smart phones and easy and cost-effective accessibility to internet, the local market is now exploding like never before, creating exponential opportunities for small, medium and large businesses alike.”
Sessions at India Innovation Forum 2017 covered a wide variety of stimulating topics including “Innovating for Social Development”, “India centric innovation at large companies”, “Digital transformation of Businesses” and innovation stories across sectors such as Children’s nutrition, youth centric restaurant chain, education for the millenials, organic toys and developing rural entrepreneurship.
“Increasing local demand and consumption thereof across industries in India has created a highly optimum platform for entrepreneurship as well as innovation at multiple levels. “Build for India” is redefining the Innovation and entrepreneurial eco-system in the country and is expected to take both several notches higher. It has been our absolute privilege to hear some of the industry stalwarts share their expert knowledge and understanding on the subject over the two days of IIF, said Tamhant Jain, Co-Founder, Northwest Executive Education.
Reflecting on innovation in social sector, Anshu Gupta, Founder, Goonj said “Real India and its needs are quite different from India as represented in Data offered by various agencies and the picture is dismal. We need to build innovations that make tangible difference to millions of people by making focusing on basic needs such as clothing, livelihood and better living conditions.” He urged everyone to come forward and contribute in whatever limited way they can while keeping in mind that dignity of the receiver has to be preserved.
Dr. A. Velumani, who has built Thyrocare from ground up and has led it to one of the most successful IPO’s in India in recent past, spoke about his journey of coming from a background with limited means to creating an industry leading enterprise. He said “In India, an entrepreneur needs to focus on creating unique value proposition through innovation, charge customers less and create value by focusing on scale and operational efficiencies in value chain. It is possible and we are a live testament to the success of this formula”
Kanwaljit Singh, Founder, Fireside Ventures spoke about brands which are made for India and about his fund’s plan to invest in India centric consumer businesses. He said, “There are white spaces in several consumer oriented products and services for creating strong brands, one needs to find innovative value proposition and use new age marketing and distribution mechanisms allowing them to create brands at significantly lower costs as compared to traditional mechanisms”
More than 200 delegates attended the event spanning July 22nd and 23rd and comprised of senior leadership from prestigious organizations such as Aditya Birla Group, Tata Motors, Infosys, Wipro, SAP, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, ABB, McKinsey, among others.
India Innovation Forum, now in its third edition, is a premier event dedicated to fostering an active dialogue on innovation and to bring together like-minded people and organizations across industries that are at the forefront of working on innovation. IIF is a non-profit initiative, supported by executive education arms of top global business schools including UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Yale School Of Management and UCLA Anderson School of Management.
