Projects

Short description of the topic

We need sustainable innovations for many of the needs that today have resource hungry solutions . Innovators in India and other emerging countries have a lot to teach to Finnish product and service developers.

With India’s growing urban population- estimated to reach 600 million by 2031 and number of metropolitan cities expected to increase from 50 in 2011 to 87 by 2031, there is an urgent need for frugal innovations utilising the low resource base (natural resources, materials, finance, energy, etc) of emerging markets such as India, at the same time, focusing on sustainability and environment friendly mechanisms to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint. The result will be a paradigm shift in value networks and platforms to make them economically viable and environmentally sustainable- most likely induced by a shift in consumption patterns.

Based on the requirements of the sustainability, the companies will need to:

•rethink their existing business models
•work within the innovation sandbox to develop new products, processes or new markets for their innovations
•even change their strategy 360○ and identify new competence areas/new business opportunities and new supply/production/distribution chains linking with global value chains and networks to gain/retain their competitive edge

Already existing grass root innovations in India and other emerging countries are a good opportunity for innovation scouting for Finnish companies and innovators. This innovation scouting requires an open mindset to accept the fact that many problems and needs can be solved with much less resources than is common today in Finland and other countries where innovators are traditionally used to plentiful of resources.

Goal and strategic compliance

Goals:

•Introduce good examples of Indian resource-efficient innovations to Finnish companies and the supporting organisations
•Introduce opportunities for long term partnerships between Indian and Finnish innovation support entities, such as Tekes GreenGrowth Program and Indian think tanks

This project is in line with Tekes' strategic focus area Natural resources and sustainable economy. The project's content is in the interest areas of Tekes GreenGrowth Program, RYM SHOK and Cleantech Finland.

Content

Project manager Dharmesh Sharan (Finpro), project manager N.N. from GreenGrowth Program (Tekes) & team Ambika Oberoi, Sudarshan Itkyal, and CIMO trainee from Finpro India

Main tasks:

•Identify the key interest areas with Finnish stakeholders (industries / type of innovation / etc)
•Collect examples from existing online sources and make summaries of the cases
•Interview key networks, think tanks, research institutions and large scale developments to learn
•Identify doers that could potentially collaborate with Finnish organizations
•Define and introduce potential market entry models and partnership opportunities for Finnish companies
•4 Future Sessions or other type of workshops, active role in the Environment Forum in Helsinki 10.10.2012, Project’s Blog, events of stakeholders (GreenGrowth, RYM SHOK, Cleantech Finland, others)

Schedule: Aug 2012 – May 2013

Project's Advisory Board will include representatives of GreenGrowth program, RYM SHOK, Cleantech Finland, VTT, Aalto University and chosen companies.

Dharmesh Sharan
+91 11 4609 2400
dharmesh.sharan@finpro.fi