Bengaluru: The Karnataka government is drafting a policy to regulate innovation in technology and address the new age challenges with a sound legal framework, a top official said on Wednesday, August 21.
“Our IT department is drafting a policy on innovation in technology to address the new age challenges such as regulatory sandboxes with a sound legal framework,” Additional Chief Secretary E.V. Ramana Reddy said at a summit here.
A regulatory sandbox refers to the live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which regulators may permit certain relaxations for testing.
Delivering the keynote address at the 2-day summit on the innovation of the apex industry body CII, Reddy said India had to work towards becoming an innovation economy to emerge as a global power.
“We are considering novel concepts such as regulatory sandboxes to have a sound legal framework for innovation. Our aim is to make Karnataka a leading promoter of disruptive technologies by strengthening our centres of excellence in cyber-security, data analytics, artificial intelligence and internet of things,” Reddy added.
In this context, the senior IAS officer said as per an international study, Bengaluru climbed up to 11th best global start-up ecosystem in 2019 from 21st in 2017.
“Bengaluru has been cited as one of the fastest growing technology hubs and start-up capitals in the world,” claimed Reddy.
State-run Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) Director-General Omkar Rai said on the occasion that 28 centres of excellence would be set up in STPIs across the country at a cost of Rs 400 crore over the next two years to drive innovation in services and products.
“The game-plan is to make India generate $90 billion by 2025 from software products, with our share being $8.1 billion in a global market of $511 billion currently,” said Rai.
The India IT industry size is a whopping $177 billion, with $136 billion from exports and employs 41 lakh people.
“The national software policy 2019 aims to capitalise on the strength of the country’s robust IT industry to transform India into a software product by 2025,” asserted Rai.
The centres will focus on emerging and disruptive technologies such as AI, IoT, Medical Electronics, IoT in agriculture and automotive electronics.
Infosys co-founder and its former chief executive Kris Gopalakrishnan said new business models were emerging to capitalise on disruptive technologies.
“With industry boundaries blurring, policy makers need to ensure that regulations keep pace with innovation. Sandbox models may be needed to test innovation and business models to ensure the desired outcome,” said Gopalakrishnan.
Citing the distress in the auto industry, Gopalakrishnan said it was encouraging to notice the government is promoting greener technologies.
“To implement new policies, we need to adopt a holistic approach that looks at the ecosystem from raw materials to finished products,” Gopalakrishnan added.
Accenture India Managing Director Rekha M. Menon said innovation would be the pivot for the country to be a $5-trillion economy over the next 5 years from $3 trillion in 2020.
“Innovation for socio-economic growth will be the cornerstone for achieving the $5-trillion economy over the next 5 years, Menon said.
Though India has moved up on the global innovation index, the stakeholders have to excel in certain sectors.
“To move up the index, we need to ensure innovation is a process, a collaborative approach that involves government, academia, research and start-ups,” she added.
