Bangalore : India should move towards third generation incubation ventures as it had already missed out on the developments brought in by the first and second generation incubation ventures. Speaking to The Financial Express Mr Rustam Lalkaka, president & business technology development strategies (international consultants) and senior advisor on small business development with UNIDO, said that incubators being a tool for economic development, the country had a tremendous potential in the area. "The traditional concept of incubation has undergone major changes with the advent of information technology and convergence," said the Nagpur-born US settled Mr Lalkaka. Mr Lalkaka said India should not worry much over missing the first and second generation incubator revolutions as the country had huge potential to leapfrog to third generation ventures. "The strength in the information technology and the large pool of human resources can be successfully tapped to develop world class incubation centres catering todomestic and global demand," he said.He said India had failed to capitalise on the United Nations' Business Incubation Programme -- which was simultaneously launched in India and China in 1988 -- hence losing out on the first (began in 1990) and second generation incubation opportunities. On the other hand, China utilised the programme and emerged as a leader in terms of technology business incubators. India required new species of incubators as the place can now afford more such ventures under various segments including bio-technology and food processing, he said. Big cities in India could easily afford to have 10 to 15 incubators catering to different segments of businesses. For instance Shanghai alone has more than 20 incubators while Pittsburgh in US has 24.
The best example of the emerging concept of convergence in the area of incubator was of the Technology Park of Malaysia (TPM) that offered a slew of facilities such as venture capital, mentoring and robotics all on a single platform, he said. According to Mr Lalkaka, another major change happening at the conceptual level was that more and more incubators were turning into profit-driven ventures. The need of the hour in this regard was the involvement of private sector. There was a tremendous scope for developing new concepts of incubators for rural empowerment and women and promotion of tourism. "We are doing something of this sort in Egypt and Uzbekistan. In Luxor we are doing an incubator for tourism sector while in Samarkand, the incubator will be dedicated to women entreprenuers," he said.
Mr Lalkaka also stressed the importance of agriculture and food processing in developing countries. Incubators dedicated to food processing industry would have a bright future in India considering the amount of food wasted. According to him, in developing countries 90 per cent of the incubators were technology-oriented against less than 50 per cent in the developed countries. At present there are 3,000 incubators working across the globe of which more than 50 per cent are located in the US and Europe. Among the developing countries, China is at the top with 130 incubators to be followed by Brazil with around the same numbers. Commenting on the R&D expenditure among enterprises, he said developing countries accounted for a meagre 5 per cent of the total global R&D. China had already pumped in over $1 billion in developing technology business incubators, he said.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
