India?s innovations in science and technology are no longer confined to the classrooms of its leading technical and research institutes?Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), among others. Their business incubator programmes are facilitating the conversion of research activity into entrepreneurial ventures. Although entrepreneurial ventures are expanding in a mix of industries, ?Going Green? seems to have moved to the top of the agenda, and for good reasons.
While the causes, scope and impact of global climate change remain open to debate, businesses are taking some concrete steps toward operating greener environment. There is now an urgent need?as well as a strong business case ?for implementing more environmentally sound systems and processes. Indeed, the youthful and smart computer scientists at these knowledge institutes are perfectly positioned to lead sustainability projects: they understand technology and have outstanding intellect to manage businesses. And with assistance from the incubators?resources, services and counseling for little cost? they are able to give wings to their ideas and strike the right business chord.
These clean-tech start-ups are also ideal for what investors are always yearning for as the next ?big idea?. The clean technology umbrella extends to any energy, water, transportation, manufacturing or agricultural technology that minimises pollution by making emissions less toxic or cuts down on waste. ?Investors are always looking for opportunities that offer promising returns regardless of sector. Of late, very large investors are coming into India?s clean technologies sector,? says Inderpreet Wadhwa, founder & CEO of Azure Power. He is the first entrepreneur to sell solar power commercially in India and his venture designs, finances, owns, and operates solar power plants (see interview).
Sidhartha Kumar Bhimania, CEO & co-founder of a clean materials company called EnNatura from IIT Delhi, says, ?There are quite some good Indian start-ups with main markets in rural areas. Apart from financial support from the government and seed stage venture capital funds, there has to be market mechanism for taking technologies from labs/start-ups to their relevant markets. It can be match making with large MNCs which can deploy the technology internationally, or helping the start-ups with market access in developed markets of the US, European Union and Japan.?
EnNatura has developed a resin platform for application in the printing ink industry, allowing for eco-friendly printing along with high-efficiency recycling of printed paper. Offset printing caters to the media, publishing, advertising and packaging industries worldwide. In 2007, offset printing consumed 250 million tonnes of paper and 3 million tonnes of hydrocarbon-based printing inks and chemicals, and worldwide volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from offset printing totaled nearly 500,000 tonnes. VOC emission are responsible for health problems among workers in the printing industry (bronchitis, asthama, even cancer). They are also highly polluting to the environment, as they cause smog formation and ozone depletion.
EnNatura?s inks emit zero VOCs, besides enabling high-efficiency recycling of paper printed with its ink. Bhimania say, ?We are current selling to close to 10 printing companies and doing trials with 40 others in the national capital region (NCR). We are receiving lots of interest from larger printers and distributors in Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. We are also going overseas to the US market in next two quarters, where the market is significantly bigger and our value proposition of ?eco-friendly printing inks with lower operating costs? is very favourable.?
Another R&D based company set up under Technology Business Incubation Plan of IIT Delhi is INRM Consultants. The company provides innovative customised solutions in the area of natural resource management, GIS, remote sensing and integrated database management. ?The solutions are made highly user-friendly and interactive using GIS interface,? says Sandhya Rao, director, INRM Consultants. It has undertaken a German Development Corp project and the mandate is to prepare a State Action Plan on climate change for Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana. INRM has also successfully executed a World Bank project?to develop a water balance model of the Ganga basin and its use to better understand hydrologic implications of various current and future scenarios.
IIT Bombay, known as one of the best sources of technology innovation and research excellence in India, was an early adopter of the concept of business incubation in India. The Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) administers a business incubator which provides support for technology based entrepreneurship. Here again, ?going green? has moved to the top of entrepreneurship agenda.
A quick snapshot: Sedemac Mechatronics builds control solutions to help internal combustion engines go green. The company?s products are aimed at enhancing the fuel efficiency and power delivery quality, while reducing the exhaust emission from engines in the automotive industry. Bhugol GIS, a geospatial technology company provides a wide range of products and services in the fields of GIS and image processing. Geosyndicate Power aims at promoting the use of non conventional energy mechanisms like geothermal to deliver high efficiency and low cost electricity to the Indian rural and power sectors, thereby containing the pollution levels and giving clean air for millions.
Vision Earthcare (VEC) is a provider of water and waste treatment solutions. Its patented technology is soil biotechnology, developed at IIT Bombay after nearly two decades of research. This uses the ecology of soil media and biological reactions within a constructed bio reactor to treat waste water. This is a giant technological leap forward from the current technologies which rely on the aquatic ecology for treatment. This advance allows VEC to offer an energy efficient, low maintenance, aesthetic water treatment solution.
Down south at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the Society for Innovation and Development (SID) is enabling innovations in clean technology.
Under the aegis of Sustainable Transformation of Rural Area (SuTRA) programme, a path breaking concept of using non-edible seed oils from indigenous trees (like Karanj and Neem) as substitute fuel for energy generation has been proved extensively in field condition. The development of a 2.7 megawatt (MW) thermal gasifier system towards commercialisation of bio-mass decentralised energy plants has also been undertaken.
Many venture capital firms are interested in making clean energy investments in India. But one of the problems that some of these firms face is that they are not able to find enough innovative firms to invest in. Probably, it?s time for them to literally go back to the classrooms of India?s technical and research institutes, teeming with smart and youthful computer scientists, and awaiting their moment of glory.
