Business, academic and government leaders debate strategies for boosting collaboration

Canada-India Innovation Summit

India's massive technology requirements offer great potential for collaboration with Canada in S&T, but any successful collaboration must be tailored to specific needs and the ability to pay, said Dr R Chidambaram, the principal scientific advisor to the Government of India. While Indian innovation is progressive in some areas, it lags in others such as making small- and medium-sized firms more productive.

Boosting innovation through collaboration will require a dynamic yet complex set of investment types and a spectrum of interactions ranging from basic research (nanotechnology, brain imaging) to re-innovation in which generic technologies are modified for more basic needs in India's vast rural areas.

Chidambaram made the comments at a unique Canada-India Innovation Summit earlier this week at Carleton Univ. He was among a potent mixture of industry, academia and government to debate the best approaches to expanding bilateral trade between India and Canada.

Among the high-profile Canadian speakers were John Manley, former minister in the Chrétien and Martin governments and currently president and CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE). Manley noted that the global economic centre of gravity is rapidly shifting to Asia at a time when multilateral trade negotiations are giving way to bilateral and even regional efforts. He said that the growth strategies of large corporations he represents through the CCCE are increasingly focused on emerging markets as opposed to the US, but their efforts are often undermined by Canada's weak brand and market presence.

"Our innovation and productivity numbers are at best mediocre. There's a need for us to really raise our game," said Manley, adding that the $4 billion in bilateral trade with India is less than four days worth of trade with the US. "There's a unique opportunity to forge a new type of relationship (with India)."

Manley noted that, while there are a number of high-tech innovation projects between the two nations, many more are required, particularly in areas of opportunity such as clean coal and water management and purification.

The fact that western nations are losing their monopolistic grasp on innovation is underscored by the projection that 50% of global GDP will be generated by Asian nations within a decade. India will contribute a major share of that GDP as its economy expands and its leadership position in information technology increases.

"Leading companies produce and aggregate information which gives every nation the potential for scale," said Kevin Lynch, vice-chair of BMO Financial Group and a former senior federal bureaucrat and clerk of the Privy Council. "Information is the new global currency and India understands this."

Lynch said Canada needs to develop a multi-point S&T plan that emphasizes a common belief system, excellence, financing (venture capital and traditional), globalization and commercialization. Canada's natural resources represent the biggest advantage that can be exploited to boost bilateral trade, but Canada must development new attitudes, new time frames and new partners like India, said Lynch. There must be more business-university interaction in problem solving.

new developments

Several recent developments bode well for increased collaboration, not the least of which is a joint decision to designate 2011 as the Year of India in Canada. Other developments include the restoration of bilateral nuclear cooperation, collaborations between the Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and CANARIE and India's National Knowledge Network (NKN) in the area of neuro imaging. In 2008, the Indian government launched the NKN with the objective of connecting all of the country's stakeholders in S&T, higher education, R&D and governance through grid-based, high-speed Internet linkages.

More than one speaker noted that the level of trade between the two countries is unacceptably low: $4.3 billion. However, Rana Sarkar, president and CEO of the Canada-India Business Council, said that $5 billion in trade, largely services through third countries, is not counted or tracked. Sarkar said India has at least 10,000 key decision makers that should be methodically mapped and tracked for use as points of engagement.

"There's information overload. The prism through which we see is getting fogged up," said Sarkar. "We need to put people together with the right incentives to accelerate what is already taking place. The Canadian missions to India have been completely disorganized."

The perspective of companies both large and small provided the summit with a ground-level reality check as corporate attitudes shift from viewing India as a source of cheap human resources to a market unto itself. Engineering giant SNC Lavalin now has 1,500 employees in India out of a global workforce of 21,000 and has recently acquired a series of Indian firms in the petrochemical, engineering and medical sectors.

Smaller firms such as Nordion are also examining expansion in India. Kevin Brooks, Nordion's senior VP sales and marketing said that breaking into the Indian market is a huge undertaking for a firm of his size, particularly given the perishable nature of its products (medical isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals). Still, Brooks said Nordion is now enjoying "modest success" and has incorporated its technology into five Indian institutions.

Ottawa-based Energate, a small venture capital-based maker of control systems for home energy management, concurs that breaking into the Indian market is difficult for small firms. Chairman and CEO Niraj Bhargava said a strong presence on the ground is essential for exploiting the abundant market opportunities in India.

Dr Henri Rothschild, president and CEO of ISTPCanada, says R&D underpins the wide range of issues surround greater collaboration between the two nations.

"Research is the ore body through which you mine innovation," said Rothschild, adding that Canada's impressive ramping up of R&D funding must continue as the competition is not standing still.

Rothschild said the fact that Canada is neither hungry, scared or running from something makes for a poor basis for innovation — a mind set that must be overcome through a strengthening of the innovation-research partnership.

"India is in the sights of the federal government and every province as there's untapped potential to do more," he said. "We need a bottom-up agenda."

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