New Ideas in New India

The Indian economy, now growing at 9 per cent, must do much more to provide the benefits of growth to sections of society with far less financial resources than the rich, and it must do this very quickly.

The Indian economy, now growing at 9 per cent, must do much more to provide the benefits of growth to sections of society with far less financial resources than the rich, and it must do this very quickly. To meet its challenges, the country needs innovation on many fronts, especially new enterprise and business models. Indeed, India must innovate the model of innovation itself, breaking out of the traditional, resource-intensive innovation model, instead with investments in institutional R&D as the prime driver.

The EMPI-Indian Express Indian Innovation Awards are a catalyst to stimulate and accelerate the movement of 21st century innovation in the country. It is focused on researching innovations in the Indian context, to understand them and how they work, so that these ideas can be propagated across the country. The Boston Consulting Group is its knowledge partner.

The EMPI-Indian Express Indian Innovation Award is focused on two objectives; it aims to recognise outstanding performance. It also goes beyond other schemes and rewards the winners. Its aims to spread knowledge about how such innovations can contribute to the inclusive and sustainable progress of the country. Therefore, the rigorous selection process is designed to find the best examples and distil insights from them. These will be diseminated by the Indian Express and other channels, including a journal of innovation published by EMPI.

Four hundred and fifteen entries were received for the 2006 awards from organisations in the business, government, and civil society sectors. Of these, 231 were selected for further examination by a panel of 25 experts. These experts worked together over several weeks and selected 22, against clearly established criteria, for a final round of analysis. They recommended 14 of these to a jury, chaired by Professor M.G.K. Menon, consisting of 10 eminent persons, from the public sector, academia, and business, with long experience of innovation in their fields. Together with the experts, the jury has selected those who will receive the EMPI-Indian Express Innovation Awards for 2006 from the president of India in a ceremony in April this year.

The writer is chairman, the Boston Consulting Group, India