Stressing that innovation was the key driver of growth and development, 
President Pranab Mukherjee has said a special fund would be set up to help innovators turn their ideas into reality.
Mukherjee, who received the second ?Report to the People? of the National Innovation Council (NInC) on Friday, said the India Inclusive Innovation Fund was proposed to be operationalised with an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore.
?Government of India has already made a provision for allocating Rs 100 crore as seed money for the Fund,? he said.
The NInC report, presented by Sam Pitroda, Chairman of the National Innovation Council, highlights the activities and initiatives the Council has undertaken to strengthen the innovation eco-system in the country.
Pitroda also demonstrated government?s ambitious plan to connectivity to 2.5 lakh village panchyats by establishing live video communication link from Rashtrapati Bhavan to Moradabad Innovation Cluster and Kanpura Gram Panchayat in Ajmer District of Rajasthan.
Mukherjee said India has an estimated 5,000 small and medium scale regional industry clusters which were unable to utilise their full potential.
He noted that the NInC has been working towards seeding innovations in these industry clusters, while focussing on SMEs, by facilitating the creation of Industry Innovation Clusters to drive job creation and productivity.
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research are also supporting the NInC in this effort.
?We look forward to the results of these interventions in enhancing the innovation quotient of the clusters and in boosting job creation,? Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee said India has tremendous untapped potential for innovation and with more than 550 million persons aged below 25, innovation is imperative to meet their needs in a sustainable manner, while also creating new opportunities for them.
He said the country has to evolve its own model of development which must be based on its unique needs and challenges, especially the challenge of equitable growth.
?The prime focus has to be on affordability, sustainability and scalability. India today needs to innovate products and services that are affordable and which do not compromise on either efficiency or quality,? he said.
?This model of innovation must pervade our working environment if we are to truly empower people of our nation. It can also serve as a model of sustainable development for the rest of the world,? Mukherjee said.
He said inculcating and promoting the spirit of innovation in educational institutions can lay the groundwork for enhancing the impact of innovation in society and in realising the demographic dividend.
On the NInC plans to start a Meta University, Mukherjee said the varsity would ride on the National Knowledge Network and promote multi-disciplinary learning.
Speaking on the occasion, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said to enhance development and innovation at the grassroots, the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) will provide optic-fiber based Broadband connectivity to 250,000 Panchayats in the country.
?The aim is to leverage this connectivity so as to improve service delivery with transparency and accountability and to provide a platform for collective solution building and knowledge sharing for local population through relevant applications and an associated ecosystem,? he said.
?The Government of India is committed to spend Rs 20,000 crore for implementing this project by December 2013,? Sibal said.
NOFN will ensure that Panchayats are equipped with not just broadband connections, but also with computers, software and people to create, organise, distribute and deliver relevant information and provide needs-based applications which could be developed by understanding local needs, context and applicability, he said.
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Source: http://apnnews.com/2012/11/02/special-fund-to-help-innovators-turn-ideas-to-reality-prez/
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