4th Consecutive year of The Indira International Innovation Summit




Pune January 31, 2011: The 4th Indira international Innovation Summit an endeavor by The Indira Institute of Management, to expose academia to the leading edge innovation practices from across the world and to create a platform for intellectual exchange of ideas, was recently organized in Pune at the Dhruv Auditorium of Indira Group of Institutes at Wakad.

This was the fourth consecutive year of this summit and was being organized for the first time in Pune. The Summit offered a great learning experience to the students of Indira. It showcased the participation and address of renowned dignitaries from all across the globe to name a few David Wittenberg- Chief executive officer, The Innovations workgroup, Sunil Gupta- Life time Master Trainer Dr. Edward de Bono Tools, Pradeep Kumar- Global Chief technology officer, Suzlon Energy Limited, Makrand Phadke- Sr. VP Innovations, Reliance Innovation Leadership Centre, Reliance industries Ltd., Dr. Balajith Shetty- Project Head (Oxyrich), Manikchand Group.

Welcoming the delegates, Ms Tarita Shankar, Chairperson, Indira Group of Institutes, exhorted the students to imbibe the spirit of innovation, which has today become a sine qua non for the very survival of business. The wealth of knowledge and experience available at the Summit was motivation itself for the young generation at Indira, to realize the value of innovation and to benefit from the presence of ace practitioners.

Talking about this initiative of IGI, Chetan Wakalkar, Group Director, Indira Group of institutes said, “we started this summit four years ago with an aim to promote the Industry – academia linkages to enable the Indira College Of Engineering and Management (ICEM), Pune to emerge as a Leading technical manpower source, but today this summit has become a platform for rekindling the power of creativity and Innovations which would drive future Innovation in the Industry.”

Initiating the proceedings, Mr David Wittenberg, CEO, Innovations Workgroup, spoke about the immense opportunities in India for business growth in a growing economy, but it required innovative minds to capture this market. He added that Innovation is a successful strategy towards growth, India being the fastest developing economy has a very competitive market. In this scenario one can adopt any one out of three strategies for growth - firstly acquiring the market share of one’s competitor, secondly steadily growing with the market growth rate but both of these result in a slow growth rate on a short term basis, and so Mr. Wittenberg suggested that it was best to adopt the third strategy which is to innovate, which not only offers the best competitive advantage but also contributes to long tem growth.

The Summit also showcased the 4th Excellence in Innovation Awards 2011 to honour the best in Technology, Innovators & Entrepreneurs, wherein awards were conferred on individuals as well as organizations for their excellent innovations. The individual entrepreneurs were given the Star Entrepreneur award for excellence in their Innovative entrepreneurial initiatives. The young entrepreneurs were also awarded with the Star Young Entrepreneur Award.

The Innovation Leader Award was bagged by Girish Wagh President & Head – Small car project, Tata Motors ltd and Sandeep Phanasgaonkar-President and Technology officer, reliance capital ltd. The excellence in IT award was bagged by Girish Rao -Head IT solutions, Marico Ltd and T. Pradeep Kumar- Global technology officer Suzlon Energy Ltd. The excellence in software innovation award was bagged by Rajeevlochan Phadke- President and COO LingualNext Inc and CEO and MD, Image Point Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The Manufacturing Icon award was conferred to Milind Naik -Managing Director, Global Towers Ltd.



There was also a special category of Best in Class Manufacturing Awards for Excellence in various fields on organizational level wherein The Best in Class Manufacturing Award for Excellence in Productivity Improvement was bagged by Mahindra & Mahindra, Wabco- TVS and Tata Motors- CVUB, Pune, Best in Class Manufacturer of the year (large organization) was bagged by Apollo Tyres & small organization by PME Power Solutions. The Best in Class Manufacturing Award for Innovation in Manufacturing was bagged by Global Towers ,The Best in Class Manufacturing Award in the FMCG sector was bagged by Hindustan Unilever Ltd (Gold award), Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (Silver award). The excellence in Safety Innovation award was conferred to Wellcore Corporation.

The presentations by the speakers were received with rapt attention; while some speakers delivered their message with the help of acid humor and a huge fun quotient inviting audience participation at every stage.