For many decades, inspiring and juicy narratives, pertaining to iconic first generation entrepreneurs like Apple’s Steve Jobs, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Truecaller’s Swedish developers, Flipkart’s launchers are being succinctly dished out at publicly to fire imagination of those fancying own start-ups in the contemporary era of out of the box ideas linked innovative business enterprises, and this is what was exactly scripted at a one-day workshop at the famed Shriram Institute for Industrial Research recently.

An inspiring story of a young entrepreneur was narrated as he had designed a multipurpose scissor for operation theatres after quietly peeping through a glass window that a team of surgeons was battling with a bunch of varied sized scissors while operating his close kin at a hospital. Likewise, another speaker delved out an emotional story of currently internationally popular “smart cane” to the benefit of millions of blinds across the globe.

Those present at the workshop were awe struck on such absorbing and motivating narrations that kindled hopes and vindicated the time proven fact that nothing was inaccessible by a fertile and intelligent mind of any diligent individual. The import of a day-long meet was that everyone should ignite imaginations encased within their minds rather than sitting tightly over those.

A One-Day Workshop on “Technological Innovations for Healthcare Start-ups & 3rd Anniversary celebration of InnovatioCuris (IC)” was jointly organized by SRI-Technology Business Incubator (TBI) & InnovatioCuris on 4th August 2018 at SRI Auditorium, New Delhi. Participants included key members from healthcare start-ups, medical professionals, industrialists, entrepreneurs, medical device manufacturers, plastic industry, officials from govt. institutions and students from various universities.

The event was inaugurated by addressing the distinguished delegates and budding entrepreneurs about the advancement and new innovations in the healthcare sectors. It was a delightful moment to see the positive response from industry stalwarts of the region and Science and Technology start-ups’ keen interest in venturing into new business entities.

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Dr. K. M. Chacko, Director, Shriram Institute in his address briefed about the Technology Business Incubation concept. He highlighted the excellent support provided by the Department of Science & Technology (DST) at the Indian Ministry of Science & Technology because of which the Shriram Institute – Technology Business Incubator (SRI-TBI) has been running for past so many years. The center provides services in the fields of healthcare, plastics, rubbers, specialty chemicals, and waste management. Continuing the inaugural session, the address of the Surgeon Rear Admiral & MD, InnovatioCuris Prof. (Dr.) V.K. Singh helped in setting the tone for the workshop. He briefed the national & international status of healthcare sector during his delightful thought.

Chief Guest of the event, Mr. Vijay Kumar, briefed about the support available to the start-ups at the Ministry. He appreciated the efforts made by SRI-TBI team and opined that the multidisciplinary activities of SRI would be useful for promotion of incubator programme. He briefed about the various funding schemes offered by the Ministry to micro, small & medium enterprises which both the existing and the future entrepreneurs can take advantage of. The floor was taken by Dr. Shirshendu Mukherjee who added his appreciation for the joint efforts made by team InnovatioCuris & SRI-TBI. He briefed about the industry-academia interface and implementation of its benefits through a wide range of impact initiatives, be it providing access to risk capital through targeted funding, technology transfer, IP management and handholding schemes that help bring innovation excellence to the biotech firms and make them globally competitive. He added that the supporters of change for building the Indian bio-economy would be biotech start-ups & SMEs & hence our focus is on raising their capabilities.

The inaugural session followed with the launch of a start-up innovative product Nylon Sleeve Anchor Fastener. The product was developed by Mr. Rajendra Gupta, Director, Axel India with the support of SRI-TBI & are in scaling up the process for the healthcare sector. The Inaugural session ended with the vote of thanks by Dr. Ajay Tyagi who mentioned that the efficiency, benefits, barriers, and challenges for healthcare industry are very process-centric and technology use can be mainly attributed to the success of entrepreneurs. This was followed by two technical panel discussions.

The first technical session was on Innovations for Reducing the Burden of NCDs. The panelists stated that the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) are reaching epidemic proportions worldwide and present an unprecedented challenge to economic and social development globally. The latest projections from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest, 57 million deaths occurred globally of which 36 million (63%) were the result of NCDs. Despite the immense burden of disease, NCDs, defined here as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory conditions, and diabetes. It is estimated that 80% of NCDs are preventable with appropriate diet and lifestyle choices and good control of NCDs can have a substantial effect on the incidence of downstream complications. Hence there exists a need for innovations to reduce the burden of NCDs. The panelists also suggested the steps for reducing the burden of NCDs in the present scenario.

The second technical session was on What will take Indian Healthcare sector forward. The panelists discussed various aspects about the current scenario of healthcare sector and suggested several notable points including obtaining proposals from private insurance companies and the government on ways to provide medical insurance coverage to the population at large and execute the strategy; it is healthy to have competition in health care and provide health insurance to the millions who cannot afford it; revise the curriculum in medical, nursing, pharmacy and other schools that train healthcare professionals, so that they too are trained in the new paradigm; the government should appoint a commission which makes recommendations for the healthcare system and monitors its performance; encourage business schools to develop executive training programmes in healthcare, this will effectively reduce the talent gap for leadership in this area; rapidly develop and implement national accreditation of hospitals – those that do not comply would not get paid by insurance companies. However, a performance incentive plan that targets specific treatment parameters would be a useful adjunct.

The programme concluded with a visit to SRI-TBI Prototype Development Facility. The participants were highly excited to see the actual processing of plastics injection molding and blow molding processes and expressed their earnest desire to be incubated in the facility.