NEW DELHI: U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma said his country has been a strong supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Start Up India, Stand Up India” initiative and American entrepreneurs are looking to create opportunities in the country.
In this context, Verma cited Qualcomm Venture announcing an investment of $150 million in Indian startups during Modi’s recent U.S. visit.
“U.S. has been a strong supporter of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Start Up India, Stand Up India’ initiative to encourage entrepreneurship among India’s youth, and facilitate start-ups across India. The American entrepreneurs are looking to create opportunities in India….,” he said.
He was delivering a lecture on “Technology Innovation and Societal Change” jointly organised by U.S. Consulate General Chennai, IIM-B and Indo-American Chamber of Commerce here.
Touching on the climate change issue, Verma said U.S. and India could together make no greater gift to humanity than propelling a clean energy revolution that delivers critical economic and environmental benefits to people of both countries, the U.S. and the world.
“We are at a critical stage in this effort, global investment by governments and the private sector in clean energy research and development is not keeping pace with the demands of this challenge. We owe it to future generations to increase the pace of innovation,” he said.
Governments must scale up public research and development, private companies will need to develop new investment strategies and the financial sector will need to explore new approaches to risk, Verma said.
“We hope that current discussions between the U.S. and Indian governments on increasing government research can begin to channel cutting-edge ideas to the private sector.
“The world’s greatest philanthropists have also joined this effort, including Bill Gates who has pledged to spend at least $1 billion over the next five years to help governments partner with the private sector to adopt and deploy promising new innovations,” Verma added.
On governments encouraging innovation together, he said to date, U.S. has funded 18 proposals including technologies to remove toxic arsenic from groundwater in Bengal and Bihar.
He also praised visionaries from Karnataka, including Infosys Founder N R Narayanamurthy, Sabeer Bhatia, who founded Hotmail, Gururaj Deshpande, who founded Sycamore Networks, and Biocon Chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw for her pioneering work in biopharmaceuticals, for their commitment to finding innovative pathways to provide essential services to disadvantaged communities.
Verma said rather than dismissing Indian traditions as incompatible with western medicine, American scientists and pharmaceutical companies are working with Indian partners on “bioprospecting” examining traditional medicine as a source of new drug discovery.
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