Sunday, November 23, 2008

Useful Webinar on R&D Talent in India

On Tuesday, November 18, 2008 I attended a webinar put on by a colleague who has presented for us at the ICA Institute, Gunjan Bagla, managing director of Amritt Ventures, Inc. . This webinar was presented by The Caltech Industrial Relations Center as part of their Critical Business Discussion Series.

He presented on leveraging India's talent for R&D: - R&D opportunities and business models in India - Challenges to making Indian R&D opportunities a reality - How to leverage investment with a distributed development model - and What impact open innovation will have on future development in India.

2 quick comments:

1) I always gather useful information and insight from Bagla's presentations and appreciate his reflective approach to topics. This is a topic of particular interest for my research, and I am glad to have access to Bagla as a resource.

2) I attended this webinar because of my interest in the topic, but I was also glad to be an audience member instead of the host. It reminded me how easy it is to get distracted at your desk while the webinar is going on, and I noted that Bagla's use of polls worked very well to get my attention back. I have been encouraging presenters to use the poll feature in our Around the World in Asian Days series, but now I will emphasize it even more.

What's Driving India's Rise as an R&D Hub?

What's Driving India's Rise as an R&D Hub?

India has long enjoyed a reputation as a destination for IT and business process outsourcing. Now, the country is fast emerging as a major center for cutting-edge research and development (R&D) projects for global multinationals such as Microsoft and Motorola as well as Indian firms. More and more companies in industries ranging from IT and telecommunications through pharmaceuticals and biotech are setting up ambitious R&D projects, in part to serve the Indian market, but also with an eye to delivering new generations of products faster to the global market.
What forces are shaping these trends? What does the future hold? To answer these questions and more, Knowledge@Wharton collaborated with The Economic Times Intelligence Group in Mumbai, India, on this special report on R&D in India. The articles below explore the factors driving global R&D toward India, the opportunities and challenges of contract research, and the human capital challenge that India faces, among several others.