Meet covers a variety of tracks on entrepreneurship and non-linear growth, differentiation, merger of science and business, global innovation partnerships, protection of IP and women and innovation
DECEMBER 08, 2015: Adding another milestone to its strong line-up of mega events around innovation, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore hosted the First India Conference on Innovation, Intellectual Property & Competition, which kicked off on Monday, December 7, 2015 at the campus. The two-day event saw a confluence of ideas between academics, policy makers and practitioners, who deliberated on what can boost innovation and entrepreneurship in the Indian economy.
The first day’s discussions consisted of four tracks. Track 1 titled, ‘International Innovation, India & Economic Growth’, was initiated by Dr. Chirantan Chatterjee, who was the faculty anchor. The inaugural speech on 'IPR & A Sustainable Start-up Ecosystem in India' was delivered by Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman, IIMB Board of Governors and Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd.
This was followed by a talk on ‘Re-imagining An Innovative India’ by Dr. Tarun Khanna, Professor, Harvard University.
The last session of Track 1, titled ‘International Co-Invention, India, China & the World’, had Dr. Lee Branstetter, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, explaining that in conventional economic models, innovative capabilities took time to develop. “India and China are still at nascent stages of development. But both countries are already innovating and both are investing in R&D. Multinational investment raises the quality of invention. However, the model of innovation with international partnership still has room to grow. The scale of investment in innovation matters in terms of generating outcomes,” he said. He spoke of the innovation models across different countries and concluded by saying, “To realise the full potential of global innovation partnership, we need new policy paradigms, like strong commitment from both sides – a willingness to let the partnership evolve.”
Track 2 titled, ‘IPR, Indian Innovation & Make in India’, had Dr. Chetan Subramanian as the faculty anchor. The first session was on ‘Innovation, Tech-Transfer & IPRs in the Global Economy: Implications for India’ and the speaker was Dr. Kamal Saggi, Professor, Vanderbilt University. He spoke of the relevance of IP protection to developing countries, global tech transfer, patent protection and patenting. While describing the current economic environment in India, he said: “Indian society has always revered knowledge and education. That’s not the same as IP, for business. India’s IPR policy should be human capital development, strengthening and expanding human resources for teaching, research, etc.”
The morning progressed to the next session titled, ‘Brick & Mortar Innovation in India’, by Shaurya Doval, Managing Director, Zeus Caps & India Foundation. He remarked, “I see a lot of changes in Indian economy but very little innovation, which is the cause of some policy problems that the country faces. We have improved, but the problems are half-solved in the fields of education, health, manufacturing, etc. We have given a premium to improvisation over innovation, which works in the initial stages, but results in more problems at a later stage.” If India were to boost innovation in brick and mortar India, the country would have to build a culture of innovation, create an ecosystem and create self-belief. “Short-cuts are not the solution; the solution lies in the ability of seize and solve the problems. We need to think of brick and mortar in terms of innovation and not improvisation,” he added.
The next session, titled ‘The Mobile Revolution & Trillion Dollar Impact’ by Rishab Gulshan, Partner & Director, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), had the speaker sharing his views on how policy change could give a fillip to innovation in the mobile tech industry. Quoting a BCG study, he said, there were 3 billion mobile subscribers today, which was expected to increase to 8 billion by 2020. Companies that use mobile tech, he added, had been able to generate growth and create jobs, proving that the mobile tech industry invested a lot on R&D. “A lot more can happen in a country like India with the way the government is thinking; young consumers who value this kind of tech and start-ups which want to work in this space can get a boost. Making mobile access a universal goal should be one of the objectives (for policy makers),” he said.
The conference proceeded to Track 3, titled ‘Evaluating Innovative Activity: Evidence from Patent Offices & Organizations’, for which Dr. Sai Yayavaram was the faculty anchor.
Track 3 kicked off with a session on ‘Of Smart Phone Wars & Software Patents’, where Dr. Stuart Graham, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, offered an overview of patenting of software in the US, stating that the issues around innovating and policy making were common to most communities. “Many young start-up internet and software companies, especially the venture capital backed ones, have stated that patents bring value to them - to prevent copying, secure investment, improve the chances of a successful liquidity event, enhance reputation, etc.,” he said.
The next session on ‘A Transforming Indian Patent Office’ had Dr. K. S. Kardam, Senior Joint Controller of Patents and Designs, Head of Indian Patent Office, New Delhi, give the audience a snapshot of the patenting activities across the globe vis-à-vis the Indian Patent Office, the situation of backlog in the Indian Patent Office and measures taken to tackle such challenges. “Indian inventors are filing patent applications by using the international patent system like PCT. In India around 75% applications are from foreign applicants, with 25% from domestic applicants, which does not reflect ‘innovative actively’ very well. But as per PCT, 66% inventors are from Indian origin, which say our inventors are contributing more to foreign companies/countries. Several initiatives have been taken to tackle the issue, such as improvement of database, infrastructure, training, guidelines, practice and procedure, streamlining procedure, monitoring process, introducing discounts on online filing, etc.,” he explained, adding: “We have introduced the rule that applications can be transferred wherever the examiners of relevant field are available, to balance the workload and cut down undue pendency.”
Track 3 ended with a talk on ‘Innovation as a Culture within SAP Labs India’ by Srikanth Gopalakrishnan, Vice President, IoT, SAP Labs India Pvt Ltd, who spoke about IP in the context of ideation, innovation and how exactly one can foster that culture within organizations. Talking about the phenomenon of technology paradigm shift, he said, “By 2020, we are looking at 50 billion connected devices across the world.”
Track 4 was titled ‘Competition & Innovation - An Enduring Relationship’, with Dr. Subhashish Gupta as the faculty anchor.
The first session under Track 4, titled ‘Next Generation of Competition & Innovation: Lessons in India’, was led by Ashok Chawla, Chairman, Competition Commission of India. He spoke about the relationship between competition and innovation and the changing landscape in this regard. He observed, “There is a general perception that a competitive landscape better incentivizes firms to innovate.” He shared that the CCI had faced an increasing number of cases, in recent years, related to e-commerce, online trading, apps, especially taxi aggregators, etc. According to him, the three key issues for regulators globally were: (i) to look at competition from a dynamic point of view (ii) An IPR that promotes innovation and (iii) merger regulations.
The next session, titled ‘Cycles of Innovation & Litigation’ had Dr. Adam Mossoff, Professor, George Mason University, provide a historical perspective on the topic. He used examples of several innovations in the US, over the last two centuries, where discoveries were followed by cycles of litigation, including the telegraph, the lightbulb, the sewing machine, and, in more recent times, the smartphone. “Alexander Graham Bell was named in 600 lawsuits related to his invention of the telephone. In comparison, the current smartphone wars involve only about 160 lawsuits,” he quipped. He also listed reasons to explain why such cycles recurred and emphasized that the BRICS nations, who drive innovation in a big way, should not be deterred by this phenomenon.
The first-half of the day’s discussions came to a close with the last session under Track 4 – 'Copyright Law as Innovation Policy' – with Dr. Shyam Balganesh, Professor, University of Pennsylvania, as the distinguished speaker. On the unique role that copyright law could play in shaping innovation, he said: “Patent and copyright law create different incentive structures. In particular, copyright law creates a downstream incentive for derivative creativity.” He also remarked, “Copyright law is the often forgotten and often neglected first cousin of patent law.”
The discussions were followed by an Evening Round Table on Innovation in India, with a focus on bridging dialogues between academics, policy makers and industry practitioners, at the ITC Gardenia, Bengaluru. The chairperson of the evening’s session was Dr. David J. Teece, Professor, University of California, Berkeley, and the anchor was Dr. Anupam Khanna, former Chief Economist of NASSCOM & Independent Director of Indigo.
The discussions were held in two separate sessions. Panel I consisted of Dr. Kirti Gupta, Director, Economic Strategy, Qualcomm Inc.; Mr. Dilipkumar Khandelwal, MD India, SAP Labs; Ashok Chawla, Chairman, Competition Commission of India; Dr. J. Bradford Jensen, Professor, Georgetown University; Dr. Lee Branstetter, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman, Strand Life Sciences & Former Faculty, IISc Bengaluru & Purdue University.
Panel II was anchored by Dr. Khanna and the participants were Inderpreet Sawhney, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Wipro Ltd.; Dr. Shyam Balganesh, Professor, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Stuart Graham, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology; Manoj Kumar Bhatt, Founder Director, Foundation for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship & Senior Advisor, Tata Trusts, and Srinivas Prasad, CEO, Philips Innovation Campus.
The evening drew to a close with a mesmerizing violin recital by Aneesh Vidyashankar.
The discussions on Day 2 started with Track 5, titled ‘Technology Standards & Innovation Conversations for India’, which had Dr. Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore, as the faculty anchor. The first session, ‘Business Strategy and Intellectual Property in National Competitiveness’, saw Dr. David J. Teece focusing on the growing importance of intangible assets in driving innovation and competitive advantage for firms. He said that their success depended on how well they acquired, adopted and orchestrated resources and technology and how well they were able to protect these intangible assets through IP law.
Justice S Ravindra Bhat, Delhi High Court, provided insights into ‘IPR and Technology Law in India and Courts’ and focussed on the evolution of IP law in India, some recent changes and landmark judgments. “Compulsory licencing is not resorted to automatically. There is a robust enquiry and examination process,” he said. He also threw light on some recent landmark cases in IP law such as Novartis AG vs. Union of India regarding a cancer drug. He pointed out that there is no data secrecy law in India and said, “Solitary instances in which IP law has not been upheld in India do not necessarily indicate the robustness of its systems.” Sharing his thoughts on what it takes for IP laws to function optimally, he said, “The relationship between the IP owner and the state is key.”
Track 5 ended with a discussion titled ‘Standard Setting in Emerging Economies’, a topic handled by Mark Snyder, Qualcomm, who offered a practitioner’s view of patent licensing, particularly around patent licensing of technologies used to create industry standards, such as in the telecom industry. “Unlike patented technologies, standards technologies are disseminated more broadly so that everyone can benefit.” He explained that wireless telecom standards were the most complex standards ever developed, and observed, “It is a fallacy that all the technology is in the chip.” He pointed out that opportunism is a threat to the creation of standards and should be limited. Alluding to recent developments, he critiqued the new patent policy set up by the IEEE (a standards organisation) as lacking in balance and inviting infringer opportunities.
Track 6 was an interesting session on ‘Economic History of Innovation, Development & Prizes’. The faculty anchor was Dr Arnab Mukherji. The first topic, titled ‘Inventing Prizes: A Historical Perspective on Innovation Awards and Technology Policy’, had Dr. B. Zorina Khan, Professor, Bowdoin College, LSE & NBER, as the distinguished speaker. She said, “We need to realize the difference between prizes and patents. The essential difference is one of markets – prizes operate in non-market areas.” She went on to say that innovation was small and incremental and driven by hard-working individuals putting in significant effort. In contrast, prizes were often more about who was granting them and who was applying for them. She presented some of her historical analyses to show that prizes did not necessarily drive innovation, both in the UK and in the US. She pointed out that patents had built-in mechanisms for the dissemination of information while prizes did not, and hence prizes were less likely to act as significant drivers of innovation as opposed to patents.
The next session was on ‘New Knowledge Systems, Translational Research and Innovation from Indian Academia’ by Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman, Strand Life Sciences and former faculty, IISc Bengaluru & Purdue University. Walking the audience through his journey as a scientist-entrepreneur while setting up Strand Life Sciences, Dr Vijay Chandru pointed out that genomics was an example of data-intensive scientific discovery, or what he referred to as the fourth paradigm. He showed that the cost of genome sequencing had dropped far more rapidly than could be predicted by Moore’s law, helping to drive the data explosion in genomics.
The last session under Track 6 was on ‘Innovations That Have Changed Our Lives’ by Srinivas Prasad MR, CEO, Philips Innovation Campus, who detailed the role of the Innovation Campus in driving innovation in the healthcare space for emerging markets like India. While doing so, he said, they had to keep India’s unique challenges and demographics in mind. Pointing out that the major challenges in India revolved around availability, accessibility, affordability and quality, he listed some innovative products created at Philips, like the low-cost high-quality ECG devices.
Meet covers a variety of tracks on entrepreneurship and non-linear growth, differentiation, merger of science and business, global innovation partnerships, protection of IP and women and innovation
DECEMBER 08, 2015: Adding another milestone to its strong line-up of mega events around innovation, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore hosted the First India Conference on Innovation, Intellectual Property & Competition, which kicked off on Monday, December 7, 2015 at the campus. The two-day event saw a confluence of ideas between academics, policy makers and practitioners, who deliberated on what can boost innovation and entrepreneurship in the Indian economy.
The first day’s discussions consisted of four tracks. Track 1 titled, ‘International Innovation, India & Economic Growth’, was initiated by Dr. Chirantan Chatterjee, who was the faculty anchor. The inaugural speech on 'IPR & A Sustainable Start-up Ecosystem in India' was delivered by Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman, IIMB Board of Governors and Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd.
This was followed by a talk on ‘Re-imagining An Innovative India’ by Dr. Tarun Khanna, Professor, Harvard University.
The last session of Track 1, titled ‘International Co-Invention, India, China & the World’, had Dr. Lee Branstetter, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, explaining that in conventional economic models, innovative capabilities took time to develop. “India and China are still at nascent stages of development. But both countries are already innovating and both are investing in R&D. Multinational investment raises the quality of invention. However, the model of innovation with international partnership still has room to grow. The scale of investment in innovation matters in terms of generating outcomes,” he said. He spoke of the innovation models across different countries and concluded by saying, “To realise the full potential of global innovation partnership, we need new policy paradigms, like strong commitment from both sides – a willingness to let the partnership evolve.”
Track 2 titled, ‘IPR, Indian Innovation & Make in India’, had Dr. Chetan Subramanian as the faculty anchor. The first session was on ‘Innovation, Tech-Transfer & IPRs in the Global Economy: Implications for India’ and the speaker was Dr. Kamal Saggi, Professor, Vanderbilt University. He spoke of the relevance of IP protection to developing countries, global tech transfer, patent protection and patenting. While describing the current economic environment in India, he said: “Indian society has always revered knowledge and education. That’s not the same as IP, for business. India’s IPR policy should be human capital development, strengthening and expanding human resources for teaching, research, etc.”
The morning progressed to the next session titled, ‘Brick & Mortar Innovation in India’, by Shaurya Doval, Managing Director, Zeus Caps & India Foundation. He remarked, “I see a lot of changes in Indian economy but very little innovation, which is the cause of some policy problems that the country faces. We have improved, but the problems are half-solved in the fields of education, health, manufacturing, etc. We have given a premium to improvisation over innovation, which works in the initial stages, but results in more problems at a later stage.” If India were to boost innovation in brick and mortar India, the country would have to build a culture of innovation, create an ecosystem and create self-belief. “Short-cuts are not the solution; the solution lies in the ability of seize and solve the problems. We need to think of brick and mortar in terms of innovation and not improvisation,” he added.
The next session, titled ‘The Mobile Revolution & Trillion Dollar Impact’ by Rishab Gulshan, Partner & Director, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), had the speaker sharing his views on how policy change could give a fillip to innovation in the mobile tech industry. Quoting a BCG study, he said, there were 3 billion mobile subscribers today, which was expected to increase to 8 billion by 2020. Companies that use mobile tech, he added, had been able to generate growth and create jobs, proving that the mobile tech industry invested a lot on R&D. “A lot more can happen in a country like India with the way the government is thinking; young consumers who value this kind of tech and start-ups which want to work in this space can get a boost. Making mobile access a universal goal should be one of the objectives (for policy makers),” he said.
The conference proceeded to Track 3, titled ‘Evaluating Innovative Activity: Evidence from Patent Offices & Organizations’, for which Dr. Sai Yayavaram was the faculty anchor.
Track 3 kicked off with a session on ‘Of Smart Phone Wars & Software Patents’, where Dr. Stuart Graham, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, offered an overview of patenting of software in the US, stating that the issues around innovating and policy making were common to most communities. “Many young start-up internet and software companies, especially the venture capital backed ones, have stated that patents bring value to them - to prevent copying, secure investment, improve the chances of a successful liquidity event, enhance reputation, etc.,” he said.
The next session on ‘A Transforming Indian Patent Office’ had Dr. K. S. Kardam, Senior Joint Controller of Patents and Designs, Head of Indian Patent Office, New Delhi, give the audience a snapshot of the patenting activities across the globe vis-à-vis the Indian Patent Office, the situation of backlog in the Indian Patent Office and measures taken to tackle such challenges. “Indian inventors are filing patent applications by using the international patent system like PCT. In India around 75% applications are from foreign applicants, with 25% from domestic applicants, which does not reflect ‘innovative actively’ very well. But as per PCT, 66% inventors are from Indian origin, which say our inventors are contributing more to foreign companies/countries. Several initiatives have been taken to tackle the issue, such as improvement of database, infrastructure, training, guidelines, practice and procedure, streamlining procedure, monitoring process, introducing discounts on online filing, etc.,” he explained, adding: “We have introduced the rule that applications can be transferred wherever the examiners of relevant field are available, to balance the workload and cut down undue pendency.”
Track 3 ended with a talk on ‘Innovation as a Culture within SAP Labs India’ by Srikanth Gopalakrishnan, Vice President, IoT, SAP Labs India Pvt Ltd, who spoke about IP in the context of ideation, innovation and how exactly one can foster that culture within organizations. Talking about the phenomenon of technology paradigm shift, he said, “By 2020, we are looking at 50 billion connected devices across the world.”
Track 4 was titled ‘Competition & Innovation - An Enduring Relationship’, with Dr. Subhashish Gupta as the faculty anchor.
The first session under Track 4, titled ‘Next Generation of Competition & Innovation: Lessons in India’, was led by Ashok Chawla, Chairman, Competition Commission of India. He spoke about the relationship between competition and innovation and the changing landscape in this regard. He observed, “There is a general perception that a competitive landscape better incentivizes firms to innovate.” He shared that the CCI had faced an increasing number of cases, in recent years, related to e-commerce, online trading, apps, especially taxi aggregators, etc. According to him, the three key issues for regulators globally were: (i) to look at competition from a dynamic point of view (ii) An IPR that promotes innovation and (iii) merger regulations.
The next session, titled ‘Cycles of Innovation & Litigation’ had Dr. Adam Mossoff, Professor, George Mason University, provide a historical perspective on the topic. He used examples of several innovations in the US, over the last two centuries, where discoveries were followed by cycles of litigation, including the telegraph, the lightbulb, the sewing machine, and, in more recent times, the smartphone. “Alexander Graham Bell was named in 600 lawsuits related to his invention of the telephone. In comparison, the current smartphone wars involve only about 160 lawsuits,” he quipped. He also listed reasons to explain why such cycles recurred and emphasized that the BRICS nations, who drive innovation in a big way, should not be deterred by this phenomenon.
The first-half of the day’s discussions came to a close with the last session under Track 4 – 'Copyright Law as Innovation Policy' – with Dr. Shyam Balganesh, Professor, University of Pennsylvania, as the distinguished speaker. On the unique role that copyright law could play in shaping innovation, he said: “Patent and copyright law create different incentive structures. In particular, copyright law creates a downstream incentive for derivative creativity.” He also remarked, “Copyright law is the often forgotten and often neglected first cousin of patent law.”
The discussions were followed by an Evening Round Table on Innovation in India, with a focus on bridging dialogues between academics, policy makers and industry practitioners, at the ITC Gardenia, Bengaluru. The chairperson of the evening’s session was Dr. David J. Teece, Professor, University of California, Berkeley, and the anchor was Dr. Anupam Khanna, former Chief Economist of NASSCOM & Independent Director of Indigo.
The discussions were held in two separate sessions. Panel I consisted of Dr. Kirti Gupta, Director, Economic Strategy, Qualcomm Inc.; Mr. Dilipkumar Khandelwal, MD India, SAP Labs; Ashok Chawla, Chairman, Competition Commission of India; Dr. J. Bradford Jensen, Professor, Georgetown University; Dr. Lee Branstetter, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman, Strand Life Sciences & Former Faculty, IISc Bengaluru & Purdue University.
Panel II was anchored by Dr. Khanna and the participants were Inderpreet Sawhney, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Wipro Ltd.; Dr. Shyam Balganesh, Professor, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Stuart Graham, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology; Manoj Kumar Bhatt, Founder Director, Foundation for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship & Senior Advisor, Tata Trusts, and Srinivas Prasad, CEO, Philips Innovation Campus.
The evening drew to a close with a mesmerizing violin recital by Aneesh Vidyashankar.
The discussions on Day 2 started with Track 5, titled ‘Technology Standards & Innovation Conversations for India’, which had Dr. Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore, as the faculty anchor. The first session, ‘Business Strategy and Intellectual Property in National Competitiveness’, saw Dr. David J. Teece focusing on the growing importance of intangible assets in driving innovation and competitive advantage for firms. He said that their success depended on how well they acquired, adopted and orchestrated resources and technology and how well they were able to protect these intangible assets through IP law.
Justice S Ravindra Bhat, Delhi High Court, provided insights into ‘IPR and Technology Law in India and Courts’ and focussed on the evolution of IP law in India, some recent changes and landmark judgments. “Compulsory licencing is not resorted to automatically. There is a robust enquiry and examination process,” he said. He also threw light on some recent landmark cases in IP law such as Novartis AG vs. Union of India regarding a cancer drug. He pointed out that there is no data secrecy law in India and said, “Solitary instances in which IP law has not been upheld in India do not necessarily indicate the robustness of its systems.” Sharing his thoughts on what it takes for IP laws to function optimally, he said, “The relationship between the IP owner and the state is key.”
Track 5 ended with a discussion titled ‘Standard Setting in Emerging Economies’, a topic handled by Mark Snyder, Qualcomm, who offered a practitioner’s view of patent licensing, particularly around patent licensing of technologies used to create industry standards, such as in the telecom industry. “Unlike patented technologies, standards technologies are disseminated more broadly so that everyone can benefit.” He explained that wireless telecom standards were the most complex standards ever developed, and observed, “It is a fallacy that all the technology is in the chip.” He pointed out that opportunism is a threat to the creation of standards and should be limited. Alluding to recent developments, he critiqued the new patent policy set up by the IEEE (a standards organisation) as lacking in balance and inviting infringer opportunities.
Track 6 was an interesting session on ‘Economic History of Innovation, Development & Prizes’. The faculty anchor was Dr Arnab Mukherji. The first topic, titled ‘Inventing Prizes: A Historical Perspective on Innovation Awards and Technology Policy’, had Dr. B. Zorina Khan, Professor, Bowdoin College, LSE & NBER, as the distinguished speaker. She said, “We need to realize the difference between prizes and patents. The essential difference is one of markets – prizes operate in non-market areas.” She went on to say that innovation was small and incremental and driven by hard-working individuals putting in significant effort. In contrast, prizes were often more about who was granting them and who was applying for them. She presented some of her historical analyses to show that prizes did not necessarily drive innovation, both in the UK and in the US. She pointed out that patents had built-in mechanisms for the dissemination of information while prizes did not, and hence prizes were less likely to act as significant drivers of innovation as opposed to patents.
The next session was on ‘New Knowledge Systems, Translational Research and Innovation from Indian Academia’ by Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman, Strand Life Sciences and former faculty, IISc Bengaluru & Purdue University. Walking the audience through his journey as a scientist-entrepreneur while setting up Strand Life Sciences, Dr Vijay Chandru pointed out that genomics was an example of data-intensive scientific discovery, or what he referred to as the fourth paradigm. He showed that the cost of genome sequencing had dropped far more rapidly than could be predicted by Moore’s law, helping to drive the data explosion in genomics.
The last session under Track 6 was on ‘Innovations That Have Changed Our Lives’ by Srinivas Prasad MR, CEO, Philips Innovation Campus, who detailed the role of the Innovation Campus in driving innovation in the healthcare space for emerging markets like India. While doing so, he said, they had to keep India’s unique challenges and demographics in mind. Pointing out that the major challenges in India revolved around availability, accessibility, affordability and quality, he listed some innovative products created at Philips, like the low-cost high-quality ECG devices.