Technology complex to promote SMEs

BANGALORE: The State government will be setting up a multi-disciplinary Science and Technology, Research and Development (R&D) Centre in a 14,000-acre complex on the outskirts of the city to promote Small and Medium Enterprises (SME).The emerging ecosystem for research and development is slated to get a big boost with the government planning to emulate the model of Taiwanese Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in giving an impetus to the concept of coordination between industry and research establishments.Revealing the details of the plan during a conference of SMEs, MN Vidyashankar, Principal Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, IT and BT, said that the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research is also likely to relocate its International Centre for Theoretical Sciences to Bangalore.The technology complex will house IISc, DRDO, ISRO, BARC, apart from TIFR to make Bangalore the country’s R&D hub.The ITRI, jointly promoted by Taiwanese government and the industry, follows the model of facilitating entrepreneurs to source development and innovation of their product up to the patenting level.The highlight of the incubation model of ITRI is that the patent rights lie with the entrepreneur and not with the institution.The conference highlighted the importance of adoption of IT by the SMEs to improve their business objectives and enhance their competitiveness in the globalised economy.Experts, both from industry and the government, deliberated on the salient aspects of evolving technology landscape of IT and their easy adoption by SMEs as an imperative tool and not as an option.