Utkarsh GargInvestments & Corporate Innovation | AI • Venture Building • Growth Hacking | Curator • Creative Director | Ex - TED, INK, Entrepreneur
India needs more ecosystem plays and collaboration playbooks in place to drive economic and innovation growth.
Last weekend at the GCC Summit, IIT Kanpur - had the opportunity to discuss the blueprint to create a replicable playbook that transform India's premier institutions into engines of global innovation, directly fueling the GDP of their states.
I got the opportunity to discuss the key pillars, where strategic initiatives and collaboration can create an ecosystem for growth by enabling and aligning:
🔹Academia - as the R&D & talent hub
🔹Philanthropy - providing patient capital
🔹Corporates/GCCs - driving demand & adoption
🔹Investors - funding commercialization
Followed from insights as shared by - Alok kumar (Principal Secretary, Planning, Govt. of UP), Sanjeev Kumar Gupta, ISS (CEO, KDEM), Kiran Cherukuri (EVP, HCL Tech), Manindra Agrawal (Director, IITK), and other leaders - here are some..
Key takeaways for corporates/GCCs to accelerate real-world innovation:
1. Move beyond funding to co-creation. Partner, don't just patronize
2. Embrace founder flexibility. Allow teams to work on their terms—sometimes from within your offices to drive action
3. Align Business Units directly with POCs. For scale-ups to work, they need internal visibility and championing to gain trust
Had good time interacting and getting insights from leaders, mates and seniors, driving impact like: Rajesh Kumar Ojha (PwC), Vivek Jha (Eli Lily), Bibhu Choudhary (Trimble India), Jimmi James (Lowe's), Amit Verma (Nasscom), Kapil Kaul (IITKDF), Anurag Singh (IITK), Anand Sri Ganesh (NSRECL), Sanjay Sikdar (Samsung), Sandeep Sharma (Tech Mahindra), Venkatesh Kidambi (Vahan Mudra), Nilesh Kulkarni (Thoughtworks), Anuraag Dubey (VectorXdb), D Anil Kumar (Infor), Ronak Ajmera (JSA), Vineet Srivastava (GSK), Reema Mittal (IITK), Aditya Agrawal (SuperU), Dr Vibhuti Aggarwal (RTAF), Dr Aparajita Prasad and others.
Grateful to the Alumni Association IIT Kanpur, Startup Master Class, Jai & Tarun sir for the invite. The playbook is being written. More action in Uttar Pradesh 🚀
#CorporateInnovation #GCC
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