Sam Pitroda

Bangalore: Almost every company is now focussing on innovation and creating entrepreneurial drive within it to get things done, according to Sam Pitroda, chairman of the National Knowledge Commission.

He was speaking at the symposium on "Innovation and entrepreneurship" here on Sunday.

The symposium was organised by the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

Mr. Pitroda said that innovations were happening at a fast rate.

He also said that innovations did not happen in one place and required collaboration and a multi-disciplinary approach. Innovators now had more tools to work with.

Rajiv Chandrashekhar, MP and chairman and chief executive officer of Jupiter Capital, said that it was the right time to be an entrepreneur or innovator, as obstacles of the past decade had been removed.

He also said that there had been democratisation of capital, because of which nearly 60 per cent of the companies in the stock market index were first generation entrepreneurial ventures built over the past 10 years.

Referring to N.R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon, Naresh Goel of Jet Airways and Subash Chandra of Zee Network, he said, "These people were willing to take risks and challenges to pursue their dreams. Entrepreneurs are not born, but made."

Mr. Chandrashekhar also said that it was now easy to find foreign partners as they were willing to invest and establish businesses in India.

Investments in the telecom sector in the country were increasing.

Mr. Chandrashekhar, who sold BPL Telecom to Hutchison, said it took him two years to secure a licence for cellular service in the country.

These days, the licence formalities were completed in just three months, he added.

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