MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar addresses 13th edition of ‘Design and Engineering Summit’ of NASSCOM

New Delhi: Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, virtually attended the 13th edition of ‘Design and Engineering Summit’ organized by NASSCOM with the theme ‘Engineering the next’ here today. The summit, being organised for 6th-7th October, 2021 is celebrating the Global Engineering and Design effort with special focus on 4 objectives- driving research and innovation to create value, co-creation for scale and growth, digitisation for customer success and faster product cycle, defining the future of work framework and to align business to sustainability goals.

Giving his opening remarks, Shri Chandrasekhar noted that the Engineering, Research & Development (ER&D) sector generates $31 billion plus revenue and is home to more than 1000+ global companies that have set up centres in India for product R&D across diverse sectors. In addition, 12 of the top 50 Engineering Service Providers are headquartered in India and 44 of top 50 Service Providers have ER&D operations in India. Over 70% of the 50 most innovative global companies have a R&D centre in India. It’s almost like there is `India Inside’ in almost every product we consume

He added that the “best is yet to come and untapped opportunities in manufacturing, engineering, and digitalisation can play a key role in our vision of a trillion-dollar digital economy in the next 5 years.”

The pandemic has created an irreversible shift for innovation and is creating new opportunities in how products get designed, engineered, consumed and serviced through contactless systems, intelligence and analytics and software led systems. All of these tectonic shifts are going to call for a capability change over to Embedded Systems, Digital innovation and cyber security.

Shri Chandrasekhar noted that the event has an interesting theme on `Engineering the Next’ and India must lead this clarion call – build innovative solutions for the world and for India; build for the next billion, build solutions that enable us to meet our SDG goals and build solutions that can prevent the next pandemic. He remarked “As an engineer myself, the joy of building is something to be cherished and when linked with our country’s development and innovation, it becomes even more laudable.”

Ever Since Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched Digital India in 2015, India has been moving up the Global Innovation Index and is currently at 46th rank, a 20-point improvement from 66th rank in 2016. There is also a new excitement in India and the can-do spirit of our start-up entrepreneurs. 2021 has seen 27 unicorns and over $20 billion in funding. The spate of start-up IPOs in India clearly makes this the year of Start-ups.

India’s ambition continues to grow and expand under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister and it’s not just start-ups, the PLI scheme of the government has witnessed a phenomenal response. Just the proposals approved for electronics hardware should generate production of $22 billion over next 4 years. The PLI scheme has been extended across sectors – textile, auto etc. and the Make in India vision is attracting global and Indian companies to manufacture in the country. This is very important as I think of the ER&D sector. India can be an integrated partner with design, engineer and manufacture in the country.

Concluding his speech, Shri Chandrasekhar mentioned “Considering the close linkage between Technology and Skilling, in my other role as Minister for Skills Development, I am also working with the industry to accelerate the development of employable skills across the spectrum of digital technologies and soft skills to ensure that India can become the global digital talent hub for the world.

Currently, I believe India has a 32% of the Global ER&D outsourcing market and with all the ingredients with us and the catalyst role of Government, like the overall IT Industry, I am wishing all of you in the ER&D community to aim for more than 50% of the global market share in the next five years. We in the government will do what it takes to see you successful. Continue with the “can-do” spirit and let us celebrate the success of ER&D every year.“