The 11th India Innovation Summit will focus on scaling local innovations to realize national dreams. Key themes of the summit include developing smart cities for 350 million new urban migrants over 15 years, cleaning the polluted Ganga river which flows through 50 cities, expanding financial inclusion through new payment systems, improving road infrastructure to support economic growth, and fostering regional startups to address local problems. The summit aims to discuss agricultural innovations, smart cities, clean India initiatives, manufacturing, financial access, transportation systems, and entrepreneurship as ways to pursue more inclusive and sustainable development across India.

1. Eleventh India Innovation Summit 2015
“Realizing the National Dreams - Scaling Local Innovations!”
6th
/7th
August 2015, Hotel ITC Royal Gardenia, Bangalore
Background Note
“Realizing the National Dreams – Scaling Local Innovations!” is the theme of 11th India Innovation Summit and this topic is
driven by the recent changes in the Indian political ecosystem and the shift in priorities for broader participation in the economic
growth across different sectors in India.
To set the context for the theme, it is important to understand the various facets of development challenges faced by India in the
present times. The challenges are well known for some decades, but the present focus is on execution excellence to meet these
challenges in addition to a concept framework to solve them. The present policy and institutional reforms reflect these changes
in both ideological level and execution level. Hence, it is important to list the key themes, which make up the National dream and
re-frame the scope to realize them in the present framework for execution.
India is still largely an agrarian economy with over half of its working population engaged in this sector. Manufacturing is a
significant driver of sustained economic growth and the biggest job creation engine. For every major developed (or newly
industrialized) country, the manufacturing sector has been the key to prosperity and enhanced standards of living. India has
gone from an agrarian economy to a service economy bypassing the industrial manufacturing sector. The track record for
urbanization in India has not been too impressive, and therefore there is a need for the much smarter approach and out of the
box solutions. India has an extremely skewed GDP mix with only some 17% coming from manufacturing, even lower than almost
all developed markets.
Govt. of India has announced one of the most ambitious programs to transform the urban landscape of India by developing 100
smart cities. As estimated more than 350 million additional people will migrate to cities from villages in the next 15 years in
search of livelihood and better quality of life. As India has its typical problems, and the solutions from elsewhere cannot be
retrofitted, Innovation for India in India would be the key to providing smart and sustainable solutions for Indian Smart Cities
The Ganga is a 2500 km long river and flows through 50 cities across 11 states, all of which discharge around 2700 million liters
of wastewater in the river. The flow of the river has been affected at several places due to accumulated sediments on the
riverbed that causes flooding, degradation of water quality, and erosion of the riverbanks. The river has become unfit for
domestic use, irrigation, and aquatic life.
Financial inclusion is one of the key pillars for inclusive growth in India. The core elements of financial inclusion are payment
banks, digital wallets, and micro-credit in priority sectors, institutional refinancing through MUDRA and the new policy framework
based on global experience in similar initiatives across the world. The changes in the regulatory landscape for direct transfer of
funds to the end user and the proliferation of mobile and retail outlets significantly changed the scope of last-mile challenges.
In the present times, the road transport network is the backbone of an increasingly global economy, and investments aimed at
improving its efficiency remain essential. Road Infrastructure gives the framework for the physical movement within society. India
is one of the fastest growing countries in the world, and it needs to maintain its growth momentum in a sustainable manner to
improve its overall standards of living and reduce poverty. The transport infrastructure plays a pivotal role in accomplishing the
country’s quest for investment and resulting development.
The presence of vibrant entrepreneur ecosystem is one of the key features of a developed nation and a critical enabler for
finding local solutions to the regional problems of a developing nation. There is a major shift in the startup ecosystem in India in
the last couple of years and majority of them focus on India as a market and create solutions to the unique problems of rural
India.
The eleventh India Innovation Summit provides a comprehensive round up of major national initiatives in its session coverage of
topics such as Agricultural innovations, Smart Cities, Swachh Bharat, Make in India, Financial Inclusion, Integrated
Transport Systems and Regional Startup Systems. This event captures the mood, spirit and action in public and private
spheres to realize the grandiose National dream of equitable growth and global leadership.