While India ranked only 46th in the latest Global Innovation Index report, it has climbed 2 spots over the previous year's standing. And the development performance is labeled 'above expectations' against the yardstick of the level of development.
The Global Innovation Index (GII) takes the pulse of the most recent global innovation trends. It ranks the innovation ecosystem performance of economies around the globe each year while highlighting innovation strengths and weaknesses and particular gaps in innovation metrics.
With the Indian government's relentless focus on making innovation, here are my views on how going ahead, India needs to strengthen its’s performance.
Digital India
National Tech Agenda - We should see MEITY driving strategy and projects around AI, 5G, Blockchain, and sustainable technology for Innovations in India.
Central bank and Technology Adoption - We could see huge acceleration for tech-driven business models with RBI, ReBIT, RBI Innovation Hub, IFSCA, IDRBT, and NPCI.
National Platform Collaboration - The industry will see greater consolidation & collaboration with UPI, Aadhaar, Account Aggregators, Digi-Locker along with Regulators coming together.
Sustainable Technology - The speed of deployment for renewable energy will outpace other energy sources in 2022 and beyond, driven by new investments, innovation, and technology solutions.
Corporate Collaboration
Digitization & Digital Adoption - 2022 holds increased digitization and digital adoption opportunities across the industry, with a positive outlook for talent demand in the sector with BPM, RPA, AI, Chatbots, Blockchain, Mobility,5G, IoT, etc.
People Engagement - Re-opening workplaces and recruiting and engaging talent. They need timely insights into their people. Finding that intersection between actionable data and our workers’ needs will be huge in 2022. Let's emphasize tech skills and less on degrees.
Rise with Hybrid workforce: With companies committing to hybrid work environments, leaders must rethink priorities and consider balancing between scale, speed, privacy, and security.
Security is no longer something only enterprises and IT workers need to think about. In 2022 tech and security companies should collaborate & share knowledge to make the world safer for all.
Emerging Technology
Blockchain for All - Blockchain is becoming an increasingly clear and strong acceleration in production deployments in many industries, such as the financial services industry. In 2022, the rise of CBDC, Cross-border, decentralized KYC should be a win. Decentralized Smart databases & edge computing are gaining popularity.
Multi-cloud deployments - 2022 is software vendors investing in multi-cloud deployments.
AI/ML becomes part of each application, and Kubernetes alignment together for next-wave applications.
Big Data, Data Analytics in digital transformation - For many organizations, much of 2022 will be about laying the groundwork for expanded enterprise transformation initiatives.
Experimentation around 5G- While the launch of 5G may be slightly delayed in India compared to the US or Europe, it is expected to bring in a revolution similar to the 4G revolution seen in 2016 and 2017.
Year for Millennials with Web 3.0, Metaverse, Crypto, NFT & DeFi
Web 3.0 - Over the next 5 years, Web 3.0 will upend the way we think about application development; Web3 infrastructure paves the way for the decentralization of the internet.
Metaverse, as being shouted by everyone, is a chance to reimagine virtual experiences and find better ways to do things that we did in the real world, including building community among customers.
Rise of NFT Consumers to expand use cases of NFTs for both digital and physical items. The Metaverse is a virtual platform on which people can collaborate and trade NFTs economically and become a source of income.
Rise of Ethical Crypto with more legal clarity through regulation and prohibitions.
Customer Value with Unicorns and Fintech
Rise of Unicorns: As many as 44 start-ups turned unicorns in 2021 & $41.4 Bn funding boom in 2021. We could see Crypto Ecosystem will gain clarity. So, while 2022 will see more start-ups going public, they will take a far less aggressive approach. Investors believe there will be a shakeup in 2022 and 2023 when we will see mass consolidation in enterprise tech and e-commerce sectors after the heights of 2021. Let's see if India closes 150 unicorns in 2022.
Fintech: The rapidly expanding Indian fintech market is estimated to become the third-largest market soon. It continues to have a huge opportunity to drive financial inclusion, SME, BNPL, and lending and impact consumers’ day-to-day lives.
Open Banking – the way forward for Marketplace: Start-ups will be investing in interoperable customer identities underpinned by both Open Banking and Blockchain use cases.
Customer Experience will go to the next level: With the amount of venture capital funding entering the industry, there is more competition for attention among customers.
Blessed by a grassroots culture of innovation, India, the world's 5th largest economy, should now aim at the top 20 rankings of the Global Innovation Index.
This article was contributed by our expert Prasanna Lohar
Frequently Asked Questions Answered by Prasanna Lohar
Q1. What is Global Innovation Index (GII) ranking?
GII is a global annual ranking of countries based on their capacity and success in innovation.
Q2. What is the purpose of the global innovation index?
The purpose of the Global innovation index is to measure the innovation of every county. The world intellectual property organization publishes it every year. It (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations with 193 member states.
Q3. What are the parameters of the global innovation index?
There are 80+ indicators some of which are Infrastructure, use of human capital, quality of research work, investments, trade, etc.
Q4. How is the India Innovation Index calculated?
It is based upon the same theme. India was on the spot of 46 in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2021 according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). India’s rank has been rising in the last few years. From 81 in 2015, it has moved to 46 in 2021.
