As a Founder and Managing Director, Bikram plays a key role in the day to day operations and formulating strategies for smooth execution of research assignments. Bikram is also responsible for client acquisition and client engagements in Asia pacific region. Bikram helps global technology companies monetize their IP assets through automated tools and helps them generate more value out of their IP. He has the expertise of assisting clients on a wide range of technologies such as Semiconductors (circuits and processes), Wireless Technologies, Memory Devices, Cloud Computing, and Consumer Electronics.
Bikram has been advising several Global 500 clients in effective patent portfolio optimization and competitive benchmarking analysis to help them understand their position in the industry. Bikram has extensive experience in assisting clients on high stake US, Japanese and Chinese patent litigation cases. Recently, Bikram has been actively involved in advising clients on new product development strategies and technology Landscape studies.
Over the past three decades, India’s technology industry has propelled the country’s growth story. Budget 2023 has set the context and pace for its continued growth and innovation in the foreseeable future. The pro-growth Indian Union Budget 2023 has given a significant push to promoting emerging technologies. In the current times, domestic patent filing has overtaken overseas filing as seen across Indian corporates and law firms. This has increased the scope for innovations in emerging technologies and has opened grounds for more developments across industries.
The Budget aims to open more options for private investments, research on emerging technologies, technical skill development, and job creation.
Promote digitisation, 5G technology deployment plan
5G services are expected to revolutionize our ways of life by enabling new applications and services like smart cities and connected cars. India’s Union Budget 2023 extends its goal towards digitization by focusing on Capex led growth by embracing emerging technologies. It will promote the AI ecosystem, 5G labs and setting up several skill centres. The government wants to promote 5G mobile networks for many sectors and aims to set up 100 labs to develop 5G-based apps. These will cover use cases such as smart classrooms, precision farming, healthcare, as well as intelligent transportation systems.
These measures will make India an interdisciplinary R&D hub and provide the required infrastructure and resources to set up centres of learning, promote new business partnerships and pave the way for sustainable growth. The Budget focuses on green growth that aims to create the much-needed ESG driven innovation ecosystem.
Opening of Centres for AI and Excellence across India
The tech-driven growth centric budget aims to focus on the vision of “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India ”, by setting up three centres of excellence for Artificial Intelligence in leading educational institutions. Major players in the industry will collaborate to conduct cross-disciplinary research and create innovative solutions for a range of fields, including agriculture, healthcare, finance, defence, and sustainable urban development. The futuristic goal is to leverage these cutting-edge solutions that can attract substantial volumes of intellectual property from these centres of excellence.
Use of AI and Emerging Technology to Promote Startups and Academia Partnerships
Under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0, the budget 2023-24 has announced several tech-based training opportunities for youngsters in subjects such as AI, coding, robotics, 3D printing, IoT, drones and other soft skills. Skilling the youth on emerging technologies will provide innovative solutions to solve grassroot problems, that can eventually lead to more IP registrations.
This year, the budgetary allocation for IP ecosystem has been raised by 15% which includes copyright, designs and trademarks. To consolidate the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) and Intellectual Policy Rights (IPR) policy management, increased funds have also been allocated. CII has worked for 20 years to develop and promote a strong intellectual property rights (IPR) ecosystem in India. Through their IP Initiative, they aim to facilitate and support the creation, protection, and enforcement of IP, develop human resources in this area, and advocate policy reforms that enable Indian industry to compete globally and leverage IP for global leadership.
The Budget has suggested the National Data Governance Policy 2023 to open doors for more innovation and research carried out by start-ups and academia. This will enable access to anonymous data. Forging such partnerships will lead to more innovations in the field of education, promoting skill-based courses on emerging technologies, machine learning and help the government and corporate sector hire the right talent with knowledge and experience of working on AI/ML as well as ideas to create newer technologies.
Growth in Agritech Industry
The government aims to set up an agriculture-focused digital public infrastructure as an open-source and easily operational platform. It aims to provide farmer-friendly solutions, leveraging information services for crop planning and health, access to farm inputs, credit, and insurance to promote agritech startups in the agriculture sector. An agriculture accelerator fund will be set up to support Agri-startups across rural areas. The move aims to bring the latest technology that is affordable and provides innovative solutions to support the agriculture sector.
Use of AI in Defence and Aerospace
Assessing the current geopolitical tensions with neighbours, global threat perception in the Indo-Pacific and the need to make the Armed Forces ready for future warfare, the defence sector budgetary allocation has been increased by nearly 35% over 2022. This will help to initiate more R&D projects, focusing on technologies that are transforming the industry. The new projects that will be launched include hypersonic flights, electric aircraft to space tourism, and reusable rockets that has the potential to transform the aerospace sector. The Budget has laid grounds to promote drone startups through the ‘Drone Shakti’ program which includes building specialised applications and leverage Drone-As-A-Services (DrAAS). Also, select ITIs across requisite skilling courses will be launched in 2023-24.
The growth-centric budget for 2023-24 aims to boost economic productivity by focusing on long-term development in areas such as research and development, technology, skill development, agriculture, and rural development that is expected to drive growth through the multiplier effect.
