National Research Development Corporation to develop ASEAN technology data bank to help entrepreneurs

The National Research Development Corporation ( **NRDC** ) will establish a technology data bank for **ASEAN** (Association of Southeastern Asian Nations) region as part of ASEAN-India Innovation Platform. The corporation has been entrusted by the Department of Science and Technology ( **DST** ) to manage the platform for a period of four years. The proposed data bank will link existing data banks of available technologies in the ASEAN region. “We will undertake maintenance and normalisation of collected data including sourcing of ideas online from India and ASEAN countries,” Dr. H. Purushotham, chairman and managing director of NRDC, told India Science Wire. “We have been given the responsibility of bringing whatever technologies are available in India and ASEAN on one platform and make it available for commercialisation for Indian as well as ASEAN entrepreneurs,” he said. Besides developing the data bank, NRDC will undertake other tasks like selection and validation of technologies through expert committees for identifying the potential technology in ASEAN members; to perform need analysis of technological requirements by organising annual meet in India of ASEAN members for need assessment on the data generated through participation in different platforms; follow-up meet to update and review; and organising training programmes on Technology and intellectual property management. The innovation platform is a major element of the enhanced the ASEAN-India S&T Development Fund, which is a part of ASEAN-India Science & Technology Collaboration formally started in 1996. Initially, the collaborative projects were supported through ASEAN-India Fund, but in 2008 a dedicated ASEAN-India S&T Development Fund with an equivalent amount of US$ 1 million was established jointly by Ministry of External Affairs and DST. The fund was enhanced to an equivalent amount of US$ 5 million in November 2015. “DST will implement three major components under this project. First, there will be ASEAN-India Research and Training fellowship for researchers for six months. The entire expenditure will be met out of the fund allocated” said R K Sharma, scientist in the International Multilateral Research Cooperation (IMRC) Division of DST. The second component will be ASEAN- India collaborative Research and Development program. Under this ten projects would be supported for three years. The third component would be ASEAN-India innovation platform with three components - social innovation, research innovation and product innovation. The social innovation part would be dealt by the National Innovation Foundation, Ahemdabad, while research innovation part will be handled by NRDC and FICCI will deal with the product innovation component.