Staff

CSIR-NIScPR organised a National Workshop on World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April 2022 for school students and innovators. The participants were young winners of the CSIR Innovation Awards.

During the inaugural function, Prof. Ranjana Aggarwal, Director, CSIR-NIScPR, welcomed the gathering. She highlighted various aspects of Intellectual Property, Patents and Communication emphasising the importance of innovations and the necessity of a platform to bring the students and the experts on to one place. She added that the amount of innovations that emerged during the COVID-19 lockdown period is tremendous. COVID-19 has taught us how public-private participation has brought digital transformation to the country. The quantum of patents filed in the digital sector during the last five years speaks about the innovations that happened in the field, indicating that students could look for new innovations in this sector. 

The guest of honour of the inaugural was Dr Sameer Kumar Swarup, Deputy Controller of Patents & Designs, IPO, Delhi. During his speech, he mentioned that the number of inventions during the COVID-19 pandemic period was higher than the normal times. It has been observed that whenever there is a constraint the drive for innovation increases. Children are the most suited to develop innovations as they always carry fresh ideas and are always curious to know more. He highlighted the importance of such workshops and said that IPR outreach programmes targeting school students have greatly increased the IP awareness among school children. He also remarked that the increase in the Indian applicants who file for IPR in recent times is a good indicator of economic growth.

The chief guest of the programme, Prof. Anil Kumar Gupta, Coordinator, SRISTI and Honey Bee Network and Executive Vice-Chair, National Innovation Foundation delivered his lecture on “IP and youth: strategies for engagement, empowerment and entrepreneurship”. He mentioned that the vision of Honey Bee Network is to give voice, visibility and velocity to creative and innovative people in the formal and the informal sector. 

Prof. Anil Kumar Gupta focused on the difference between open innovations and intellectual property. He asked young innovators to develop sensitivity towards inefficiencies, deficiencies and problems existing in the society. Learn not to live with any problem, but find solutions, he said. He highlighted the four dimensions of innovation and how drivers of innovation can bring in changes, meeting the unmet needs. He mentioned that innovators need to look for oddities and inculcate the habit of thinking out of the box. Passion, purpose, and process will lead to performance through platforms to engage youngsters towards entrepreneurship. He stressed the need to reward innovators. He also appreciated teachers who act as mentors and extend support to these students.

The workshop also gave an opportunity to the school students and young innovators to present their innovations in the workshop. Master Agnij Moitra, a student of Birla Vidya Niketan School who won the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Innovation Award, was felicitated on the occasion. Agnij later gave a presentation on his design of an improvised tetra-pack where he innovated a two-slit design for tetra-pack to solve the issue of food wastage.

During the technical sessions, experts delivered lectures on various aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Dr Sujit Bhattacharya, Chief Scientist, Advisor/Dean Policy Research, CSIR-NIScPR, spoke on Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Dr Kanika Malik, Sr Principal Scientist, CSIR-NIScPR, delivered a lecture on “Introduction to Intellectual Property Rights” and Dr Vipan Kumar spoke on “Technology Readiness Level (TRL) Assessment”.

The technical sessions were followed by presentations by students who won the CSIR Innovation Award for School Children (CIASC) 2021. The students also actively participated in the brainstorming sessions. 

Dr Kanika Malik presented the vote of thanks and appreciated the students for coming out with great innovations to solve problems faced by society.