New Delhi, Jul 19 (PTI) Technology that succeeds under Indian conditions can often succeed anywhere in the world, but the challenge is that deep technology does not run on normal startup timelines, according to BITS Group Vice Chancellor Ramgopal Rao.
In an interview with PTI, the renowned academician said India cannot become a global innovation hub merely by building more companies around technologies developed elsewhere.
“We must build companies around science and intellectual property created in our own universities. India has two enormous advantages: talent and problems at scale. Both can become the basis for globally important companies,” Rao said.
He said India needs homegrown solutions in semiconductors, healthcare, agriculture, space, energy, water, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, defence and manufacturing.
“A technology that succeeds under Indian conditions can often succeed anywhere in the world. The difficulty is that deep technology does not run on normal startup timelines,” he told PTI.
Rao explained that while a software product can be developed or improved in weeks, a medical device, semiconductor technology or new material may require years of research, repeated testing, certification and substantial capital before the first customer arrives.
“The weak link is often not the idea or even the prototype. It is the long middle between a laboratory result and a dependable product. Industry and government must be willing to provide test beds and become early customers. For a deep technology startup, the first serious customer is often more valuable than the first investor,” he said.
Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, has emerged as the leading undergraduate institution represented in the Avendus Wealth-Hurun India U30 List 2026, with 11 alumni founders getting featured this year.
Rao, a former director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, said the entrepreneurship culture at BITS-Pilani is built over several decades, which is now producing visible results among people who are not even 30.
“We are strengthening this further in a variety of ways. Students have considerable academic flexibility and the space to pursue ideas outside the classroom. The New Venture Creation course then provides a more structured path,” he said.
He said the course is designed around doing rather than merely discussing entrepreneurship.
“Student teams begin with an idea, speak to potential customers, study the competition, test whether the technology is viable, develop a minimum viable product and understand finance, legal compliance and fundraising. Each team also works with an experienced entrepreneur as a mentor,” he said.
Rao stressed that Indian universities must build the entire pipeline from research to impact.
“A research paper creates knowledge. A patent gives ownership over that knowledge. It is only when the knowledge becomes a useful product or process that it begins to create wealth for society.
“By wealth, I do not mean only the valuation of a startup. I mean new industries, high-quality employment, manufacturing capacity, exports, strategic independence and solutions to problems affecting millions of people,” he said.
“Indian universities must build the complete pipeline from research to impact. That means choosing important problems, funding early-stage research, protecting intellectual property, building prototypes, supporting testing and certification, and connecting researchers with industry and patient capital,” he said.
Noting that entrepreneurship needs unlike minds, Rao said the academic structure at BITS makes it possible for such minds and disciplines to meet.
“To the best of my knowledge, BITS Pilani is the only institution in the country where a student can graduate with as distinct programmes as a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and a Master of Science in Chemistry in about five years. There are many students who are actually doing this. A student may study algorithms in one class and molecular chemistry in another,” he said.
“Similar combinations are possible with physics, mathematics, biological sciences and economics. The second degree is allotted after the first year based on the student’s academic performance. This is not flexibility for its own sake. Many important innovations today lie at the intersection of disciplines.
Rao said drug discovery needs biology, chemistry and computing, while climate technology needs engineering, economics and public policy. When students are exposed to more than one way of thinking, they are more likely to see possibilities that a narrowly trained person may miss, he said. PTI GJS RHL
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