Dr H Purushotham
Chairman & Managing Director
NRDC
A Pioneer in technology transfer
The oldest and largest technology transfer organisation in the country, the National Research Development Corporation(NRDC) has been developing, promoting and transferring, commercializing technologies/Intellectual Properties emanating from various national R&D institutions, universities and PSUs in the country for more than six decades, to many entrepreneurs/startups/SMEs/Corporates. NRDC was sphere headed and built over the years by many legendries like Kasturbhai Lalbai (Founder Chairman), Prof MS Thackar, Manubhai Shah, Dr S Hussain Zaheer, R Vankataraman (Former President of India). Dr GS Sidhu, MS Pathak and several eminent Board of Directors. Continuing on the path set by these great visionaries, the institution is leading a path of innovation. Moreover it is working towards the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision – to make India as one of the developed nations in the next two decades as well as for making India an innovation and entrepreneurial hub.
NRDC is redefining its role in the changing paradigms in innovations and enabling government policies. To be relevant to the country’s needs and aspirations, NRDC is restructuring its programs and aggressively partnering with all the innovation stake holders to build a robust and synergistic innovation eco-system in the country.
Key player in Innovation ecosystem
NRDC provides unique value added services to the technology development institutions and entrepreneurs/start-ups to mature the early stage technologies further and make them investment ready, before being licensed. NRDC has been adding value to indigenously developed laboratory-scale technologies by way of rendering technical and financial assistance for protection of the inventions by filing patents in India & Abroad, scaling up the technology, prototype development, carrying out field trials/clinical trials, getting regulatory approvals, testing and quality certification, preparation of basic engineering design packages, market survey, feasibility/detailed project reports. Besides technology licensing, NRDC gives national awards for meritorious innovations, provides angel/seed funding services to incubation centres & conducts skill- development programmes and project consultancy. To encourage and stimulate the spirit of innovation in the country, NRDC has so far conferred 935 national meritorious invention/innovation awards.
Thrust Areas of Technology Transfer
NRDC has leading edge capabilities in almost all areas of technology transfer. Some of them being: Agriculture/ Horticulture/Sericulture, Food Processing, Biotechnology, Dairy & Milk Processing, Herbal Drugs and Cosmetics, Mineral & Metallurgical Sciences, Mechanical & Allied, Engineering 
Sciences, Chemical & Allied Engineering, Electrical & Electronic engineering. With continuous endeavour to develop new technologies by scientists in universities, technical institutes, research institutions, individual inventors, corporate R&D set ups, NRDC has been signing MOU’s with large number of such institutions. NRDC has the largest repository of Indian technologies (about 2,500). With significant potential still untapped, it is expected that the demand for Indian technologies will continue to expand in scope, scale and geographic coverage. As per the present scenario of the worldwide climate change, adaptation of the eco-friendly technologies shall be imperative to protect the society from unexpected extreme events caused by climate change and it seems that in future green technologies will dominate across the globe. NRDC considering the changing scenario shall continue to harness such technologies for further development, propagation and commercialisation.
Nation Building through Technology Transfer
NRDC has so far transferred about 5000 technologies 
to companies/SMEs/Start-ups in India & Abroad in different industrial sectors. Majority of technologies transferred are in the areas of Food & Agriculture (43%), Engineering (40%), Chemical (13%) and Biotechnology (4%).These Table-I: Technologies Licensed by NRDC in Health Care Sector technologies were sourced from various public funded research organizations like, CSIR (44%), DRDO (29%), ICAR (12%), Universities (7%), ICMR (6%) and PSUs (2%). NRDC transferred technologies in all most all States in India including 24 foreign countries. It is estimated that NRDC transferred technologies created wealth of over 30 Billion Indian Rupees and generated employment for over 100 thousand personnel in last 10 years. NRDC has also ploughed back over 1 Billion Indian Rupees to technology generating institutions. Some of the major healthcare technologies licensed by NRDC to entrepreneurs are shown in the table.
Promoting IPRs
NRDC has been promoting IP culture in the country for the last few decades by way of organising IPR awareness workshops, opening Intellectual Property Facilitation Centres (IPFCs) and University Innovation Facilitation Centers (UIFCs). It has established two IPFCs supported by MoMSME, one at UA S Bangalore and the other at Andhra University at Vishakhapatnam.
Apart from IPFCs, NRDC opened 6 UIFCs at AIIMS, New Delhi, AMITY University, Noida, NITSilchar, GTU, Gujrat, IIT-Kanpur, IIST-Shibpur, Kolkata. NRDC has also opened an outreach centre at Guwahati Biotech Park (GBP), Guwahati. NRDC assisted inventors and innovators for filing about 1700 patents in India & abroad.
Promoting Start-ups through Incubation
NRDC is also supporting Start-up India Mission by evaluating the proposals received by DIPP for innovativeness in start-ups and also assisting start-ups through Scheme for Facilitating Start-ups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP). NRDC is implementing IOCL start-up scheme for carrying out mentoring, monitoring and evaluation of start-ups supported under Indian Oil Start-up 
Scheme. NRDC is also partnered with Andhra Pradesh Government through AP Innovation Society (APIS) to promote start-ups in Andhra Pradesh. NRDC has opened an Incubation Center at its HQs to promote start-ups where in about 32 start-ups are being incubated physical and virtual incubation mode.
Consulting Services
As NRDC has rich experience in various domains of technology, is also offering consulting services in various aspects of technology transfer and project management in India & abroad. NRDC has also exported several technologies to developing as well as developed countries such as, USA, Germany, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Indonesia, Madagascar, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Brazil and Bangladesh. Recently NRDC completed two major projects one at Ivory Coast i.e. setting up of technology demonstration centre/incubation centre and the other at Ghana for establishing tomato production farms. These two projects were funded by Ministry of External affairs Govt. of India.
NRDC Success Stories
There are hundreds of major technology transfer success stories Examples of breakthrough technologies licensed through NRDC in India over the past decades are: Ayush 82 – Anti Diabetic Herbal Formulation, Anti-Arthritis Ointment, Solar Power Tree, 10 & 20 HP Tractor, Indelible Ink for Election Purpose, Infant Food, Artificial Heart Valve, Mini Cement Plant , Disposable Blood Bag System, Vijetha (Silkworm bed disinfectant), Superabsorbent Hydrogel, Extraction of Azadirachtin and formulation, Potassium Humate, Monocrotophos, Invert Sugar, Spirulina Algae, Water Filter Candles, Glucose Bio-Sensor.
Way Forward
With the emerging and enabling innovation ecosystem there are huge opportunities for NRDC to play a major role in taking fruits of national R&D to the common man by way of providing innovative technologies to entrepreneurs and start-ups. NRDC has raised to the occasion and has become more visible, vibrant amongst its stake holders and aims to transfer at least one technology a day to start-ups, which will become part of Start-up India and Make in India programs of Government of India.
