Kolkata 4.0: Developing an innovation ecosystem HOW KOLKATA CAN TRANSFORM INTO A DIGITAL INDUSTRY HUB FOR INDIA 24 JANUARY 2018 EPG STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED, THE OFFICE GROUP, ONE EUSTON SQUARE, 40 MELTON STREET, LONDON, NW1 2FD, UNITED KINGDOM Report for Kolkata 4.0 Report on findings | 1 Report for Kolkata 4.0 Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................3 1 Setting the scene: Building ecosystems ..................................5 2 The view from the ground .........................................................13 3 Creating an innovation ecosystem ..........................................24 4 Conclusion and recommendations .........................................30 Appendix 1 Interviews conducted ..................................................32 Appendix 2 Disclaimer .....................................................................33 Report on findings | 2 Report for Kolkata 4.0 Executive Summary Kolkata, long known as the city of joy and the cultural capital of India, was once not only a flourishing economy but the country’s industrial engine. Its pre-eminence both nationally and internationally has faded over time, but it sits on a historic opportunity to reinvent itself and grow. The Kolkata 4.0 Foundation is a not-for-profit initiative with a vision to create a networking platform for positive thinking on Kolkata, geared towards knowledge exchange, and connecting people and ideas. “So in the streets of Calcutta I sometimes imagine myself a foreigner, and only then do I discover how much is to be seen, which is lost so long as its full value in attention is not paid. It is the hunger to really see which drives people to travel to strange places. - Rabindranath Tagore, My Reminiscences” It aims to provide a platform for professionals living outside Kolkata but having an active interest to contribute to the future of the city and its knowledge and economic ecosystem throughout global studies, mentoring support, assistance in setting up ventures in Kolkata, global networking through regular roadshows, conferences and providing thought leadership to the government about how the city can move towards a sustainable global identity which utilises its core strengths. This report has been written by Pratik Dattani and his team at EPG on behalf of K4.0 to take stock of how Kolkata is changing and how it can develop into a future digital industry hub for India. It examines the existing ecosystem for technology and other start-ups and attempts to articulate the transformation that Kolkata would have to go through at a policy, business and cultural level to excel as a digital economy. The report outlines the experience of other countries in creating such ecosystems, investment from other countries into Kolkata, examines the ease of doing business in Kolkata compared to other regions in India, and appraises on-the-ground activities which could collectively develop to make Kolkata a more attractive place to do business for start-ups. Key findings K4.0 presents an opportunity to kick-start a conversation and create a platform where specific developments can take place for the betterment of Kolkata and its economic ties with the world. While this report finds there are undoubtedly issues to address in Kolkata – including some common with other Indian cities and some perceptual – it strikes a tone of realistic optimism. This report presents a leapfrog in strategy for Kolkata in order to usher in the next phase of economic prosperity for the city. This requires the development of an innovation ecosystem in Kolkata that is as broad as it is inclusive. Technology is an enabler of such progress but doesn’t grow in isolation, so the focus must also be on fostering some non-tech sectors where Kolkata offers a comparative advantage. These can become growth catalysts for opportunities in smart manufacturing, analytics, developments in Artificial Intelligence and related disciplines. Kolkata must also internationalise more, finding city partners around the world that share its outlook in economic development. Report on findings | 3 Report for Kolkata 4.0 This report issues six recommendations for developing an innovation ecosystem for Kolkata. First, the city must institutionalise the state government’s Startup Bengal initiatives. Currently, there is a lack of root-and-branch assistance for entrepreneurs to make this a reality. There must be a corpus created for promoting start-ups, for example where government procurement can allocate budgets for specifically buying from start-ups. In doing so, the government should act as a market- maker to promote the growth of the start-up economy. Kolkata must promote entrepreneurship development in its educational institutions on a large scale. In higher education, it must build a dedicated technology transfer capability such that good ideas can be successfully commercialised. Finally, we recommend that Kolkata must build its brand more effectively internationally to communicate its successes and reduce the perception gap that exists even amongst its diaspora. Acknowledgements Developing a successful innovation ecosystem requires an interplay between multiple actors, so we have gathered feedback from policy-makers, start-ups hubs, entrepreneurs and diaspora in the compilation of this report. Thank you to K4.0 team of Tridibesh Bandyopadhyay, Kalyan Kar, Sauvik Banerjjee, Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Supriyo Chaudhuri and Partha S Ghosh, and Simon Spier from techUK for their insights and ongoing support. Thank you also to those who have provided quotes for the report or additional comments. Their insights have contributed to the strength of the report. techUK represents the companies and technologies that are defining today the world that we will live in tomorrow. More than 950 companies are members of techUK. Collectively they employ approximately 700,000 people, about half of all tech sector jobs in the UK. These companies range from leading FTSE 100 companies to new innovative start-ups. The majority of techUK’s members are small and medium-sized businesses. Founded in 1925, Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), is the leading and only National Chamber of Commerce operating from Kolkata, and one of the most pro-active and forward-looking Chambers in the country today. Its membership spans some of the most prominent and major industrial groups in India. ICC is the founder member of FICCI, the apex body of business and industry in India. ICC’s forte is its ability to anticipate the needs of the future, respond to challenges, and prepare the stakeholders in the economy to benefit from these changes and opportunities. Set up by a group of pioneering industrialists led by Mr GD Birla, the Indian Chamber of Commerce was closely associated with the Indian Freedom Movement, as the first organised voice of indigenous Indian Industry. Several of the distinguished industry leaders in India, such as Mr B M Birla, Sir Ardeshir Dalal, Sir Badridas Goenka, Mr S P Jain, Lala Karam Chand Thapar, Mr Russi Mody, Mr Ashok Jain, Mr.Sanjiv Goenka, have led the ICC as its President. Report on findings | 4 Report for Kolkata 4.0 1 Setting the scene: Building ecosystems The Kolkata we know Kolkata, the heart of West Bengal, has always been a great patron of art and culture, of sports and learning, of intellectual thought and political debate. What looks ramshackle in other Indian cities seems positively vintage in Kolkata. In art and culture, Kolkata is peerless – contemporary musicians Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik and Babul Supriyo, classic Bollywood lyricists Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey and Rahul Dev Burman, and one of the greatest directors in film history, Satyajit Ray, who won the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992. The city counts among its alumni the Nobel laureates Rabindranath Tagore (Literature), CV Raman (Physics), Mother Teresa (Peace), Amartya Sen (Economics) as well as Sir Ronald Ross from the turn of the last century (Medicine). The UK’s richest person, Lakshmi Mittal, is from Kolkata, as are other noted Indian industrialists. “[I]f you want a city with soul: come to Calcutta” - Vir Sanghvi, On Calcutta But since the Suez Canal was built in 1869, trade with the west coast of India grew, Kolkata lost its status as the British Raj’s capital city in 1911, and as the country’s industrial engine sometime in the 1960s. In three decades of governance, Kolkata retained its charm, but it benefitted only marginally from the pork-barrel politics of India and its economic power diminished relative to other cities. The coming decades of Kolkata’s growth as a city will likely be about new industries, of innovation and reinvention. Creating an innovation ecosystem which supports this takes time. It grows as much through trial-and-error, as it does through purposeful policy and organic development. Creating an innovation ecosystem There are some aspects of a successful ecosystem that are consistent across the world, such as an astute government policy framework and management, a naturally entrepreneurial culture, a drive to “play” with new technology, availability of talent, access to markets and finance at all stages of growth and strong and stable institutional support. We cover these in more detail later in the report. And yet there are plenty of areas where a hidden spark or an accidental winner has caused an ecosystem to mushroom. This is as true for global hubs like Silicon Valley, London or Berlin, as well as for Indian leaders such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi, which collectively account for 70% of start-ups across India.1 Whether it is serendipity or careful policy coordination, each innovation ecosystem develops its own organic set of characteristics. What became Silicon Valley did not come into being spontaneously, but through Stanford University leadership, availability of venture capital, university-led research and US Department of Defence financial support. The breadth of Boston’s 1 NASSCOM, Indian Start-up Ecosystem Maturing, p.9,2016. Report on findings | 5 Report for Kolkata 4.0 innovation can be attributed to the entrepreneurial support research universities in Greater Boston extended to student start- ups in the 1980s.