NE BUSINESS BUREAU
UVARSAD, OCT 18
Taking forward its commitment to catalyze, drive and accelerate India’s shift towards Atmanirbhar Bharat through the power of design, Karnavati University based in Uvarsad, Gandhinagar hosted the ‘Semicon India: Future Design conference’ on Monday at the varsity campus.
At the SemiconIndia Future Design held at Karnavati University, a chipset developed by Accord Software & Systems for NavIC receiver was unveiled,
is tested & is now ready to be deployed in the Indian commercial market.@Rajeev_GoI #IndiaTechade #DigitalIndia #GujaratTechade pic.twitter.com/PIXbKHIaIv— Karnavati University (KU) (@karnavati_uni) October 17, 2022
Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship remained present at the chief guest of the occasion. Karnavati University is a state private university located in Uvarsad, Gandhinagar, and is dedicated to excellence in teaching and is focussed on interdisciplinary learning.
- Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, graces SemiconIndia as Chief Guest
- SAC-ISRO Director, Nilesh Desai, unveils chip for NavIC Receiver
- HNIs, Local funds announced Rs 1,500 crore of investment into startups in Gujarat over next five years
The honourable minister held the first-ever roadshow of Semicon India: Future Design programme of the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) in Gujarat on Monday.
India has the world’s fastest-growing start-up ecosystem and the country’s consumption of semiconductors is expected to cross $110 billion by 2030. This highlights the urgent need for attaining self-reliance in semiconductor design, development, and manufacturing. The conference hosted by Karnavati University is organised in line with Government of India’s initiative of Catalyzing the Next Generation Semiconductor Design Startups under the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) and as part of the Digital India Mission.
Karnavati University is honoured to have hosted Shri @Rajeev_GoI ji for SemiconIndia Future Design.
This stands as an initiative to propel the booming start-ups and build the India of our vision. 🔥#RCinGujarat #IndiaTechade #DigitalIndia#NewIndia4YoungIndia#GujaratTechade pic.twitter.com/hgMpSSHK2W
— Karnavati University (KU) (@karnavati_uni) October 17, 2022
Delivering the keynote address, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said, “India always had the talent in the semiconductor phase. Through this programme, we want to come up with startups in this area. The time to design semiconductors and come up with startups in this sector is now. With the government’s Semicon India: Future Design programme, foreign and Indian tech majors in addition to institutions such as ISRO and DRDO are ready to partner with startups here. In 2021-22, Indian semiconductor market was US $74.7 billion, and we aim to reach US $300 billion by 2025-26.”
“Today India has an enabling government which is making significant investments for the future of India. For the first time, tax collection is rising 25-30% year on year. For the first time, Rs 7.5 lakh crore is spent by the Union government to modernize infrastructure. Countries to our northwest have been shown the power of our modernised armed forces and tech and systems in India. Today, India has at least a 100 unicorns,” he further went on to say.
The honourable minister also emphasised on how the Indian economy has fared far better as compared to others since Covid-19.
“Today I can assure you that we live in a new India. Soon after Covid-19 in the first quarter of 2020-21, the Indian economy contracted by 24.4% due to global disruption. However, India has emerged to be the fastest growing economy and the fastest growing startup ecosystem in the world. It is also the highest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world. Against this, the US is moving towards inflation at the backdrop of decades-high inflation. China – an economy which was one of the rising superpowers globally – is into its fifth and sixth lockdown while its economy is on a free-fall. Even the UK currency has plummeted as it stares at an economic mess with a 20% rise in inflation,” Chandrashekhar said.
Nilesh Desai, director, Space Application Centre (SAC)-ISRO along with Jaya Jagdish, country head, AMD along with Ashish Lachhwani, founder, Steradian Semiconductor, Neel Gala, chief technology officer, InCore Semiconductors; Rituparna Mandal, general manager, MediaTek; Venkata Simhadri, CEO, Moschip; Sompal Chaudhary, partner, Bharat Innovation Fund; Chitra Hariharan, engineer strategy head, HPG, Intel Corporation and Narayan Rao, vice president – business development, Accord Software and Systems are among the industry stalwarts who will remain present at the conference.
Speaking on the occasion, Ritesh Hada, president, Karnavati University, said, “Karnavati University has always remained at the forefront of supporting and promoting innovations through design. Launching the state’s second dedicated defence incubator, organising successful editions of India Design Week 2022 on topical themes are among the slew of design initiatives taken up by the university to support and encourage innovations and bridge the industry-academia gap. Hosting the Semicon India: Future Design Conference indeed came as the next logical step for us.”
“The glaring semiconductor shortage that has plagued the world has underlined the need for boosting domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips and developing an ecosystem around it. Karnavati University will catalyze and drive design-led innovations and support startups in this area and drive the growth India is poised to achieve for attaining self-reliance and technology leadership in the semiconductor design sector,” Hada further went on to say.
As part of the conference, Nilesh Desai, director, SAC-ISRO unveiled the Chip by ISRO for the NavIC Receiver, which has been developed by Accord Software and Systems. Narayan Rao, vice president – business development, Accord Software and Systems spoke at the event. Accord Software and Systems has designed and developed the GPS+ NavIC Receiver chipset for SAC-ISRO. “Accord will be enabled to sell some 3.5 lakh GPS+ NavIC Receiver chipsets. The company also plans to undertake mass production of the chipsets,” Mr Rao said.
Neel Gala, CTO and co-founder, InCore, a startup registered in 2018 which developed India’s first RISC-V processor, also enlightened students about Incore’s journey.
In a first of its kind initiative and a major boost to startups, a group of entrepreneurs and high networth individuals (HNIs) will invest Rs 1,500 crore over the next five years into startups here. The announcement was made as part of the programme.
Hiranmay Mahanta, CEO, iHub – a Government of Gujarat entity, said, “Gujarat is on its way to become a hub of startups. Over the past seven years from 2015 to 2022, the government itself extended Rs 700 crore of grants to startups across the state. Such an initiative of local businessmen committing investments into startups will go a long way in catalysing the startup ecosystem here.”
Some of the funds which will invest into startups include Milapsinh Jadeja of Openbook VC who committed Rs 150 crore; Umesh Uttamchandani, partner, DevX Fund (Rs 200 crore); Shival Desai (Rs 200 crore); Govindbhai Dholakia (Rs 200 crore); Jeet Marwadi (Rs 200 crore); Kedar Dave, founder, Shuru-up (Rs 50 crore); Sanket Shah, founder, Ethics Ventures (100 startups) and CA Mayank Desai (Rs 100 crore), among others.
In addition to key investments in the semiconductor sector, industry stalwarts have also emphasised upon developing an entire ecosystem around semiconductor design and manufacturing, with academic and research institutions in addition to startups. The conference is aimed at encouraging design innovators to fully leverage the government of India’s Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme, which aims to offer to domestic companies, startups and MSMEs the financial incentives as well as design infrastructure support for semiconductor design.