Under this DST supported initiative, the Institute documented the travails and triumphs of S&T driven entrepreneurs for wider dissemination among youth in various engineering, technology and management institutions, besides R&D laboratories.

This documentation highlights some of the finest innovations done by Indian science and technology entrepreneurs. It showcases how they undertook all this despite many constraints and against all odds. These stories highlight a culture of innovation and spirit of creating things that has changed India; and has potential to change the world. The stories included in this book would motivate the coming generations of students in general, and technology students in specific, to consider entrepreneurship as a career. It would act as a great motivation tool.

The young readers can visualize the process of entrepreneurship. The readers would be able to understand the rhythms of startups: identifying a need, recognizing an opportunity, creating a vision for the enterprise, developing a plan for launching the enterprise, building a support network, taking actions, mitigating risk, adapting to challenges, evaluating progress, making adjustments, and repeating this process.

In addition, to fill the gap of paucity of information and to measure the level of entrepreneurial activities by geographies, products, etc. an integrated online database has also been developed. This initiative will help promote insights into the trends in S&T enterprise creation in the country.

In the present context when Government of India is determined to promote “Make in India” as a strategy for economic development of the country, manufacturing sector have to shoulder a major responsibility in making the strategy successful by enhancing their manufacturing capabilities. This can be achieved by developing and implementing advanced manufacturing technologies. Globally the manufacturing industry is undergoing substantial changes and witnessing new performance parameters such as mass customization, ability to personalize their products and deliver better quality at lower price. In addition to the above, globalization and technological innovations have not only lowered the product life cycles across various categories but has also raised the customer expectations significantly. Therefore, for manufacturing industries to survive and remain competitive in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, require to adopt new manufacturing strategies.

Adopting ‘Advanced Manufacturing Technologies’ (AMT’s) has been recommended as a promising solution for manufacturing sector to remain competitive in the current environment (Beatty, 1992; Thomas, Barton & John, 2008). If implemented effectively AMT’s may help these firms to become flexible and responsive to the innovation challenges in this globally competitive world (Boyer et al., 1997). AMT has emerged as a major manufacturing strategy globally as it can help the industry not only to lower their costs but can also help them to significantly improve the quality of output and ensure that customer requirements of timely delivery and customization needs are effectively met (Narain, Yadav & Antony, 2004; Zammuto & O’Connor, 1992). Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India under the Technology Systems Development Programme (TSDP) has a mandate to promote application of advanced technology for improving the performance, value addition and exportability of various products produced by Indian manufacturers.

‘Make in India’ is not only a welcome move for the Multinational Corporations (MNCs) to invest into setting up their manufacturing facilities in India but also aims to encourage the Indian manufacturing companies to enhance their manufacturing capabilities, thereby improving their global competitiveness. Indian manufacturing industry is undergoing major changes. Pressures from mass customization, globalization, and overseas sourcing on one hand and on the other side ensuring quality, cost and delivery targets continue to be the major hurdles that a company must address to remain competitive in the current context.

Objectives of the Study

This study aims to capture data relating to identifying the current technological platform of the manufacturing sector in India as well as defining their aspirations towards developing their operations, infrastructure, technical skills etc. The study intends to measure the attitude of industry towards technology and implementing AMT. The study also intends to measure the attitude of Indian Manufacturers towards business development through implementation of AMTs. The detailed objectives are as follows:

• To identify what extent have AMTs been used currently by manufacturing units in India?
• To identify, are there any sequences or patterns of using AMTs?
• To measure the intention of manufacturing sectors to implement AMT within the next three years?
• To identify what will be the main configuration of manufacturing systems in the near future?
• To understand how manufacturing sector perceive and measure the payoffs of AMT?
• To understand if there is any relation between the AMT and performance improvement?
• To understand, how and in what way management style, structure and approach needs to be changed in order to facilitate and leverage AMT?
• To measure how effective were the new manufacturing operations using AMT?
• To understand the nature and type of problems faced by industry after adopting AMT.
• To understand how and in what way had the business principles, organizational rule and practices were modified post implementation of AMT?
• To measure the effectiveness of new business systems employed.

Introduction

Start-ups or new businesses are considered by policymakers and policy studies as a measure of overall entrepreneurial activity and potential within economies (Department of Trade and Industry, 2001). Initiatives and programmes to stimulate higher levels of business formation have generated an extensive array of organisations providing funding, services and assistance to starters of new businesses via a broad portfolio of subsidised and state-supported initiatives and institutions, albeit with noticeable variation by location (Austrian Institute for Small Business Research, 2002).

Deliberate efforts to promote research lab/institutions/university linked start-ups can be seen as the most important and recent in a series of institutions through which universities and colleges still comes primarily from providing trained students who offer knowledge and capabilities and through on going streams of papers, reports, conferences and presentations. Their impact ranges from sustaining the existence to a civil society and human understanding. More focussed programs have included licensing these inventions and the creation of research consortia and science parks. In past few decades, universities have also created policies to permit and promote creation of university start-ups (Miner et al, 2012).

India is a big country with so many problems; these problems can be solved either by innovative solutions through technological uses or cultural solutions. India cannot build its true strength in the technology sector without servicing its own domestic needs. By taking the challenges and building the community of entrepreneurs, the country can boost its efficiency and competitiveness globally (Todd & Javalgi, 2007).

There are number of patents being registered with the government every week with diverse technologies, Indian universities/institutions/research labs have come up with notable viable patents, the main need is conversion of these patents to viable business plans (Source: http://www.ipindia.nic.in/).

The study led to:

• identification of available technologies available in the research institutions;
• creation of prototype;
• development of model for commercialization;
• process for licensing and technology transfer;
• conversion into viable business plan.

A major dimension of women in India, which largely affects their professional career, is their social responsibilities. In India, women carry out a lot of social responsibilities. A majority of the women quit their jobs to raise children, look after their elderly parents, and meet other personal demands. Though 91% of these women want to return to work within a year, only a few are able to secure full-time jobs again. Their opportunities get limited, and it is a huge waste of talent and investment in education and training of women, if they are not pursuing careers; especially when only 5% of these women are able to make it to top level. As per NASSCOM 2015 report, the number of women initiating their startups is also not very impressive.

Realizing the criticality of the issue, some of the initiatives have been taken by the community. For example P. Inc – Women Power@Work, an initiative supported by ‘The Times of India’ aims at bringing women who have taken a break from work, back into the workforce. The initiative, through seminars, training workshops and access to employers provide career resources and a service support system to mid-career professional women enabling them to overcome challenges and return to working life. Similarly, SHEROES assist women professionals across levels, stages and sectors to pro-actively access the largest Opportunity Scope for women. Another community network working in this area is Reboot. It is a network of and for women professionals. It is a platform for women professionals and Corporate India, to come together. Some other community initiatives in this regard are – First Mom’s Club Rebooted, Vapasi – a programme by Thoughtworks and Womens Web.

Corporate India has also taken a call on this front and several national and multinational companies have introduced various schemes to bring women back to work force.

The objective of this study is to identify gaps in bringing technically qualified women, who have taken a career break and wish to re-enter the workforce, back into the mainstream technopreneurial activity, by suggesting a comprehensive policy framework.

The study helped achieve the following objectives:

• To understand the professional challenges faced by women with technical background, who have taken a career break, to re-enter the workforce.
• To get a global overview of the strategies adopted by other countries to bring back such women to the mainstream economic activities.
• To assess the possibility of orienting such women to become technopreneurs by finding out their entrepreneurial intentions.
• To find out specific barriers faced by such women in becoming technopreneurs and comprehensively study them to bring about a clear picture.
• Based on the study, suggest a policy framework for promoting technopreneurship among women with technical back ground, who have taken a career break and wish to re-enter the workforce.