FICCI and ThinkThrough Consulting Bangladesh have announced partnership to jointly promote and commercialize grassroot technologies developed in India and Bangladesh.

The announcement was made on the side-lines of the visit of Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh, as as part of the RuTAG Technology Commercialisation Programme which is led by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and implemented by FICCI.

A bouquet of 49 technologies under the RuTAG (Rural Technology Action Group) programme will be offered to industry, social start-ups and NGOs in Bangladesh. These technologies have been developed at RuTAG centres housed across seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in India and focus on problems associated with marginal communities in rural areas. RuTAG innovations such as floating fish cages for inland aquaculture, powerless solar dryer for food processing, cold storage powered by pico hydro among others respond to real life problems faced by rural populations.

Tech spectrum

The technologies cover a spectrum of areas including environment, agriculture and farming, textiles, manufacturing, food processing and aquaculture among others. Besides technology transfer, capacity building support and virtual training sessions will also be provided to Bangladesh entrepreneurs to seamlessly absorb the Indian technologies.

Prof K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India stated, “Science and Technology collaboration between India and Bangladesh is towards social and economic development in the region. Both nations can gain immensely through knowledge exchange and technology partnerships. The RuTAG program provides a wide range of grass root innovations that have the ability to create rural livelihood opportunities in Bangladesh.”

Dr Ketaki Bapat, Senior Scientist and Co-ordinator RuTAG program, at the Office of the PSA said, “The RuTAG technologies have been developed at the finest institutions in India. We wish to share these technologies with social entrepreneurs in Bangladesh assuring complete handholding support and leveraging digital technologies for successfully adopting these technologies.”

Mr Sanjay Nayak, Chair, FICCI S&T Committee and MD, Tejas Networks reiterated, “Through the RuTAG Program, FICCI remains committed to scale Indian innovations in BIMSTEC countries with a special focus on Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been a long-standing development partner of India and there is tremendous potential for our nations on collaborating on the technology front.”

Speaking on the partnership, Mr Parul Soni, Global Managing Partner, Think through Consulting stated, “We are delighted to partner with the RuTAG Technology Commercialisation Programme. Technological innovations can help rural communities in the world by increasing their income and their yields. While these reduce their risks arising on account of climate change and other natural disasters, these increase their opportunities too.”