India announces a national innovation fund for early stage capital

News alert

The National Innovation Council has recently addressed 2 major issues in the Indian innovation ecosystem

1. Within the next 2-3 months a national innovation fund will be set up to provide early stage seed capital for ventures in areas such as health and education. The fund will reportedly have Rs. 1'000 crore (or around $220 mio) to invest.
2. The Union Budget for 2011-2012 will cover the creation of a new knowledge network - an optical fiber network that will connect 1500 institutes across India

These are great initiatives, given that they address 2 major hurdles in getting great ideas to market: funding and finding/connecting to potential technology partners.

As always the devil will be in the details. Will the fund have the resources to disburse such a huge sum in hundreds of tiny investments, perhaps evaluating thousands before they find the right ones? Will an infrastructure network be enough to increase collaboration and knowledge sharing between dispersed and competing institutes? We'll see. For now, good things are happening.