Sun Microsystems launches Innovation Portal at IIT Delhi SOM

The portal www.innovationcommons.org was launched today by Mr. Joe Hartley, VP of Global Education, Government, and Healthcare, Sun Microsystems and Prof S. S. Yadav, Head of Department, Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi in presence of other dignitaries which included Mr. Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director- MAIT, Dr Andrew Lynn, Professor, JNU and Mr Prabir Purkayastha, President, Knowledge Commons.The objective behind the launch of this Open Innovation Portal is to foster the development of participative innovation in society and to help transition the economy into an innovation economy. The Portal is an initiative by the Centre for Excellence in Egovernance, Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi, Sun Microsystems, Jawahar Lal Nehru University and Knowledge Commons.

Mr. Krishnakant Mane, a visually challenged computer scientist entered the first idea into the portal today.

Speaking at the inauguration, Mr. Joe Hartley, VP of Global Education, Government, and Healthcare, Sun Microsystems said, Sun knows that communities drive innovation. The Innovation Portal therefore allows for collaboration between members of a society to foster innovation. This is in line with Suns vision of the Participation Age where Sun believes the world has entered a new era where dramatically lowered barriers to entry, plummeting device prices, and near-universal connectivity are driving a new round of network participation.

The Open Innovation Portal will allow innovators from the scientific community, student community and from all walks of life to publish their innovations with no IPR encumbrances, for the whole world to benefit. It will also help others to add to an Open Innovation that has been published online, thus enabling the process of participative innovation.

The Centre for Excellence in E-governance is an outcome of the MoU signed by Sun Microsystems and IIT Delhi in September 2006. One of the primary objectives behind setting up this Centre of E-Governance is to promote technology usage in the society. This is possible only if new ideas are fostered, and allowed to incubate. This once again is tied to the setting up of the Innovation Portal.