KOCHI: The government should make more investments in the advanced technology sector, S Somanath, former chairman of ISRO, has said.
He was speaking at the event, Management Leadership Award, organised by the Kerala Management Association, in Kochi on Tuesday.
Somanath said that the collaboration between industrial and academic ecosystems is weak in India and the gap has to be bridged. “One value addition that has to happen is the collaboration that is required between the manufacturing ecosystem and the academia. It is important for an aspiring economy like India to grow. This connection between the industrial ecosystem and the academic ecosystem is very weak in India. Unless the gap is bridged, future growth in business will not happen,” he said, emphasising that advanced manufacturing capability is still limited and it has to be overcome.
At the event, he presented the Management Leadership Award for 2025 to Dr N Jehangir, chairman and managing director of NeST Group of Companies.
Appreciating the changes that have happened in space and other higher technology sectors in India, he said that more companies have been coming up in space and other high-technology domains. “Today we have around 215 start-ups in space sector in India. More companies are working on rocket building – small now, but over a period, they will become rocket manufacturers. There are few satellites in India. This is a change that is happening. In such areas, we see the emergence of new entrepreneurs, especially in the space domain,” he added.