India well poised to feed into data science for jobs: Biocon Chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

NEW DELHI: India is the world’s fourth largest source of data scientists and is well poised to feed into the “hottest” area for job creation — data science, Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said.

Speaking at The Economic Times’ India Leadership Council (ILC) roundtable on ‘Creating an Incisive Intellectual Property (IP) for Value Creation’ recently, Mazumdar-Shaw pointed out that in India, Bengaluru had the largest number of data scientists and said: “Though there are umpteen number of jobs, we are doing it in a very ad hoc way.” The discussion among industry leaders centred on the theme: ‘Oil is no longer the fuel, IP is the new fuel.’

Led by Mazumdar-Shaw, also an ILC advisory board member, notable members involved in the discussions included Dev Robinson, partner – national practice head-IP, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co; Madhav Sharan, senior leader, Korn Ferry International; Mukesh Malhotra, country manager, Solvay; Jairam Panch, managing director, Turner Project Management; Shekar Viswanathan, vice-chairman, Toyota Kirloskar; Deb Deep Sengupta, managing director, SAP; Vikas Jain, joint managing director, PMV Maltings; Sumanta Dutta, managing director, Logitech; and Bharat D Singh Kanwar, managing director, GKN Driveline.


Robinson said while hard IPs — patents, trademarks and copyrights — are easier to protect, it was important for fellow ILC members to protect their soft IPs, such as appreciating the rank-andfile for developing something, even if they didn’t intend to do so, such as processes which are of great value to any organisation. “…we can’t be living in a paradigm where we are discounting human capital. Intellectual property is human capital,” said Robinson.

During the discussion, Mazumdar-Shaw pointed out how startup founders in India, who are data scientists, functioned very differently from their counterparts in the US.

In India, a startup founder, who is a data scientist, acted as a “one-man show”, while in the US, they would hire a CEO to raise capital and a business development partner. And if the founder happens to be a scientist, he would take on the role of the chief science officer (CSO), not the CEO, she said.

“In this way, the CSO can focus on next-level innovations, which in turn guarantees the next level of funding,” said Mazumdar-Shaw.