India needs greater collaboration between the country’s scientific and business communities, said Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani, citing the need for more “bridge builders” to transform the country into a deep tech superpower.
Ambani was speaking at an event on Saturday to honour Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar on the launch of his book titled, “More from Less for More: Innovation’s Holy Grail,” co-authored along with Shushil Borde, head, Reliance Innovation Leadership Center.
“We need much stronger integration of Indian business with Indian universities and research institutions. This is how India can become a deep tech superpower,” Ambani said.
The industrialist praised Mashelkar as “the best-known bridge between the scientific community and the business community” while stressing that “India needs more bridge builders like him.”
Ambani outlined his vision for India’s technological future, stating: “India, where AI, quantum, synthetic biology, advanced materials, space technologies, healthcare solutions, and new agricultural practices are invented through the joint efforts of our scientists, enterprises with the right government policies and our young entrepreneurs always create “less for more.”
The Reliance chairman credited both Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar and Professor M.M. Sharma, from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai, for shaping the company’s transformation into a science and technology-led organisation, noting that Reliance now employs over 100,000 technical professionals out of its 550,000-strong workforce.
Ambani shared a crucial lesson learned from Mashelkar: “Technology without compassion is just machine. Technology with compassion becomes a social movement.”
He elaborated: “The world is full of intelligent people. Now, the world also has entered a new era of artificial intelligence. And of course, we need AI. We must become world leaders in AI. But above all, we need empathy and compassion even more.”
“By combining intelligence with empathy, prosperity with purpose, India can present a new model of development to the rest of the world,” Ambani added.
Ambani highlighted Mashelkar’s philosophy of “Gandhian engineering” and the principle of extreme affordability, which he described as producing “more using the latest technology with less natural resources and financial resources to benefit more and more people.”
He cited the example of India’s Mars mission, recalling Mashelkar’s observation that “India sent a rocket to the Mars for less than the cost of a Hollywood movie. This is what Indian corporate should do with self-reliant efforts to offer products and services of the highest quality to improve lives of common Indians.”
Ambani revealed that the Reliance Innovation Council, established in 2000, was Mashelkar’s idea. “He was the first to really bring in the Reliance Innovation Council, where we brought in a lot of Nobel laureates, global thinkers, to really talk to our people in terms of saying, what does local innovation mean?” Ambani said.
He also credited Mashelkar for advising on Jio’s development and establishing a new energy council focused on solving India’s energy challenges. “I can say that with great confidence with the people and the work that we have done is that we are at the doorsteps of solving local energy, of not using solar only as a four-hour fuel,” Ambani stated.
The Reliance chairman expressed confidence that India’s clean energy solutions would have worldwide impact: “I will always be grateful to you to make sure that like you have laid the foundation and we will show the way as to how we can make green and clean energy available in abundance and affordable way with green fuels to not only India, but most of the world.”
