Take one man on a relentless search at a strange and beautiful woman and the answer in the shifting sands of the desert. That's our story, The Mission, taken from the files of John Steele at Benjerer. Hello friends, this is John Steele. We're back this week to bring you another story of action and excitement. So sit back, relax if you can, and listen. Because this is an unusual tale of far-off places. As I've said before, these stories are not mine, but those of friends and people I've met on my travels. Our story this week happened to Mickey Banyon, whom I came to know while I was working overseas for the State Department. I've asked Mickey to come over and tell the tale himself, so here he is. Mickey? Excitement. Brother, that's something I've been living on all my life. Things were never going to settle down for this baby. And that's why when I got in the Army, I signed up for the OSS, Office of Strategic Service to the High Brows, Action and Excitement to the guys who were in it. After the war was over, I stayed on with the State Department as a special agent, and I had several assignments, mostly routine stuff, and life was getting kind of dull. I just about made up my mind to move on to something else when I was ordered to Ankara. Ankara during the war, a hot bed of political intrigue where enemy agents rubbed shoulders in the menica phase and where the dirtiest, most unscrupulous politics in the world were played. This assignment I liked. My orders read to report to Steele the consulate, so I checked into the reasonable hotel, cleaned up and beat it over to Steele's office. Hello, Banyon. Hi. I expected you two days ago. Well, I got held up in Paris. Your papers out of order? Call it whatever you like. All. Okay, how many times does a guy get to Paris? Washington said you were the best they had. You must remember to send him an orchid. There won't be any time for that kind of stuff from now on. This is a business with me, Steele. When it's time to play, I do it. When it's work to be done, I'm pretty good at that, too. We'll see. Well, what's it all about? Remember an agent by the name of Lockridge? Huh? He was sent out on this assignment three months ago. When did he last check back? He didn't.  Something like that. Okay. Come over here and take a look at this map. Tim. The area shown here is most familiarly called the Near East. Amazing. And since the war, this entire area has been in political ferment. Go on. Many of these countries have resorted to free elections to determine their political future. Huh? There are a group of powers that are most interested in seeing these elections go in any direction other than democratic. And they shall remain nameless. It goes without saying that we are just as interested in any political future other than totalitarianism. Obviously. So far, we batted about 500. That's not good enough. Not one compared to the political character of this area before the war. I see. Well, that's the background. Here's the specific problem. My job. That's right. An election will be held in this area here within the next three weeks. It is vitally important that it go democratic. Well, what does it look like? Ordinarily, it would look very good. This past history has been democratic. It's the popular choice. Well, then what's the problem? In these small countries, government structure is often weak, being largely an Arab population. Power has been seized by a strong few. Go on.  They're actually feudal lords. Even today? Yes. The strongest of these lords is Rashid Sayed. Rashid Sayed. He controls approximately 20,000 votes in the coming election. That's more than Gallup gave Truman. Just recently, all Rashid has shown signs of fabulous wealth, such as he never had before. And we believe the powers unfriendly to the democracies are buying off those 20,000 votes. Any idea how? Certainly not in cash. Rashid is a sly, wily trader. We believe there's some connection between the sudden wealth of Sayed and the increased supply of hashis in Egypt and Palestine. I mean, is that much money and drugs? These can be bought for $20 a pound here and sold for $200 a pound in Egypt. How's a thousand percent profit sound to you? I could manage to exist. Well, that's it. If we discover that Rashid makes his money in narcotics, we can remove him before the election. That's all that's necessary. Without his direction, the election will be honest. That's all, huh? Well, except to point out that, obviously, there are others who would prefer that Rashid be left alone. They may feel rather strongly on the subject. Yes, I can understand. This is not international politics as the folks back home know it. We throw the book away in this game. When you're being dealt that way, you deal back the same way, only a little faster or you don't survive. This is buy and sell, compromise here and win a hand there and try to outthink it and outsmart the others to get out of the game. This is the hard, cold, practical side of this business. Well, when do I leave? Tonight. I just got here. You've got three weeks. I ought to be back in two and have the most beautiful blonde and anchor awaiting. I never worked more than two weeks without play. Good luck. Well, you've got to find a blonde in Turkey. I bought steel story with a grain of salt. That kind of cops and robbers stuff was all right during the war, but the war was over. Well, two days after my talk with steel, I was in jail back. My papers said I was the foreign representative for an American import-export firm, so I had no trouble getting a room at the only hotel in town. The first night, I headed straight for the only bar. I learned a long time ago that more often than not, the local bar is the town's city hall. Good evening, FND. A table, yes. Yeah, I'll take a table. Follow please. Okay. Here, please. No, I like that one by the wall. Yes, FND. Ah, that's better. Eat, yes. Yeah, yeah. What do you got? FND. Oh, look, I don't care. Just bring me the best. Best. Yes. Oh, and waiter. Yes, FND. Bring me a drink. Drink? No, drink and a glass drink. Drink? My whiskey. Yeah. Yes. Hassan is the best he can. What? Hassan. Your waiter. Oh. You are the American. Mm-hmm. News travels fast in jail back. Especially about strangers? Yes. You are staring, Mr. Banyan. Was I? A surprise perhaps to find a European in jail back. I guess so, especially one so beautiful. You're generous. I am honest. Whiskey, FND. Oh, yeah. One for the lady. Yes, Hassan. Wine, please. Ah. Well, now you know my name. I don't know yours. Everyone calls me Maria. Is that how it's listed in the phone book? Pardon? I said what's the last name? Maria will do. No, OK. Simone, Simone. Maria, Maria. Why not? Americans have a strange sense of humor. Well, we wear well. I've heard. Wine, FND. Oh, thanks, Hassan. OK, that's all beaded. He is waiting to be paid. No credit in jail back? There's no old Muslim proverb that says bad debts make bad friends. Yeah. All right. Here you are, Hassan. Thank you, FND. Well, here's to a very beautiful... Here you are, Maria. What? Looking all over for you. And now you've found me. So I have. Obviously enjoying yourself. No doubt I'm in trivia. Don't be foolish, Phillip. Captain Arnold, Mr. Banyan. How do you do? Hi. Mr. Banyan is an American. Obviously. Just arrived in jail back. Charming. Oh. Captain Arnold commands the Mobile Unit. Oh, I didn't know that there were British forces still on duty in these. No, that there were still Mobile Units activated. Huh? The Captain commands the Laundry Unit. Oh.  One doesn't just pick up... Sit down, Phillip, and stop explaining. Yes, of course. I, uh, sub bio please. I wasn't expecting you until Thursday. I see. Hey, care for a drink, Arnold? I wouldn't be here that long. Oh, just being neighborly. You're here on business, Mr. Banyan? Yeah. I, uh, thought perhaps you might be just passing through. No, no, no. My firm is interested in pouring tobacco. Oh. If we can get the right price. Are you feeling ill, Mr. Banyan? No, I'm okay. Oh, that guy named Rush had sighed. You are pale, Mr. Banyan. Name of Rush had sighed. I gotta see him. He's trying to stand up. Hey, I gotta get up. Have fun. I gotta get up. Oh. Oh. Broom spun around me, dizzling, and the floor drifted slowly up and hit me in the face. The oldest gag in the book, a dope drink. The next thing I knew, a pinpoint of light shot through the darkness and grew and grew until a white glare burned my eyes. I tried to force them open, but my head trod with the pain, so I rose slowly over on my stomach and the light disappeared. Get up, Mr. Banyan. Huh?  You will feel much better. Oh, no. Help our guest up, Hasan. Oh, let go, let go. I can get... Oh, hospitality, my friend. Oh, leave me alone, as you wish. I can get up alone. Where am I? It is not important. You sighed. Let me first apologize for my two enthusiastic supporters. Yeah. I asked only that you be brought to me.  The manner in which it was accomplished was entirely their own idea. It lacked the finesse of a craftsman. Well, that makes my head feel a lot better. Now, you are recovered now. Well, I can think anyway. That is good. Oh, this is quite a layout. It is enough. A cigarette? Yeah. One of my own, you know. Oh, Hasan the waiter here is one of your men, huh? His entire family are trusted followers. Here, Hasan. Here, sir, Fendi. Okay, sir, what's on your mind? You are to the point, Mr. Banyan. You didn't bring me here to swap smokes. Pardon? Oh, nothing. We have been expecting you for several weeks, my friend. Oh. Ever since the young Mr. Lockridge had his unfortunate accident. I don't know what you took. No one could explain how he got separated from the rest of the hunting party. We searched for days, but you know the desert. So? This is an unfortunate situation. And so unnecessary. Go on. It requires all our ingenuity to protect our guests from harm. Yes, I'll bet.  Yeah. And I'm a man of considerable wealth. I don't get you. Hasan. Oh! Perhaps that will clarify that. Yeah, it does. You can see how concerned I am for your health, my friend. So that's the score. Pardon? You want to buy me off? Let us say that I wish to ensure your safe return. No dice. Hasan. Oh! This could be centered so peacefully. No. I am a very patient man, Mr. Banyan. You can perhaps we can persuade you to change your mind. Never in a million years. Help our guests. Oh, let go of me. It is unfortunate. We didn't figure this out alone, sir. You're taxing my patience, my friend. Because you're peanuts in this game. Mr. Banyan. No, there's an organization behind all this. I have warned your brain. You were just, Hasan. No! Front man! Jupiter's the rest. Take him, Hasan.  The car wounding in around the small streets, and I could see the roofs of houses sliding by the top of the door. At last, we stopped, and Hasan carried me into a hut. Tossed me down on what seemed to be a couch and shuffled off into the darkness. Back in a few minutes with a candle in an old chip basin full of water. Well, I still effendi. Give me a drink first. Yes, effendi. Hasan, help me. Let me throw something in water in my face. Hasan, sorry, hit effendi. I think maybe you are. Hasan, help. You don't like the boss, huh? Boss? Syed. Russian Syed, not good man. If you can say that again. Nothing. What do you mean, help? Hasan, help, effendi.  No, that's not good. No good? No, Hasan. Why do you want to help me? Hasan, good Muslim. Russian Syed, not good Muslim. Russian Syed, drink whiskey, kill. Hasan, brother, not kill. Hasan, not kill. Hasan's brother? How many brothers? No more brother. Where is he? Mahmood, help, effendi. What do you mean, effendi? Americani. You mean your brother Mahmood helped the other American? Yes. You mean Lockridge? Yes. Where is Lockridge? Dead. Or is Mahmood? Dead. What happened? Russian Syed is king. He say Mahmood, not good man. He put Mahmood and Effendi in sand up, up. You mean up to their necks? Yes, neck. Look, Hasan, Russian Syed had your brother killed. That's why you want to help me, right? Hasan, help Effendi go home. No, I can't go home yet. Understand? No. Look, I have a job to do. Job? Look, Hasan, you know what Hashish is? Hashish, good smoke. No, Hashish is bad. Bad? Not good. Russian Syed sends Hashish to Egypt. Understand? Egypt, yes. Syed, not good man. Russian Syed, drink whiskey, and kill. No, no, no, no, Syed, not good because he sent Hashish to Egypt. Now, Hasan, how Hashish go to Egypt? How? Yeah, how? By camel, by car, by train? Hasan, Russian Syed had your brother killed. Tell me how Hashish go to Egypt? In Khan. What do you mean in Khan? Follow. Please. Hasan motion to the door, and I followed him to the car. We drove out through the town to the desert, and after about a half an hour, Hasan pulled the car off the narrow road and hit it in the shadow of a dune. He motioned me to get out and follow, and we walked through the sand for another 20 minutes, keeping in the shadows as much as we could. Then Hasan stopped short of a big dune and put his finger to his lips. I began to remember Lockbridge, and I wondered whether this big guy was on the level. I kept watching him for any quick moves, but he got down on all fours and started creeping up the side of the dune. C-F-N-D. It was an army mobile laundry unit. Hasan put his finger to his lips again and started inching down the far side of the dune on his chest. We were almost into the shadow when we saw the sentry around the last truck. Hasan reached up yanking by the shoulder and pulled us both down in the darkness. The sentry stopped. Hold! Who goes there? Lie still, Effendi. Hasan, come back! No shoot, Hasan! No shoot! Hasan!  Follow, Effendi. In truck. Hasan, help!  C-F-N-D. In con. Gas can. There must be a hundred of them on this truck alone. You mean there's hushish in every one of these cans? Yes, Effendi, hushish. Of course, why didn't I think of that? I don't know, it's free entry into all these countries. Nobody would think to inspect his trucks. Listen, come on, Hasan. We've got to get out of here. Come on, we'll grab that jeep. As soon as we were out in the road, I checked the gas gauge and the needle read less than a quarter full. I knew it was going to be close if we made it to Damas. Hasan showed me a road that skirted Gelbeck. By dawn, we'd let Syed's town far behind. I had time to think. As far as I could see, there was only one thing to do. Road, not good. You can see this dust for miles, too. Effendi? Never mind. Captain Arnold will follow us, Hasan. Yes, Effendi. How many railroads are on Gelbeck? Effendi?  Train? Yeah. Damas? No more? No more. Well, I don't know, we're headed this way. This is going to be hard to make you understand. Hasan, understand. Look, I want the police to get rush at Syed. The police, see? Yes. Now, I can't do it alone. Alone? Yeah, by myself. Need Hasan. Yes, Hasan, help. I don't have enough time. Time? Yeah, ten days. Police got to have Syed in ten days. Quick. Yeah, quick, that's it. Thanks, big time. Yes, Effendi. Now, Hasan, come home with me. Yes. You're my only witness. That ought to be enough. Effendi? Um, Hasan, no, hashish in gas can. That puts Syed in jail. Rushed Syed in jail. Good. You understand now. Hasan, go home with Effendi. Hasan, no, go Hasan home. No, I guess you can't now. Look, we go to Damascus. Yes. Take train to Beirut. Train, yes. But we don't get on train in Damascus. Not Damascus. No, outside. We jump on when the train moves. Outside, yes. Big hill outside Damascus. Train, go, no, no, no, go quick. Ah, that's it, good. Ah, trees up ahead, eh? Yes. Must be getting near Damascus. Yes, Damascus. How far? Effendi. Oh, I'm sorry, Effendi. By foot. See, foot, walk. How long to Damascus? Walk, yes. Two sun up high. No. Huh? About four hours by foot. I'll be able to make it in a half an hour by the jeep. Oh, no. Come on, baby. Don't quit now. Come on, sweetheart. Run! Ah, not a gas. That's that. Effendi. Come on. We may as well start walking. We should have the outskirts of town by noon. Hasan told me the trains left for Beirut twice a day, and I decided to wait for the night express. We skirted the town, and we reached the hill to the west that would slow up the train and settle down on a grove of trees to wait for darkness. We took turns sleeping, and toward mid-afternoon Hasan slipped into town to get some food from a friend he said he could trust. When he got back, he told me that Rashid Said was in Damascus, and it scoured the town looking for us. About eight o'clock that evening, we heard the train pulling up the hill, so we waited at the edge of the grove to get even with us and then ran for it. I watched Hasan swing on board, then I grabbed a rung and pulled myself on. We worked a door open and started down the corridor. I glanced through the window of each compartment, looking for one that was empty. Then I found the one I wanted. Mind if we share your compartment? I beg your pardon. Don't play dumb, baby. Surprise, surprise. One on me, too. I don't know what you are. You helped slip me a Mickey once, remember? One meets so many. Banyan, baby. Mickey Banyan. Oh, yes. The American who became ill. Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on in, Hasan. Sit over there. That's better. Nice and cozy. You mind if I pull down the shades? It's a little more private. No, not at all. Ah, it's better. Didn't think I'd be seeing you again. It's not exactly unpleasant. No, no, no, it isn't. I think I'll sit right here next to you. You'll be even cozier. You do not mind. I think I'll... Sit down, baby. You and I are going to be traveling companions for a while. You know, it's too bad we didn't meet when I had more time. Gentlemen would make time. Yeah, I guess I don't qualify. You do. Thanks. One meets many little boys. Yeah. Very few. Many. You're not particular about the gentle part. That was unkind. Is there anything between a man and a woman that isn't? The right man and the right woman. Haven't met her. Are you sure? No. Sometimes we are too unwise and too busy to know. Yeah. Tell me, Nikki Bunny. Once said I was beautiful. You changed your mind. No, you'll do. Do you always try to go through ladies' pocketbooks when you kiss them? Most ladies carry lipstick in them. That depends upon the game they play. It doesn't polite to point guns. Perhaps you had better sit over by her side. Savannah wasn't a little facetist. It might have been an interesting trip. I don't get it. It's quite simple. Well, you tell me then. You hold all the yaces. I was sent here to do a job. You upset our plans. I've straightened them out. You mean you would? Yes. It's so strange that a woman should do a man's job. But in my country women work on an equal footing with men. Okay. And why this cat and mouse business? I'm a perfectionist. Well, it's nice to know that I'll die artistically. It won't be long. Always tell when you're approaching Beirut. Oh, so? The train in the tunnel will mettle the sharpness. The tunnel. Okay, switch. Down, Hassan. Down. All right, Hassan. Come on out this way. Yes, sir. Gotta get this door open now. All right. As soon as we get out of the tunnel, jump. Down. Jump, Hassan. Jump. We worked our way south all the next day, keeping off the roads and diving into haystacks every time anything moved. By late afternoon, we reached the rendezvous point and hit out in the tall grass of a high bluff overlooking the ocean. We took turns sleeping through the afternoon, waiting for darkness, and then about eight or nine o'clock, we made our way down the bluff to the beach. Take it easy, Hassan. Yes, sir. Vendee. It's not much farther. There. That does it. Now, look, Hassan. We gotta get some firewood. Wood? Yeah, wood for fire. See? Warm hands. Fire. Fire, yes. And a little pieces, see? Not big. Little. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, here's some. Yeah, here's some more. Oh, yeah, that's it. Hassan, over here. Yes. And that a boy, big fella. Now, down here now. OK, now. Match. Come on, sweetheart. Come on. Ah, cut. Good. OK. Now, my cook. Now, we signal, see? Boat. Pick us up. It's all arranged. Good. Hassan, see? Now, watch out there. I don't know why. Water, yes. We gotta signal again. Not yet. Now, again. All right. Hassan, do you hear something? Back on road. Yeah. It's a truck. No answer yet. Well, I gotta signal again. Come on. Will you see us? Look at us. There. There it is. All right. Now, look. We gotta stamp out this flyer. Come on, Hassan. We gotta swim for it. Come on, Wendy. Come on, Hassan.  Not good. Well, you hurt. Hassan hurt. Bad. All right. Now, carry it. Not good, Wendy. You can't leave. You're here. Go home, Wendy. Go home. Go home. What kind of a guy do you think I am? Hassan, no. No help. Hassan. Yeah, I'll go, big fella. Hey, I'm glad you got back, Daniel. Yeah.  He was one right guy. Step in the way of a bullet that would have got me. Yes. I'm sorry I mucked the hand, Mr. Steele. You can't win them all. I suppose that means we lose the election. I'm afraid so. Yeah. By the way, I had a cable from Washington. They want you on a job back home. Yeah. I thought that might be good news. Mr. Steele. Yes? I don't suppose you could pull any strings. I'd be able to. Why? What do you have in mind? I'd like to stick around for a while. Oh. Somebody once told me that bad debts make bad friends. Well, I got a few I want to settle. I'll see what I can do. Thanks. About that bond you asked for, I think that might be arranged too. No thanks. I got a date with a brunette. This is one I'm going to keep. The mission, the story of a man who found you can learn even from defeat. Come back next week, friends. I'll have a fellow who had an unusual adventure fighting every second and tracking down a misplaced time bomb. I like to call it surplus. This is John Steele saying, so long and good hunting. In our cast tonight were Connie Lemke, Ross Martin, and Charlie Hulls. John Steele was played by Don Douglas. The orchestra was conducted by Selvin Levin. Remember, next week Mutual presents surplus. Another story of suspense in action from the files of John Steele, adventurer. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.


Yeah friends as we all know that India is a very fast growth trajectory being the fourth largest economy in the purchasing power parity and there is a global market full towards India. We say seven eyes so India is a very happening place to be at this current moment. To be from the S&T department we have to have view on how India is fearing on various innovation related activities. If we just this is a recent report brought out by World Economic Forum we are very strong as far as our knowledge force S&T manpower goes. We rank fourth globally even the quality of S&T institutions is also fairly good. Funding on R&D which is close to 1% of the GDP this is a less as compared to global standards. Our capacity of innovation is also needs to be upgraded. University industry research collaborations as you are all coming from the academic background this also needs to be strengthened. Then the two areas grey areas I must say which needs boost up is the conversion of innovation into patents and the research commercialization.  These two areas the systems are to be devised which give impetus to innovation as well as entrepreneurship. These areas where we are focusing at the moment in the department. This is a broad overview of the Indian innovation system and in fact it is a network of both public and private funded institutions which starts from the initial stage of the innovation the survival phase and the growth phase. There are various formal as well as informal institutions involved in taking the innovation value chain forward. This is a complicated very difficult and most of the institutions you will find here what I am particularly looking is the steps TBI and which is a part of the DST wherein we promote incubators in most of the academic institutions of excellence. The innovation chain starts with the ideation and the next link is having proof of concept pilot plant stage, pre-commercialization price, validation then going in for formal commercial product process. Our mechanism falls in between the two links which is a proof of concept and pre-commercial price. Let me dwell upon what are the various features of Indian innovation system starting with the strengths. We have very good S&T infrastructure more than 400 R&D labs, 4000 engineering colleges, fast pool of S&T man pass, I am told about 3 labs. There is a turning of 3 labs students, engineering students every year and over a few years what we have seen is the lot of anorized come returning back to India who are very rich in the domain knowledge and have the right linkages, resources and networks. So, they are also actually becoming a role models in Indian academic mainly in technical institutions for entrepreneurial activities. Government has taken a very proactive stand in providing all the required support to nurture innovation as well as entrepreneurship and off late India has emerged as a hub for global R&D activities and there is a huge market for our technology related service and products as well. But there are some inherent weakness in our whole system, first is as we know we Indians are very traditionally our tourists taking abilities and fear of failures which is becoming a deterrent to entrepreneurial activities. We find there are research savvy academicians only in top rung institutes. If you talk about lower rung institutes in state level, they are only confined to take classes and then go back that is the only role which they are playing. And like contributing toward active research area then bringing it towards the market is not happening in most of the institutions. Barely very handful of institutions are very active in research, commercialization. Maybe there are some inherent problems which we will discuss later, but this is a major bottleneck in our Indian innovation system or obviously the linkages which are required between academics and industry are also not proper. There is a time lag between the research commercialization I think my friend from CSIR lab will appreciate that whatever pool of technologies they are having very few reach the marketplace and this is obvious in most of the areas. We need to sensitize people about the support avenues available from various sources. There is always lack of awareness about what kind of schemes, what kind of information which can be tapped for bringing the innovations to the market. Then we need to do a lot in creating awareness about the intellectual property. How to protect the innovation and how to manage the IPRs. This is also a very grey area in our whole system. Then we do not have right experts who can evaluate the, because all innovations cannot be converted into a commercialized product or service. We need a pool of people who can clearly and critically evaluate in terms of business potential of that particular innovation. Then in India we do not have an organized ecosystem which can take forward innovation through various stages and bring to the marketplace. So these are the various weaknesses where we have to strengthen so that being in the hub of economic activity, the opportunities are a multi-fold in India now. These are the sunrise sectors in biotech, wireless information, healthcare, textiles, components. We have a ability to create global companies and as I told because of our NRIs and there are some, even students in IMs are not, about 5-10% are not opting for campus placements. So there is a positive trend and shift towards taking entrepreneurship as a viable career option and even institutes have actually altered their placement policies. They are given free hand to work and on their ideas or the company for a while and suppose they do not succeed, they can come back for the campus placement. And this is, I think almost all the institutes should offer this policy so that they are given flexibility in actually testing their ideas. Actually, because of India being a global hub of R&D related activities, we are now having access to various technologies in multiple areas. The innovative financing mechanisms as my friend told, Sunita told about the Angel Network, VC, lot of VC funding, both from the public sector as well as the private investors are coming in a big way, but still this area also needs to be, people need to be exposed about this because VCs are having funds but they say they do not get right kind of ideas where they can invest and off-lit we have seen that India is moving beyond supplier of low cost services to higher value products. What are the challenges in our system, the biggest being the how can we transform the mindset of Indian academicians, our innovators and the society where they take entrepreneurship in a positive way. As you told about, Sunita was telling about the students experience, how the family is very apprehensive if someone embarks into the area of entrepreneurship because taking a secured job, vis-a-vis entering into entrepreneurship is very challenging. And I think there should be support systems which actually encourages and motivates persons. These are the obvious rapid changes in technology and shorter product life cycle. We have to be very, actually India is not bringing good products in the market. So, we have to adapt ourselves to the changing global market dynamics. We should we have to have organized ecosystem for innovation and most important is we have to build up the right capacities to take the innovation forward. See as far as our growth and progress contains a clear distinction between the urban and rural. Until unless we focus also on the rural growth and development prospects, we are not able to bridge the urban rural divide. So, that is also very much required that innovation value change should percolate down to the bottom of the pyramid and it should also reach the masses. There are couple of institutions like Gyan and Srishti who are doing a lot to bring the local you can say knowledge pool to the market like in the traditional sector. This is a brief organization of our DST and there are four areas which our department focuses. First is science and research development. This is a CRC. Second is technology development. Third is international division and fourth where we interface with the society and this is any B is the division which I represent within the DST and this is I am talking about the scientific groups within the DST. Then there are about 17 autonomous institutions prominent being Bose Institute in Calcutta, then TIFEC in Delhi, then we have Iqrisat in Hyderabad and Shri Chitrath Terminal Institute of Medical Sciences in Trivandrum. We also have an autonomous institution like Technology Development Board which provides soft loan to various companies for importing technologies, adaptation, etc. We have a scientific services division like Survey of India which is in fact more than 300 years old institution one of the oldest and this is a national Atlas mapping organization. This our board was constructed way back in 1982 where entrepreneurship was not much in scene. So you can say that we were slightly ahead of our time. We had then clear objective of promoting and developing entrepreneurs to use of S&T. These are some of the schemes which we operate starting with the institutional mechanisms like EDC. EDC is mainly to inculcate the spirit of entrepreneurship among the students and the faculty within an academic institute funding of about 20 lakhs or so. Is it so? It varies but like on an average it is about 80 to 100 lakhs for a period of 5 years or so. Then we have S&T entrepreneurship development projects. These are targeted in revitalizing the rural based micro enterprises and this works in close collaboration with NGOs at rural level. Then we have S&T entrepreneurship path. This scheme was initiated also in 1984. At that time our target was to convert job seekers to job generators which has not changed to convert knowledge into wealth through technology business incubators. Then we have structure training programs as we know the mindset, the sensitization plays a very important role in the entrepreneurship area. We have camps, we have entrepreneurship development programs where different modules are conducted. Faculty development programs and skill development programs are a part. Skill is for like 10th class students where they are given structured about 1 or 2, 3 months duration training in various vocational areas. Now from this year all these programs are not directly done by us. We have outsources to S&T entrepreneurship development institute of India, Ahmedabad. So actually they will be coordinating all these applications, they will invite applications, they will screen the applications and we will be having a role in type of selecting the institutions. Earlier this was done at our level only. We have this website www.techno-priner.net which is a very comprehensive one covering various aspects of entrepreneurship and I think I will invite everyone to go through and visit it. We have an e-magazine science tech entrepreneur and our website is www.nsttp.com Now as I told most of our mechanisms are institutional based so we target how to integrate entrepreneurship within the academic community. As we know the profile of academic and entrepreneurs, academician and entrepreneurs are entirely different. We need a completely different skill set for both of them. Now here we are combining both of them. So there is a sometimes conflict of interest also. Because academic system as such places more emphasis on publication, academic stage but often there is a change in the perception within the academic community. Say about a decade ago people were very uncomfortable with students, faculty, working utilizing institutes facility starting their own company because it is directly going to benefit a particular set of people who are involved. So there was a professional jealousy within the institute if someone was willing to start their own using the institutes facility. But couple of institutes were very dynamic, very proactive like IIT, Kharagpur was the first one where they allowed, they made a policy change and they allowed spin off companies out of faculty. And faculty were allowed to take classes and be a part of a company on the board of directors. So such kind of you can say changes are required in academic community. And it is changing but slowly. Why do we need technology business incubation? Because innovation and entrepreneurship are always buzzwords. But now after incubation in most of the academic community and that this is also being integrated in the academic community we feel that most of if we are targeting academic institution academic institutions are the seed beds of new knowledge and technology as well as main resource for the raw new talent. Now when these students who do not have any formal background about starting a company they are not coming from the family-owned concerns. They need to be hand-holded, mentored and provide a hassle-free environment particularly when they are in a technology or knowledge-related company because from the very nature it is presumed to be high-risk area. One of the other factor is we want to have reduce the time-length between the commercialization of the R&D outputs. Then since because mentoring and lot of services oriented packages provided within the incubator to start-ups hand-holding is done the prospects are improved for the start-ups it has according to some studies. Any company within the incubator vis-a-vis the outside the chances of survival are about 30% in a within the incubator otherwise rest is about 30% outside the incubator. Then there is emphasis on quality, environment standards, IPA and other issues which can be more packaged within an incubator. These are the actually benefits of technology business incubators from the government's perspective it is the economic development, there are new jobs, new taxes there are social benefits because it actually revitalizes the local economy there are new enterprises coming up R&D community it is obvious technology commercialization is much faster they have more interaction there is a source of additional income for tenant companies it is access to resources reduce risk time to market they get they have improved business skills for corporate sector it is a technology acquisition they can have investment choices and in most of the good companies a part of their corporate social responsibility wherein they are investing into incubators. What we have done we have actually partnered with institution of excellence who are generators of new ideas and technologies through the mechanisms of steps TBI wherein we have applied high end support network and this has led to business incubators and successful start-ups. See it depends upon the type of sponsor which is the lead sponsor and what are the desired goals out of it. If we have incubator within our technical university the goals will be to promote innovation encourage and motivate faculty for starting their companies if it is a research institute like couple of our incubators R&D CSIR labs then the goal will be for speeding up the research commercialization. If it is a then it depends upon the private sector obviously they are not for the profit but they will be making a profit more patents they will be having equity in clients so their motive will be slightly different. If it is a VC based they want a winning enterprise and high portfolio returns. So actually when we are estimation incubator it is a sort of solving a jigsaw puzzle the different you can say components are the team innovative finance, idea, policy mentors and the package of services which are a central tool of the incubator results when an ideal incubator is established is a where we combine all these pieces comes an ideal incubator. So these are the essential elements of a business incubator. When you talk about the ecosystem how to develop the right ecosystem for the business incubator it is a public policy that facilitates venture creation we have to provide the right business infrastructure finance is also very important and knowledge is obvious because our target group is academic institutions and medical institutions then as I told about the mindset the community involvement should be higher promote entrepreneurship and networking both nationally and internationally will give you both platforms to share and experience what is being done by the other countries. When we start up an incubator what we are actually wondering is that when you selected an in company ability of entrepreneurs is usually not known potential of the idea technologies also fairly not established demand of the market is also available availability of finance is not clear and what strength confidence and motivation within the team of the startup is also not known. So if we are what is the formula of success is combination of A plus which is success but is it is a big unknown. So it is a very challenging task when you set up an incubator this slide tells you about how we have progressed and what had been our journey in the Indian incubation program we started off in year 2000 after 15 years of running the step program we began with an international workshop to sensitize our Indian academics then we subsequently we conducted four regional workshop first was in IIT department of management then we also sensitized about 60 universities through collaborating with UGC we also organized workshop to sensitize CSIR scientists to take into techno entrepreneurship this was in collaboration with Harvard and MIT scientists we had two global forums on business incubation with infodev program of the world bank this infodev is particularly targeting ICTs at tool for development of regional development in the developing countries we have about 45 plus incubators as of now spread all over the country we focus on IT, biotechnology, design, business, new materials and as I told our primary target remains the academic and technical institutions as well as R and D institutions and we are trying out different models in terms of locations vary from urban to semi urban rural area even the models are different when you have the different thrust areas this is a geographical distribution as I told most many of our institutes are located in the southern part we started in 1980s we had four in number now we have reached a 45 in 2008 this I had already discussed most many of incubators are focusing on ICT related technologies this is a typical profile of our Indian incubator the cost varies from 4 to 5 crores our contribution is also to the tune of 50 to 70% at any point of time within incubator there are about 6 tenants tenancy period is close to 18 months to 3 years but average is 2 successful enterprises is 4 that means the survival rate is close to 70% what we are advocating of late is that in order to have a better accountability the TBI should be registered as a not-for-profit society or section 25 company and should enjoy a separate legal status from the institution it should not be run as another department within the academic institution because see the goals are different the ways of function is are different you should have a separate legal structure there are about 150 new products and innovations have come out through these incubators and 1100 new enterprises yielding about 7000 new jobs there was a report by planning commission titled as Technology Innovation Adventure Capital which clearly recommended the country should emphasize more on integrating entrepreneurship within the academic institutions and more TBI should be set up and they should be offered fiscal incentives to incubators as well as startups so as a result in the union budget 2000 announcement this was the excerpt from the budget speech which the FM had announced that in order to encourage innovation he has proposed to exempt from service tax all services provided by technology business incubators and similar fiscal concession to its incubators so incubators that means who are physically resident within the incubator because sometimes incubators also support incubation on virtual mode so only this concessions are applicable to startups who are physically resident within the incubator and this is as a result of this announcement in the finance bill this notification was issued for exempting service tax on all services provided by incubators exemption of service tax for incubators for 3 years whose turnover does not exist 50 lakhs and in incubators though having not for profit status are allowed to hold equity in the promoted companies and actually this is applicable at the moment only to our recognized incubators not other incubators there are couple of initiatives taken to enhance the effectiveness of the whole incubator program this is our seed support system actually what we find that startups is a major constraint where in the high risk and high growth area they are unable to garner financial support from conventional route so we came out with the seed support system as I told we have an institution like technology development board they have given funding of about 100 lakhs to 10 steps in incubators but from this financial year the scheme has been given to us and now we are funding the incubators on the seed support front with an enhanced funding norms the 100 lakhs has been double to 200 lakhs and we have this time shortlisted 6 additional set of incubators who will be availing the seed support to be in turn given to the deserving incubators and lot of flexibility has been built into this system that the support can be in the form of grant also partly grant partly soft loan partly as a deferred payment they can hold equity so but it is still what we find that incubators are not geared and equipped enough to manage this kind of fund so lot of capacities are required to be built at ground level so that they can really optimize the use of this initiative we are doing a lot in terms of building the capacity of incubators managers because we won't find lot many like poiny buds in our incubators so a lot of networking is going on we are inviting experts from other countries and extending all possible support to our incubator network so that they get exposed to the requirements how to run how to upgrade the incubators and how to maximize the outputs of the incubators we have part of various platforms and we give networking opportunities both nationally and internationally we have collaborated with series of multilateral and bilateral agencies with UNDP we have ongoing project mainly in vocational training area infodev program which is focusing on actually strengthening the incubators in developing countries about 5 of our incubators have got additional support from infodev program we have been holding couple of global forums with that support and now we are a part of donor we have contributed to the infodev donor program so we are a donor out of 8 countries this program has started with major contribution from Japan with EU we have actively interacted with UK business incubation program Swedish incubation, German and France UNDP also we are interacting we are a actually active collaborator with Thai network Harvard MIT until we have this incubation pioneer which is a business plan competition Intel and UC Berkeley we actually sponsor incubator managers and policy makers for this technology entrepreneurship education program two weeks program this are the two recent initiatives we have joined hands with Lockheed Martin and University of Texas for technology commercialization from all areas in India it need not focus only on academic institutions but on white cross sections within India we have bilateral cooperation with countries like Mauritius Cambodia Vietnam Philippines where in we have extended our support in setting up of incubator program actually the incubator helps in upgrading the intellectual infrastructure physical cultural infrastructure and financial infrastructure these are the various elements where in we can judge the business incubator performance faculty through education faculties are exposed and they are actually they undergo trainers trainer program once they undergo their job is to spread the spirit of entrepreneurship within the colleges which are in proximity of the region they are then they become a part of a knowledge networks and they widen the horizon academic community through the help of incubator and entrepreneurship related mechanisms are able to have a wider reach within the community and within the region actually these are some of the benefits or we talk of what returns to the government or the country experts through investing in the business incubators see through the start-ups or the new company promotion government gets written in the form of taxes after this actually starts only after 5 to 7 years of its establishment we have new jobs and then actually whatever profits are generated in the start-ups or the companies are put back in form of new investment and then intern and the chain goes on so these all contributes to the overall impact within the region and within the nation now I will just be more specific about the institutions who are now willing to have an incubator in their campuses so this is a business I think was it covered in the last session so I may skip so these are the various actually we have within our website we have an application format as I told www.nstdb.com has a format which is developed by us so you can just go through but these are the some of the features which needs to be covered incubator business plan and I think I need not to go into detail in last 2 days while it is true that this administrative mission is important all of it is available on that website the complete details are available in fact you can find more details around this this is actually the way in which you apply for setting up an incubator apply for a grant from the you can set up an incubator independently but if you want DST to support it these are the processes these processes will just tell you what information is sought but the website will not tell you what you should write that is more important you have to convince DST that what you write actually gels well with the philosophy of the initiative and that you are indeed entitled for that support what I would suggest is that we have discussed the sign setup pointy you have shared all the documentation that sign has I will draw your attention to an earlier observation which I had made on day 1 because we had fortunately some lead on experimenting with the incubator the proposals that we had made originally turned out to be very likeable proposal by the department and in fact other institutions were requested to sort of redo their proposals on those lines now there are 2 things that you have to do one is to actually imbibe the philosophy and principle of doing that really you have to be willing to do that in real life and you have to actually do part of it ahead of time for example setting up of a section 25 company or setting up of a society is something you cannot say I will do after I get the grant that is nonsense it happened in the earlier years when there was no such structure known but now that you know this structure see you have to show not just your willingness on paper but on actual ground that you are committed to doing and let me specifically state you if you are setting the incubator because you are getting some grant there is the biggest nonsense and you are setting the incubator because you want to encourage entrepreneurship and business incubation incidentally then you are looking for some finance this is a generic statement I would like to make I want to introduce a new program academically I want to do something new I am not doing it because somebody is going to pay me money for doing it I am going to do it because I believe that it must be done I must be willing to start doing it at my own cost whatever little I can do only when I establish to the rest of the world that look I am going to do it any which way if you please help then if our direction of activity appears to be in sync with the direction that is sought not only this department everybody else will come forward to help I am sorry to give this dietary but I have seen this happening at many places I also endorse completely endorse your viewpoint because until less their mindset changes we cannot expect success because why we advocate that sign is the best model because they have taken streamlined the whole process so what I suggest is having seen the sign process take that documentation back home discuss with your own colleagues your own administrators see how you can extend that or modify that to be actually put in place in your own institution and get an endorsement from the management at the highest level from your institution that whether we get funding or not we are committed to follow this modified set of activities as learned most of those then can be put on paper describing this is what we plan to do this is what we have already done what happens in India many times is that once a funding proposal is there I fill up the form saying yes I will do this I will do this I will do this nowhere in the form you will see I have done it already I think that's a very very important discussion you yourself put yourself in the position of the people who evaluate your forms how would you like out of 20 proposals two proposals we say not we will do it we will do it but these three things we have done these two things we have tried to do these additional things we want to I think that is the best way of requesting I am sorry to button but I thought it was very valid and so all these details which are there on the form they will only tell you what information is sought for of course you must ensure that not a single piece of information is missing because if it is missing the setup cannot take cognizance of that application must be full into but what I would like you to do is take every aspect of this and say that like take for example land building utilities furnishing this is the job of the host institution now you cannot say that if you give me a grant I will figure out where to locate this your institution should be able to say this is the building this is the room where we will start will expand it over the period of time we will get some funding from somewhere else but we have already identified a location we have already identified a leader who will lead this mission champion is very important champion local champion we have already identified a group which will otherwise we have already identified from amongst the local entrepreneurs some people who will come and advise who will be able to set up a mentoring network we have done all that now we want to extend it further therefore we want you I would submit that that is a far better way of getting support than just filling up a form and expecting money when full money is good but generally its value is precious if that windfall is not backed up by our own local commitment and this is my submission. At a new institution who goes in for establishment of TBI lot of time and effort should go in actually building a sound proposal if we approve it right away within a period of 3 months they have lot of treating troubles and lot of time is wasted in mobilizing various resources convincing so it is better you invest your time in actually doing the background work then come up with a proposal so that you can start right away without wasting much of a time rather than you wait for the clearances from the government department the proposal is recommended you wait for the sanction then only things will be initiated but as rightly pointed by professor Fatak the institutionals have to be entrepreneur on their way so they have to start because until unless they are convinced about this is the need of our entrepreneurship is required within the to be within the community academic community and the management especially from the private there are some delays but the private can be fast in decision making and the person who actually initiates should be able to convince so these are the various these are the funding actually distribution as far as the TBI costing is concerned land building utilities and furnishing is to be borne by the host institution wherein we supplement and provide funds to equip themselves with the state of the art facilities in the chosen technological areas we also fund the expenditure for initial 5 years till they normally attain the operational self-sufficiency and these are the sources of revenue and our funding is only on deficit mode they have to start earning from the day one which will gradually increase so that they attain the self-sufficiency so equity is the model which actually if you have one mega company this will take care of about most of your expenditure so but lot of ground capabilities needs to be developed in this area what do we look in a proposal when we recommend it for a TBI this is a strong commitment willingness of the host institution we also liken to what is the branding of the host institution within the region in terms of facilities the faculty profile what is the level of R and D work being carried out what is the industrial potential what kind of linkages do they have with the industry what the technological area which they have identified what kind of market potential it has got and then we mainly focus on the business plan of the step TBI and how much how long do they need our support these are the steps proposal as I told it is available in our website which is considered by a national level expert committee then we have second committee which approves the budget we start processing final approval then is the execution of MOU but our experience shows between step number 1 to 4 usually takes about sometimes 6 months and longest has been 2 years because there were some say because of that legal thing because if it is you go over the university system even in the CSIR thing they had a lot of problems to get the approval from the headquarters so getting final not from the headquarters itself is a long drawn process then MOU then decision of HCI now we are advocating it has if it is done before hand before applying that it solves most of our problem and time delays are not there because this itself is an indication how committed the institution is we then issue of sanction order subsequent disbursement now if you talk the whole chain of events from 1 to 8 issue of sanction order as a rule was longest for 2 years and minimum has been 6 months we are not able to reduce that and we are actually strongly willing if we can bring it down to 3 months the incubator performance just based on the operational efficacy of the incubation process because the incubation process will partly vary if you are focusing on actually incubating the idea vis-a-vis incubating the technology in some of the labs who are doing because if you are incubating the technology you have to upscale the technology you have to match with the right kind of entrepreneur who can take up the technology so the process vary with the incubating an entrepreneur who is having his original idea testing it making a business plan raising funds so these are different processes involved what has been the profile of successful enterprises and impact created within the region and the financial health of TBI and TBI should not be aloof from the local community should be a visible and known entity in the region for stimulating new enterprises sometimes what we have done we have even seen incubator is existing within the campus and most of the faculties are not aware that such kind of mechanism exists so lot of I think incubation progress process must have been dealt in detail by the pointy so this should be devised very carefully and implemented also so what our experience shows that why incubators fail to form that sometimes they are not maybe in proper feasibility study business plan lack of proper governments there is a weak entrepreneurial culture within the institute or the region in appropriate infrastructure I will give a least importance then what we find that most of the case it is a one-man show in an incubator the incubator manager is good the moment he leaves sometimes it collapses so it should not be the case the linkages and ineducate government policies so building a successful incubator program is a as I saw a lot of effort has to be gone homework hard work smart work team work and network so it is not only some but some of all these which leads to a successful incubation program thanks


I'm Miss Anjali and today I'm going to be talking to you lovely people about the science of fangirling. And why is it a crisis when your celebrity crush farts? I am for sure the biggest fangirl to exist for Hugh Jackman. Shout out to you Hugh Jackman. I basically cry over his Instagram posts and it goes from there. So what is fangirling you ask? Well according to Urban Dictionary, it's the reaction a person has to any mention or sighting of the object of her affection. In other words, it's the involvement of somebody with a celebrity? So apart from all the screaming, the OTP and the a-la-la-la-la, why is it that fangirls freak out when their objects of affection do something that they don't agree with? Well, a fangirl or a person needs to keep all their beliefs consistent to avoid mental discomfort. And when that consistency is disturbed by an act that is undesirable, such as a fart, it conflicts with their expectations and then the discomfort they experience Well, that is known as cognitive dissonance. This is where a person experiences excessive mental stress and discomfort experienced when you're confronted with new information that conflicts with your existing beliefs.  Usually to solve the stress of being under done, the person should decide on what to do. And this depends fully on how you handle stress. So for example, someone might tweet their thought, someone might rant to a friend, someone could just shrug the entire thing off. It depends on how someone copes with stress. So fangirling, as in its purest sense, is just a way for us to portray or to support someone or something. However, like everything else in the world, it can have both positive and negative aspects. It can be a source of happiness, or it can be a cause of added stress. But all in all, fangirling is inevitable in such a closely knit society. It's just a mud on how to properly handle the stress or the feels. So who do you fangirl over? And how do you handle the feels? Thank you so much for watching this video. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't already, as well as follow us on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook. And those links should be in the description bar below. Also, if you'd like to follow me on my personal social websites, then that should be in the description bar below as well. Thank you for watching. I am now going to go fangirl over Hugh Jackman. Bye!