CII inks pacts on skills and innovation during Brown's visit

New Delhi, Jan.21 : The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has signed two pacts with UKSkills and i2india Holdings, focussing on skills and innovation, respectively, on the occasion of the visit of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The signings took place in the presence of UK Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, John Hutton, India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath and CII President Sunil Bharti Mittal.

CII and i2india Holdings have signed a Statement of Intent with a view to tap and drive innovation in India, for both industrial and social development. The signatories were Malivinder Mohan Singh, Chairman, CII Technology Committee and CEO and Managing Director, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd and Chris Mathias, Chairman, i2india, on behalf of the respective organisations.

As part of the partnership with CII, i2india will offer services to Indian industry that will lead to enhancing the awareness of innovation and Intellectual Property (IP) in India; and support the identification of market opportunities for IP and technologies from India into the international markets and vice versa.

i2india is a technology commercialisation and investment company focused on creating commercial value from intellectual property developed in India. It is the Indian arm of UK's Imperial Innovations Group plc, a company based out of Imperial College London and listed on London Stock Exchange's AIM. Imperial Innovations is one of the leaders in the UK in the field of technology transfer and commercialisation through the structuring of licensing deals and the transfer of intellectual property into newly formed companies.

Malvinder Mohan Singh said: "CII's futuristic focus, leadership and its pioneering initiatives in technology, industrial R and D, Innovation and IPR have been instrumental in Indian Industry's technology driven growth in the recent years. This partnership with i2india will further strengthen this growth process in the days to come."

The other signing was an MoU between UKSkills and WorldSkills India, an organisation managed by CII. The signatories were Simon Bartley, Chief Executive, UKSkills and Lt Gen (Retd) S S Mehta, Director General, CII.

Lt Gen (Retd) Mehta said: "The Indian demographic advantage can best be epitomised by skilling our workforce across all sectors and at all levels. Association with WorldSkills and UKSkills is CII's initiative to achieve our goal to make India the Skill Capital of the World."

The MoU will also help create a support structure for the development of a National Skills Team and their participation in WorldSkills International, and other competitions. WorldSkills International is the biggest skills competition in the world that sets 'world standards' in over 45 skill categories ranging from cabinet making to web design.

In January 2007, India had become the 48th member of WorldSkills International with CII as the member organization representing India in all WorldSkills activities. The main objectives of "WorldSkills India" are to promulgate skills in the society, champion skills and learning for work through local, regional, national and international skills competition and also host international competitions, and link up with the WorldSkills International secretariat, the Government of India, State Governments, the registered vocational skills training and awarding bodies.

ANI