28-07-2025
‘Industry-academia-research disconnect keeps us behind in industrialisation'
'Slackness in connecting industries with academia and research has kept us on the backfoot in industrialisation when compared with other foreign countries,' said R. Ambalavanan, Director, Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation Institute (EDII).
He spoke at the valedictory function of the Indexpo 2025 organised by Madurai District Tiny and Small Scale Industries Association (MADITSSIA) here on Monday.
In countries like Germany, the inter-relation between the three domains – industries, academic and research – has been a successful model as the academic and research had jointly worked to solve several issues faced by the industries, he added.
Suggesting that the expo could have invited students, one of the major stakeholders, to give them a chance of exposure to the latest industrial technologies, he stated.
When he conversed with the industrial people at the stalls, Mr. Ambalavanan said he felt that they were not interested in students who would not be buying anything from them.
'We fail to realise that they will be motivated with the innovations and may even jump into the business to be their consumers,' he added.
Also, our attitude towards youngsters should be changed. 'Utilising them as interns can bring many tangible changes to your businesses,' he added.
'Though the nation's progress towards industrialisation post-Independence, given the exploitation of our resources by the colonisers, was very tremendous, it is still lagging behind many other countries,' Mr. Ambalavanan noted.
One of the reasons for that was underutilising the scientists from the country. The researchers from India, with ample research papers due to the non-recognition of their work, fly to western countries, where their research or study were successfully transformed into sellable products or innovations, he noted.
Despite the essential infrastructure-built up and timely technology upgradation, the slow growth could be attributed to the lack of collaborative approach towards their problems, he stated.
Adding that the big industries should in link with MSMEs, he said only that would solve the supply chain management issues.
Even though the event was a success in itself, more ideas like setting up of research cells to study the real-world problems could have helped more in future developments, he stated.
Pointing out the courses offered by EDII, he appealed to entrepreneurs and students to utilise crash courses like drone operation and other related subjects.
Also, he informed the entrepreneurs about the facility to catalogue the manufactured products on EDII's e-market website.
Madurai City Police Commissioner J. Loganathan, requested stakeholders of MADITSSIA to promote usage of CCTVs in their industries, houses and crucial places near their residences.
'As usage of Artificial Intelligence in security aspects has been giving more sophisticated facilities, crime prevention and identification is being made simpler,' he added.
Industrial sectors' contribution to public security could being about more changes to the policing, he noted.
President of MADITSSIA A. Kodeeswaran gave the welcome address, while V. Senthilkumar, Chairman of Indexpo gave a report on the exhibition.
