Events

Celebrating innovation in India
India Research Lab marched into its 10th anniversary with a wealth of real-world breakthroughs for business and society

IBM India commemorated the 10th anniversary (1998-2008) of its India Research Laboratory (IRL) on April 21, 2008. With several innovative technologies developed throughout the years, IRL demonstrated its commitment to solve pressing technology challenges for clients, business and society.

Innovator's Innovator
In the past 10 years, IRL, located in two sites, New Delhi and Bangalore - has grown into an innovation hub. Throughout this time, IBM has worked with local clients and partners to shape India ’s innovation landscape, helping transform it into a significant contributor to the world economy. As the world’s leading IT research institution, IBM Research has actively participated in shaping India's innovation horizons and helped to advance IBM’s operations.

IBM Research has a rich talent pool with more than 3200 scientists working in close collaboration spread across its eight research labs around the world. Also, IBM has earned more U.S. patents than any other company for 15 consecutive years with 3,125 patents issued in 2007.

"The number of real-world innovations developed at IBM India Research Laboratory is a testimony to IBM technical excellence, and the value we deliver to the business and society," said Dr. John Kelly, IBM SVP & Director of Research.

Collaborative Innovation
As Dr. Daniel Dias, Director, IBM India Research Laboratory commented, innovation is what results when technical invention meets business insight. This is certainly true of IBM Research, where great importance is attached to dialog with end-users, internal partners and customers. The India Lab boasts a rich talent pool and an enviable culture of innovation. IRL believes in taking the lab to the customer, and often teams up with academia, government and industry to develop a vibrant research eco-system. By integrating its researchers' knowledge with the "innovation ecosystem" in India, IBM delivers a unique combination of scientific and business expertise to clients. IRL has also maintained active relationships with several leading universities across the world. The laboratory provides support to faculty and students from many institutes of higher learning including IITs, IISc, ISB, IIMs etc., sponsoring faculty awards, fellowship and grants. Market opportunities and challenges stimulate these collaborations to pursue breakthrough thinking mixed with scientific rigor.

Delivering Value
Many of the technologies developed at the IRL have made their way into major products and services for IBM benefiting both business and society.

While the list of achievements runs long, some of the “selected innovations” highlighted here could be grouped under three key thrusts :

• Innovations driven by the IBM ecosystem in India - the unique juxtaposition of organizations here providing the environment for innovation.
• Innovation for the unique conditions of the environment in India
• innovations from India out to the world.

IBM has a network of more than 60 research and development labs around the globe collaborating on advanced solutions for clients. IBM’s laboratory population includes 28,000 researchers, developers and engineers. Twenty percent of them work directly with clients. In 2007, the labs conducted more than 10,000 engagements with clients. Looking at the history of IBM's India Research Lab (IRL), it becomes clear that innovation has constituted an integral part of its philosophy since the very beginning. This is illustrated by the broad range of research breakthroughs and other successes that have been achieved here in the past 10 years. And innovation will continue to be the driving force of future research.