Dear Friends,

Greetings.

It is my pleasure to communicate with you on behalf of IESA team regarding activities of IESA. A lot has been happening on various fronts and due to this I could not bring this update to you earlier. My sincere apologies for that and we will strive to bring these updates to you in timely manner in the future.
 

Government Initiatives

ISA has been engaged with various government agencies on multiple initiatives for growth of ESDM and Semiconductor industry. As you may already be aware that several recommendations from National Electronics Policy (NEP) such as Preferential Market Access (PMA), Modified SIPS and Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) have already been approved and IESA is working closely with Govt. of India on the implementation mechanisms for these policies. It has been observed that the delays in policy formation and implementation have been a cause for concern for all of us, as it delays growth of the industry. IESA along with other industry bodies is constantly engaged with policy-makers to expedite this process.

On the product development front, IESA is working closely with the Core Advisory Group for Research and Development in the Electronics Sector (CAREL), set up under the aegis of the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to Govt. of India, to develop strategies for “Made in India” electronics products which are critical for the country and have high volume consumption. The identified categories cover set-top boxes, tablets, smart phones, smart energy meters, smartcards and micro-ATMs. IESA has already conducted deep-dive workshops on Set-top boxes and Tablets bringing together stake holders from all aspects of the eco-system. Based on suggestions from these workshops, IESA is developing white papers to recommend strategies to build world-class, made-in-India products. The next workshop is going to be on Smart Phones in late October and workshops for other product categories are going to take place over next few months.

In addition to these product workshops, we are planning to institute a study to highlight specific financial, operational or any other disability that is preventing many key products from being designed and manufactured in India.

On the skilled manpower development front, IESA, in collaboration with ELCINA, CEAMA, MAIT and IPCA has been asked to setup the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI) by the National Skill Development Council (NSDC), with the primary objective of developing high calibre talent for the ESDM industry. This is a huge initiative as NSDC estimates that our industry will cumulatively employ about 28 million people by 2020. As part of the Governing Council of ESSCI, we from IESA will bring several initiatives and programs to address training and skill development needs of our ESDM community.

Research and Publications
 
On the research and publication front, IESA and Frost & Sullivan (F&S) is working on the first ever ground-up report on the ESDM industry. As you are already aware the IESA F&S reports on semiconductor consumption has set a benchmark for being the most credible source of data for the Indian semiconductor market. We hope to achieve a similar impact through this report which is focussed on the ESDM product market. Ashok Chandak has ably and tirelessly led the team developing this report with fantastic support from Sanjeev Keskar, Arun Jain, Vivek Tyagi and many others from the industry. Special mention must also be made of the hard work put in by the F&S team. The report is in final stages of preparations and will be ready in the next couple of weeks.

Membership

The IESA Family is today 186-strong and with your help, we would like to grow this to 300 members this year. In line with our aim to promote SME’s and start-ups, we have initiated a new membership category for start-ups and SME’s with annual membership fee of INR 10,000 per annum only. We hope this will help us in reaching out to small size product companies and start-ups in ESDM area. I would request all of you to spread this message. If each one of you can bring one member who can benefit from IESA activities, we can reach our goal of 300 members easily. Please drop a mail to membership@isaonline.org to introduce such potential member companies, and the IESA Secretariat team will drive the discussion forward.

To address some of the issues that small and medium companies and start-ups face, we are working on an IESA group medical insurance scheme where better coverage and premiums can be obtained for our member companies. This is at the inception stage and we will be sending out more details about this next month.

Another important activity on membership front is conducting the IESA Membership Engagement Survey in a few weeks from now to connect with each of you individually. Through this survey, we wish to understand your expectations from IESA, the value you have derived from your membership and the specific areas you would want us to focus on in the future. Anil Gupta and P. Sridhar will be reaching out to all of you in the next few weeks. Please cooperate fully with them and share your views openly and frankly. With your valuable feedback, I will work with the Executive Council to see how we can address member concerns and make IESA more effective.

Other Activities

For getting stronger participation from industry visionaries and past IESA chairmen, IESA is setting up the “IESA Advisory Council” to advise the Executive Council and provide steering direction to IESA. I am happy to inform that Mr. Ajai Chowdhury, Founder HCL, Mr. Sudhir Sethi, Chairman of IDG Ventures, India and Mr. B.V. Naidu, Chairman, Sagitaur Ventures have agreed to be initial members of the IESA Advisory Council. The council will convene in next one month to decide upon the direction and also inclusion of other members to the council.

Events

And finally on the events front, let me tell you about the high-profile Strategic Electronics Summit (SES-2012) conducted in July in partnership with ELCINA. The Honourable Minister of State Dr. MM Pallam Raju; the Secretary, Department of Electronics and IT, Sri J Sathyanarayana; the Chief Controller of R&D, Dr. K.D. Nayak and a whole host of industry dignitaries participated in the event. IESA and Elcina jointly brought out a white paper on the strategic electronics sector, released during the event which was widely appreciated. The Aerospace & Defence CIG – led by Kumaran Venkatesh - helped to put this event together.

We have begun work on the Technovation Awards 2012 and Vision Summit 2013.

The IESA Vision Summit 2013 is scheduled for February 14-15 2013 and will be held at Sheraton, Bangalore. The theme for vision summit this year is: “ESDM-2020: Product Innovation, Global Collaborations and Policy Initiatives”. Vision summit has set a standard for thought leadership conclave in ESDM and we hope that with help from all of you we will have a great event this year also.

Technovation 2012 awards will be held in early December to recognize excellence in ESDM for Industry and academic community. Announcement for nominations for Technovation -2012 will be sent out in next one week.

I thank you for your patience and support and promise to connect with you more often with information about all the IESA activities. In the meantime, I look forward to your comments, feedback and suggestions. Please email me at chairman@isaonline.org and I promise to respond and take action on your valuable feedback.

Please keep visiting IESA website www.iesaonline.org to check out our latest announcements, reports and white papers.

Satya Gupta

Chairman - IESA