by Subhanjan Sengupta | Posted on 10th March 2019

Finnish and Indian start-up ecosystems are globally recognised for innovation in products and services; some disrupting large industries.

The volume of start-ups in India today is huge. Finland, has a concentration of start-ups today that are emerging as cutting-edge. Invest India, an initiative of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion of the Government of India, and Business Finland, along with Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, have come together to establish the India Finland Tech Hub in order to create all kinds of opportunities that can enable mutual growth of the Finnish and the Indian start-up ecosystems. The platform has been built to enable expansion of network and collaborations between the two ecosystems.

Energy is one of the sectors in which both these countries have much to gain from each other and contribute to each other, setting the right policy and industry context for this research proposal. India has one of the largest renewable energy expansion plans in the world. It is now quite near to achieving 100 GW of solar power, 60 GW of wind power, 10 GW of biomass power, and 5 GW of small hydro power, by 2022. The automatic route for renewable energy generation and distribution enables 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in the renewable energy sector of India, with a track record of FDI in non-conventional energy sector close to $6.80 billion from 2000 to 2018.

Finland has been at the forefront of the renewable energy revolution and evolution in the world, with a track record of solution architecture in extreme conditions, turned into successful commercial cases. With 38% of the energy consumed being from renewable sources, and with a target to achieve 50% renewable energy by 2030, Finland is on a sharp growth trajectory for its strong energy clusters, infused with smart technologies and new market opportunities. One of the promising sectors that Finland has to offer much to the world is the sustainable bioenergy sector. A natural, social, and economic ecosystem thriving on abundant natural resources such as water and forests, enabled Finland to develop solutions for long-term sustainable use of natural resources, which has created a strong competence-base for Finland to offer high-value circular economy solutions in sustainable energy; one of which streams from the forest-based innovation ecosystem in the country that enables sustainable use of biomass through its transformation to make value-added products.

By setting up of a multidisciplinary and multi-industry consortium, a beginning can be made to develop cutting age Nordic-India start up revolution in clean and renewable energy.