Sikka meets Modi, pledges $250 mn for Indian innovation

Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka met PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday with a double offering aimed at aiding the government’s new initiatives – a promise to allocate half its $500 million venture fund as an 'Innovate In India Fund' and share expertise to help smart cities.

Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday with a double offering aimed at aiding the government’s new initiatives — a promise to allocate half its $500 million ( Rs 3,100 crore) venture fund as an “Innovate In India Fund” and share expertise to help smart cities.

The money will be used to fund start-ups in innovative technologies and provide them an ecosystem to scale up. In return, these innovations will help Infosys climb up the value chain in the software services space.

It plans to convert its 350-acre campus in Mysore into a “smart city” by April this year and share with the urban development ministry knowhow from this and also its software-driven command centre in Bangalore that controls energy consumption and enables predictive maintenance across its campuses.

“We look forward to working with innovative companies to strengthen our collective potential and also accelerate the success of the Prime Minister’s ‘Digital India’ mission aimed at helping people gain benefits from the latest in information technology,” Sikka said in a statement after the meeting.

Sikka took the reins in India’s No.2 IT company last August. He is betting on areas such as artificial intelligence, design thinking and neural networks in innovation.

Infosys said it has been using industry leading practices such as radiant cooling, day lighting and effective retrofit strategies to reduce its energy consumption, which is also helped by advanced data analysis.

The Mysore campus will be the first to achieve zero waste to landfill sustainability.