WEF names two Indian cos among Technology Pioneers

Technology Pioneers are nominated by the world's leading venture capital and technology companies.

Indian companies Strand Life Sciences and Drishtee are among 47 "visionary" firms worldwide selected by the World Economic Forum as 'Technology Pioneers 2007' for their life-changing innovations.

HT Image

The Technology Pioneers are nominated by the world's leading venture capital and technology companies and are recognised for their innovations that have the potential for long-term impact on business and society.

Strand Life Sciences develops algorithms and solutions in the area of bioinformatics. It helps in accelerating the drug discovery process by developing a suite of products for genomics, proteomics and silico-biology.

The products called Oyster include micro arrays, sequence analysis and structure analysis products.

Drishtee is a rural network for delivering services and related information to the village community through an ICT (information and communication technologies) Centre or Information kiosk.

The kiosks are run by entrepreneurs selected from the villages and have been designed to follow a service-delivery based revenue model. Satyan Mishra is its Managing Director.

Announcing the Pioneers, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum Peter Torreele said it is evident that technology and innovation are playing a key role in the shifting power equation at the global level. Driving this shift is the tremendous amount of innovation taking place outside traditional hubs.

"The wide geographic spread of this year's Technology Pioneers is a testament to this trend," he added.