India
East Tech 2024 symposium – Defence Atmanirbhar initiative opened with thrust on MSMEs & Start-ups in Kolkata
November 5, 2024
By : PARTHA ROY
Two days East Tech Symposium 2024, having theme” Military Excellence through Indigenous Technology” inaugurated on 5th November 2024 jointly organised by HQ Eastern Command of Indian Army , the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The symposium & exhibition brought together key stakeholders from the government, military, and defence industry to spotlight India’s progress towards becoming a self-reliant. There were more than 140 exhibitors from the industry, academic institutions and armed forces, exhibiting their products in the symposium.
Shri Aroop Biswas, Minister-in-Charge, Department of Power, Housing, Youth Services and Sports, Government of West Bengal, inaugurated two-day East Tech Symposium 2024 being held on 5th& 6th November 2024.
Shri Aroop Biswas stressed MSMEs and Start-ups will boost the Manufacturing Supply Chain of Defence Industry in West Bengal under leadership of West Bengal Chief Minister Smt. Mamata Banerjee.
During inauguration of the Symposium, General Upendra Dwivedi, PVSM, AVSM, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), joined virtually and emphasized that India is a rising power, and we need to hedge ourselves from external dependency, supply chain disruptions and denial regimes. Today, the nation has a vibrant, capable and productive technology ecosystem comprising institutions of academic repute, startups, innovation centres, IT companies and manufacturing hubs. This indigenous ecosystem has been the vanguard of many innovative and technological progression. As a result, many core technologies are now available in the commercial domain within the country.
Rajinder Singh Bhatia, President, SIDM, highlighted that technology will remain an instrument of foreign policy, which means India must develop the technology and be self – reliant. He further explained that Defence Technologies can be divided into 3 parts – R&D, which is the fundamental research into areas which will always be carried out by the State. Second is Innovation, which is the incremental development of technology over the existing technologies. The third being the Breakthrough Technologies coming from the MSMEs & the Startups.
Lt Gen Himanshu Tiwari, UYSM, AVSM, SM, GOC-in-C Eastern Command mentioned that “It is imperative upon us that as a Nation we need to walk the path of self-reliance in defence production. This would entail the close integration of the Indian defence industry and academia with the armed forces at all levels. The indigenous defence industry must understand the ever-evolving needs of Indian armed forces to meet the ever-changing operational challenges and accordingly develop indigenous solutions to meet such challenges. The future battlefield will see developments in, but not limited to, the domination of unmanned automation platforms, including a wide variety of drones, increased robotization, hybrid human-machine teaming, and the next level of cyber dominance driven by Artificial Intelligence”.
East Tech 2024, serves as a platform for indigenous defence industry to showcase innovations and connect with the Eastern Command of the Indian Army. The symposium focused on advancing the ‘Make in India’ initiative, empowering MSMEs and Startups, effective Public-Private Partnerships, building a technological ecosystem, and strengthening Strategic Self-Reliance. The first day of the symposium witnessed technical discussions involving speakers from both armed forces as well as industry. Officers of Eastern Command presented critical problem statements outlining real world operational challenges that impact mission success & troop efficiency to create new business opportunities for defence products manufacturer in private sector including MSMEs & Start-ups .
