“There are many possibilities for cooperation in science and technology.”
The Indian Leaders Program visits the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities to learn about the support of CDTI's to entrepreneurship and its work with India | VIII edition activity summary
The first visit of the Indian Leaders 2025 Program took its participants to the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, where they met with the Secretary General of Innovation, Teresa Riesgo, and María del Pilar de Miguel Ortega, coordinator for India at the CDTI Innovation Center.
In her presentation, Teresa Riesgo noted that between Spain and India, "there are many possibilities for cooperation, because the world is now very global, and we need to help each other." We are two very similar countries in many ways: "We are both interested in developing deep tech technologies, and develop the entrepreneurial system in that field. So from this point of view, we are very close."
Furthermore, many relationships are being established in other areas, such as industry and trade. Another common aspect is talent: both countries have well-trained professionals in the fields of engineering and science. "I always say that innovation is made of three or four things. One of them is talent." So, with all these common elements, cooperation is something we must keep in mind.
Anuja Dhawan noted that India has a similar problem to Europe: “Every state has a very different language and a very different culture in a certain way.” Her company, Dubverse, is dedicated to solving that problem: “If you have a content or video created in one language, you can translate that into multiple languages with the power of AI, very cost-efficiently, in a faster span of time… the language barrier can be broken, and everybody can consume whatever they really want to without having to learn a new language.”
The company, she noted, already has two million users worldwide, many of them Spanish companies. Among its current challenges is real-time translation, something that representatives from the Ministry of Science and Technology noted as “a very important issue in Europe,” which currently has 24 official languages. “At high-level meetings, we have cross-translation between all the languages. So there's a service at the Council of Europe with thousands of translators, which is crazy. Imagine if someone needs to speak Spanish fluently, but also needs to understand Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Lithuanian, Italian, and German. It's a pretty crazy situation. Even in Spain, we have four official languages, so translation is also needed.”
They also identified another opportunity offered by the Spanish language: “We have about 400 million Spanish speakers, and I don't know how many different accents there are. When everything related to language issues started, there was a lot of concern that people might lose their accents. Because, in the end, children would learn with a very neutral Spanish, the kind spoken by this devices.”
In Spain, they noted, there is a large movement trying to preserve these accents. Something similar is happening in India, according to Anuja Dhawan, where there are multiple dialects, which were almost sort of getting deteriorated, because nobody would speak them any further. Everybody would go to English or a common language. So that´s why we are working with the Indian Government as well.”
Shivanshu Dwivedi, founder and CEO of Predulive Labs, then explained his company's business model. “We basically produce drones and software for infrastructure and agriculture. As we know, manual inspection is very tough on an average, like hilly areas. Along with that, for infrastructure, we also prepare BIM models for cities. We work with the Indian government and already have more than 15 clients.”
In this regard, Teresa Riesgo noted that “right now, at the ministry, we are finishing what we call the strategic aerospace project, which encompasses not only space but also aeronautics, and particularly new technologies. Drones are heavily involved. Spain is a country with highly developed agriculture, so there are a lot of possibilities in that area. I'm sure you will find many partners here.”
She also noted that “there are several challenges. First, regulation for flying drones is always an issue. But in Spain, it's not that difficult because we're not an overpopulated country; there's plenty of space. So, there are several places where drones can be tested and built. Also, the climate is very favorable for this, because if you go to Northern Europe, it's so windy that you can't fly anything.”
The next Leader to present was Ankit Agarwal, founder of Phool.co. “Phool means ‘flower’ in Hindi. Essentially, what we do is collect around 32 tons of flowers from Indian temples that would otherwise be dumped into bodies of water like the Ganges River, and we turn them into two things. One, the world’s first charcoal-free incense. We are the first incense seller in the country. And second, we turn this floral waste into a material that behaves exactly like animal leather. We call it ‘feather,’ which means ‘floral leather,’ and it’s completely plastic-free. It has no rubber or any polymers to bind the material, and it’s organically grown. Therefore, it is a circular economy model.”
Phool has plants in seven Indian cities, where the most important temples are located, and a workforce of 700. The company also continues researching to expand its source of raw materials. “Now we can use anything that contains cellulose: kitchen waste, garden waste…”
Next up was Ruchi Saxena, founder of Caerobotics. A physician by training, she became passionate about technology and founded her startup in 2018 “with the idea that, especially in India, there are places where people live with no healthcare facilities around.” Caerobotics was born with the idea of bringing medical drones to the most remote areas of the country and has created an entire ecosystem that works "not just on public health, we are also working on climate resilience.”
Caerobotics also dedicates significant efforts to promoting the presence of women in a “very polarized” industry. “ That said and done, something that I'm also building is called FEMINA, which is Feminine Empowered Medical Intelligence and Network Analytics, wherein we are bringing the AI and engineering AI for medical intelligence, especially for women. So we are now having a conversational AI, wherein a woman can talk in her dialect and her local language with the AI, at least get her symptoms there. And that entire case history goes to the doctor in English, so the doctor can understand.”
For Teresa Riesgo, it's a great idea "to get technology out of the lab and reach those who really need it. The problem of remote connections with doctors exists everywhere. People don't want to live in villages because they lack services, but if we can give them a comfortable life in the villages, we'd all love to live there."
Utkarsh Singh, Founder and CEO of DronaMaps, and Devanshee Deepak, Global Director of Product, explained the specifics of this pro: “We are building AI-based platforms that process drone imagery to derive actionable insights, allowing us to map assets on a large scale. Currently, one of our largest projects is with the National Highway Authority of India, for which we map the entire national road network, the second largest in the world.”
Concessionaires and contractors “can use our platform to identify defects in real time, along with geospatial information. We also work in the power and utilities sector, the mining sector… Ground reality mapping at such a large scale has not been widely tested in India. Our platform enables end-users to use geospatial tools collaboratively online. We also create geospatial intelligence and AI models that are easy to understand, visualize, and track.”
To achieve its goals, DronaMaps deploys approximately 2,000 drones across the country. “And we cover all of India's national highways every month, repeatedly, from north to south, from east to west, across the entire country.” Utkarsh Singh considered the Spanish road network “very well-suited to bringing this technology. We are a pure AI company. We don't manufacture drones. We don't fly them. This makes it easier for us to adapt to each country's national regulations: we take advantage of the opportunity to utilize local drone resources instead of dealing with permits.”
For her part, Teresa Riesgo explained the main objective of developing startups in Spain, which passed its Startup Law three years ago. “We offer grants and support to companies, from initial startups to large corporations. We offer support for industrial R&D&I for any type of company. In addition, we have specific activities. In particular, we have a public venture capital entity called Innvierte.”
One of the sectors most in need of public support is biotechnology, whose startups take a long time to become profitable. “Private venture capital isn't attractive to this type of investment.”
Finally, María del Pilar de Miguel Ortega spoke about the CDTI's programs with India, particularly the Spain-India Bilateral Collaboration Program. “We seek to support collaboration in research and development between the two countries. The Spanish government supports Spanish companies, and the Indian government supports Indian companies and research centers. In the latest call, which closed last Friday, we received 15 proposals for collaboration between India and Spain. This is very good news.”
