The annual TechSparks summit by YourStory brings together entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and aspiring founders to exchange ideas and stimulate new innovations. At its seventeenth edition, the summit focused on the question: how can India transition from being a consumer of technology and goods to a creator of them for itself and the world?
The final day of the event showed that India's development starts with its educational institutions, engineering colleges, and even food labeling. The task of educating 247 million primary and secondary school students is colossal.
According to Sushma Boppana, CEO of Sri Chaitanya Group of Institutions, and Santosh Vishwanathan, Vice President and Managing Director for APJ at Intel, India's main problem is structural, not quantitative. In a conversation with Shraddha Sharma, founder and CEO of YourStory and The Bharat Project, they discussed what success looks like for a student in the era of intellectual development when the education system still relies on 19th-century methods.
Vishwanathan noted that in the modern world, working time and technology time merge, and called for technology to be integrated into daily learning. He pointed to the ability of artificial intelligence to personalize lessons, allowing a child interested in cricket to study quantum mechanics through this sport.
Boppana, drawing on Sri Chaitanya's reach of two million students, emphasized that in the current generation, character traits such as resilience, engagement, and responsibility are more important than academic achievements. She stated that these three aspects matter more than educational accomplishments.
Vishwanathan also highlighted the serious shortage of computing power in India, noting that computing penetration is less than 10% in the country compared to 95% in the US and 75% in China. Given that 250 million young Indians will enter the workforce in the next five years, he called solving the livelihood issue for these people the most significant and profitable task.
Moving from schools to engineering colleges, Professor Ashok Jundjunwala, an institute professor at IIT Madras, Chairman of IIIT Hyderabad and ITEL Foundation, asserted that India possesses the talent to create any technology. However, he pointed out an obvious paradox: 'We can develop almost all technologies, yet we import almost every product.'
The Padma Shri awardee stated that the weakest link in Indian engineering education is the lack of teaching students creation principles. He advocated for cutting half of the current curriculum to make room for practical creation, adding that young founders, especially from second, third, and fourth-tier cities, are the true drivers of change in the country.
Regarding AI, Jundjunwala strongly urged India to define its own path. Instead of chasing trillion-parameter cloud models, he advised the country to focus on edge computing, launching compact, fine-tuned open-weight models on phones, laptops, and low-power devices. Through ITEL, he also connects scientists and startups to solve civic problems such as urban transport and waste management.
The event concluded with an candid discussion about trust. Revant Himatsingh, better known as Food Pharmer, shared his difficult decision as a founder after many years of criticizing India's largest food brands. By refusing deals worth crores, he launched Only What’s Needed (OWN) to offer consumers honest alternatives.
He admitted: 'If I make a mistake, I am finished.' The brand displays nutritional information in large print on the front of the packaging, shows the exact percentage of each ingredient on a pie chart, and provides a QR code with labels in major Indian languages. The company spent almost no money on marketing, preferring to hold public board meetings and invite people to its factories.
The advice he gave to founders was simple: question the artificial rules of the industry. 'If I had listened to them, I would have been one of many. But because I broke those rules, I stood out.'
The three-day conference ended with a clear message: India has the talent, scale, and challenges worthy of solving. Whether it is reforming classrooms, rethinking engineering education, or restoring consumer trust—the next chapter of Indian innovation will be written by those ready to take risks and create.
