By Our Special Correspondent
SHILLONG, Nov 15: Drawing on experienced legal minds and industry leaders, the two-day symposium, organised by National Law University, Meghalaya (NLU-Meg), saw a galaxy of paper presenters with the objective of disrupting the scripted understanding of technology transfer in the intellectual property regime of India.
India is a large importer of technology whose intellectual property is held by the exporting countries.
Vice Chancellor, NLU-Meg, Prof Inderjit Dube, in his welcome address, said that the University was established only in February 2023 and started classes in July 2023.
He attributed to the former Chief Justice of Meghalaya, Justice Sanjib Banerjee, for sharing his vision of the University charting a new path, embracing unknown paths and thereby responding to the needs of the times.
Today, NLU-Meg has the second batch of students from across the country with aspirational projects and faculty who are working tirelessly at times late into the night.
Prof Dube says NLU-Meg intends to engage in meaningful dialogue with key partners to get a fresh perspective in innovation and develop cultural aspirations by bringing together thought leaders from business, academia and technology to enable a resilient, thriving eco-system for the e-commerce space.
This, he says, is how entrepreneurs and artisans from the Northeast can conduct businesses and be able to claim intellectual property rights over indigenous knowledge. This will, in turn, enable them to access seed funding grants for grassroots innovation.
As far as technology transfer is concerned, Prof Dube said it is important to bring India’s Northeast into the mainstream journey and develop innovative systems to serve the region. In this journey, government support is imperative.
Dr Basil D Diengdoh, faculty at NLU-Meg, said the two-day symposium is an attempt at using first-mile technology to enable tribal artisans to showcase and sell their products online. “The idea is to create a multi-lingual e-marketplace where Khasi and Garo can be used. But this is a huge challenge because, in translation, there is a 40% error margin. At the moment, about 10 lakh Khasi words need to be translated to have a data set variable for the e-marketplace. This process is tougher for the Garo language since NLU-Meg is located in Shillong.
Chief Guest for the function, Principal Secretary Art & Culture department, Frederick Kharkongor, while addressing the participants of the symposium, stressed on hope as an integral aspect for launching anything that can become a game-changer of the future.
The Department of Arts and Culture has worked closely with NLU-Meg and identified 12 villages particularly Umden-Diwon the Ryndia weaving village for which the Government of Meghalaya is working at getting the GI tag for Meghalaya’s ryndia (eri silk). The final hearing for this is happening soon. This will ensure a smooth transition from farm to fibre, fibre to fabric and fabric to fashion.
Kharkongor underlined the need for proper branding of local products which Government should validate and ensure that these become part of the digital repository. “We need to look at a problem from a 360-degree lens and change tracks and mindsets so that artisanal products fetch the right prices in the e-marketplace. What we need are high value, low volume products and look at value addition of niche products,”Kharkongor stated, adding that domain skills embedded in the community are given their due recognition.
A book captioned, “Magic Weavers in IP,” which is a curation of the experiences of women engaged in Intellectual Property creation and rights and compiled by Pooja Bhatia, was released at the event.