India, Sweden ink pact to collaborate on solutions for smart cities, clean tech

India and Sweden launched a joint programme that will work towards addressing a range of challenges around smart cities and clean technologies among others. The programme was co-funded by Indian Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Swedish agency Vinnova.
Vinnova will provide funding to Swedish participants up to 2,500,000 Swedish Krona (around Rs 1.87 crore) as grant. On the Indian side, conditional grant of up to 50 per cent (with a limit of Rs 1.5 crore) per project will be provided to the Indian partners.
“The India-Sweden Collaborative Industrial Research and Development Programme will see Swedish and Indian innovators work together and develop solutions that benefit both sides,” Klas Molin, Ambassador of Sweden to India, said.
“We are looking at deepening cooperation in the areas of smart cities, energy, digitalisation, life sciences as well as developing our startup communities,” he said.
Molin highlighted that a ‘triple helix’ model of innovation that involves participation of government, industry and academia would be useful as these partners can work towards using new technologies like artificial intelligence to develop solutions that help meet goals of sustainable development.