ESTIC-2025: From Ceremony to Catalyst
- Dr Sp Mishra
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
A Bold Reimagining of Indian Science (Blog # 131)
In a landmark decision, the Government of India has announced that the century-old Indian Science Congress (ISC) will be replaced by a new, future-focused event — the Emerging Science, Technology & Innovation Conclave (ESTIC). This is not merely a rebranding; it is a deliberate pivot from symbolic ceremonies to a dynamic platform for national transformation.
Scheduled for 3–5 November 2025 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, ESTIC aims to bring together India’s best scientific minds, innovators, entrepreneurs, and policymakers. According to the Department of Science & Technology (DST), which is organizing the event, ESTIC will focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, and translation — ensuring that scientific research leads to real-world applications.
This shift comes at a pivotal moment. The themes — artificial intelligence, green energy, quantum computing, biotechnology, and space exploration — are not just academically intriguing; they represent India’s response to global challenges like climate change, healthcare inequity, and digital divides.
However, ambition without execution risks turning ESTIC into yet another grand conference — visually impressive but short on sustained impact. India has seen too many promising forums fade into the archives of annual reports. For ESTIC to endure, it must go beyond symbolism and connect with everyday India — classrooms, teacher-training programs, community innovators, and, most critically, the nation’s 250 million schoolchildren and 40 million college students.
These young Indians are the wellspring of tomorrow’s innovation economy. If ESTIC is to catalyze real change, it must reach them directly — nurturing a culture where problem-solving becomes instinct, entrepreneurship a respected career, and science a social movement.
To achieve that, future editions of ESTIC should rebalance toward a 70% industry-focused and 30% academic orientation — aligning discussions with real market needs, funding realities, and job creation. Below are three actionable steps to realize this youth-centric, industry-driven vision — followed by a citizen-led initiative already laying the groundwork.
1. Bring the Conclave into Every Classroom
Picture this: in a village school in Rajasthan or a bustling Mumbai college, students gather around a screen as ESTIC-2025 streams live on Doordarshan’s YouTube channel. On one panel, a startup founder explains a new AI tool for rural healthcare; on another, an engineer demonstrates low-cost solar batteries.
This isn’t science from afar — it’s science made accessible.
Doordarshan (DD), in collaboration with DST and other ministries, already uses YouTube for national broadcasts and educational events. Leveraging this existing infrastructure — trusted, multilingual, and available on mobile devices — would instantly bring ESTIC into millions of classrooms.
But passive viewing won’t suffice. The real transformation lies in curated, age-appropriate content:
Ten-minute explainers for younger students, simplifying how sensors or drones work through home experiments.
Twenty-minute career-focused talks for high school and college audiences featuring young entrepreneurs and engineers.
Interactive live sessions — moderated by DD anchors — where students vote on innovation challenges or post questions in real time.
Imagine a Class 12 student in Odisha commenting live during a manufacturing CEO’s session on indigenous sensors — that’s when innovation becomes personal.
Schools could log participation for CBSE/ICSE credits, while colleges could tie ESTIC sessions to innovation or entrepreneurship electives. With regional-language streams (Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, etc.) and YouTube auto-captions, inclusivity would be built in.
If executed well, this approach could expose nearly 290 million young Indians to real-world problem-solving each year — turning curiosity into careers.
2. Empower Teachers as Knowledge Multipliers
India’s 9 million teachers are the backbone of its learning ecosystem — and they can be the multipliers of ESTIC’s mission. Yet most educators rarely engage directly with industry or entrepreneurship. To bridge this gap, ESTIC could make teachers its strongest allies.
How? By embedding structured professional-development into the Conclave’s ecosystem:
Teachers complete industry-linked viewing hours through DD’s YouTube sessions, featuring practical discussions on topics like local manufacturing, renewable energy, or AI in agriculture.
Post-viewing, they receive downloadable toolkits — lesson plans, case studies, and “how-to” guides for classroom innovation projects. These could be co-developed by NCERT, UGC, and DST.
Participation could be certified through digital badges or credits, contributing to teacher promotion and continuous professional development.
A physics teacher, for instance, could translate an ESTIC panel on “smart factories” into a hands-on classroom project on sensor-based automation using low-cost Arduino kits. Similarly, a biology teacher might convert an AI-health-tech demo into a coding challenge for diagnostic apps.
Post-conclave, Industry-Teacher Connect sessions — live forums hosted on DD or government portals — could allow educators to interact with experts from MSMEs, startups, or unicorns.
The result: teachers evolve from content transmitters into career guides. With proper incentives and support, they become catalysts in preparing students for future-ready roles — sensor engineers, green-tech innovators, AI entrepreneurs — directly linked to India’s growth story.
3. Crowdsource India’s Real Challenges — and Build Careers on Solutions
For ESTIC to stay relevant, its agenda must reflect real-world Indian problems — not just lab-based research themes. Imagine a national crowdsourcing platform, open year-round, where citizens, students, startups, and local innovators submit the challenges they see around them: energy inefficiency, waste management, water scarcity, or logistics bottlenecks.
During ESTIC broadcasts, selected challenges could be featured on DD, debated by experts, and transformed into hackathons and innovation drives. Winners could gain mentoring, seed funding, or pilot opportunities with industries or municipalities.
A citizen-driven model for this already exists — the India Career Centre’s “India’s Challenges” initiative at www.indiacareercentre.com/indiaschallenges.
This is an independent initiative, not backed by the government or any private organization (yet), but built to demonstrate how collective problem-solving can power national innovation.
Here, individuals post real-life problems, and others — students, teachers, startups — respond with practical solutions. Submissions range from sensor import substitution to solar irrigation, AI health kiosks, and smart-waste segregation.
Examples:
#1 Energy: Low-cost, long-life solar battery systems for rural households.
#2 Urban Infrastructure: Affordable sensor-based bins for automatic waste segregation.
#3 Healthcare: Portable AI kiosks for remote diagnostics.
#4 Agriculture: Data-driven irrigation systems using solar power.
#5 Manufacturing: Indigenous gas and optical sensors to reduce import dependence.
Each problem carries the potential to spawn a career pathway — from startup incubation to industry collaboration.
If ESTIC were to officially integrate or endorse such a model, it could become India’s largest open-innovation ecosystem — connecting 290 million youth with real, solvable national challenges. But even without formal affiliation, India’s Challenges proves that citizen-led platforms can pioneer the spirit of innovation ESTIC seeks to inspire.
Future ESTIC Events: A Conclave with Consequence
India doesn’t need another ceremonial gathering; it needs a catalyst for transformation.
future ESTIC can become that — if it moves beyond plenary sessions to shape what happens in schools, homes, and workplaces across the country.
290 million students watching industry solve real problems on DD-YouTube.
9 million teachers guiding them with ESTIC-based toolkits.
Citizen-led platforms like India’s Challenges turning local issues into opportunities for startups, careers, and national progress.
With its inaugural edition, ESTIC offers a rare opportunity: to unite academia, industry, and citizens under one innovation mission — Viksit Bharat 2047.
To make it count, we must move from conversation to collaboration — from a conclave to a continuous national movement.
ESTIC-2025 isn’t just an event. It’s the launchpad of India’s innovation century.
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