Hyderabad, NFAPost: Embracing innovation and building on a commitment to “Creating tomorrow today”, GMR group launched a Blockchain Centre of Excellence (CoE) as part of the expansion of GMR Innovex. Telangana Principal Secretary of the Industries and Commerce (I&C) and Information Technology (IT) Jayesh Ranjan was the Chief Guest on the occasion.
The GMR Innovex – Blockchain Centre of Excellence will identify and incubate startups and catalyze innovative product development under the guidance of business leaders and domain experts in association with blockchain technology partners.
The Blockchain CoE will provide access to the required infrastructure and labs to start-ups, SMEs for the development and validation of solutions and services, from design to prototyping. It will also enable thought leadership, research, and training programs for upskilling in the field of blockchain.
GMR Innovex signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Idealabs, Polygon, Koinearth, India Blockchain Forum and Veroince to explore opportunities, identify blockchain technology related use cases for airports and ancillary business.
Speaking on this occasion, GMR Airports ED-South and Chief Innovation Officer SGK Kishore said GMR is excited to launch the Blockchain CoE for the group, which intends to work with various Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) technology players, to build a slew of applications for the distributed technology landscape.
“We believe the industry is slowly emerging with respect to utility and value that DLT systems present, specifically for a multi-stakeholder environment like airports. We already have use-cases that we are ear marking to build on which will help create transparency, trust, data bartering and shared value and experience for our partners and customers,” said GMR Airports ED-South and Chief Innovation Officer SGK Kishore.
India Blockchain Forum President Prasanna Lohar said India Blockchain Forum, is excited to partner with GMR Innovex on its journey to building the CoE and building enterprise class Apps.
“We believe being Foundational Technology, Blockchain has lot of applicability and relevance in the broader aviation space. We should see this collaboration will bring much needed innovation for aviation space,” said India Blockchain Forum President Prasanna Lohar.
Polygon Vice President Global Enterprises Arpit Sharma said Polygon is happy to partner with GMR Innovex, for the blockchain CoE program.
“We will look at a platform approach for various GMR business use cases from an enterprise blockchain standpoint,” Polygon Vice President Global Enterprises Arpit Sharma.
Idealabs Future Tech Ventures Founder Pankaj Diwan said blockchain is emerging as the biggest disruptor in business after the advent of internet with a potential to transform entire business ecosystems.
“Idealabs is happy to partner with GMR Group and GMR Innovex for the Blockchain CoE. We are excited to help the GMR Innovex Blockchain CoE develop internal blockchain competency and explore relevant use cases in the airport ecosystem,” said Idealabs Future Tech Ventures Founder Pankaj Diwan.
GMR Innovex has onboarded Mr. Pankaj Diwan as the Chief Evangelist for leading the GMR Innovex Blockchain CoE, who has been associated with blockchain related activities for long time. He will also be supported by a group of blockchain advisors who are an expert grouping and practitioners in different industry vertical. We believe this will allow us to both learn about blockchain use-cases that’s been applied in various industries and also offer insights into use-cases that will help us in aviation and ancillary industries.
The Blockchain CoE will run several innovation activities such as hackathons and startup accelerators to boost the innovation and startup activity in the blockchain space. GMR Innovex Blockchain CoE has partnered with and will continue to work with many more DLT tech firms, to provide world class technology expertise and platform.
As per Grand View Research, the global blockchain technology market size was valued at USD 5.92 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 85.9% from 2022 to 2030. The market growth can be attributed to the increasing venture capital funding in blockchain technology companies.
About GMR-Innovex
GMR-Innovex, the new business vertical of GMR Group was launched in April 2021. Dedicated to driving and fostering innovation, GMR Innovex operates on an “Open Innovation” model, acting as an “Innovation Exchange”. With a vision to drive future initiatives and growth, the platform collaborates with startups, corporates, innovation platforms, research institutions and academia.
GMR Innovex will focus on innovations across both digital and non-digital domains to deliver improved efficiency, better customer experience and higher value to all stakeholders. It will create a structured mechanism to build creative ideas, nurture and foster them, and build a Go-To-Market strategy for all successful initiatives.
It will provide an avenue for its partners to work on their ideas and bring it to a forum to validate. The advantage that this exchange brings in is that collaborators can also try their products/services at GMR Innovex across a very large landscape of Airports, Air Cargo, MRO, Logistics, and other Infrastructure sectors.
GMR Innovex has innovation-focused partnerships with multiple new partners including Airbus; Plug and Play (leading global corporate innovation platform); Swedish Institute (SI); T – Hub (Innovation intermediary and business incubator based in Hyderabad); IIT-Hyderabad; International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Schulich Business School (Business School of York University Located in Toronto, Canada). A dedicated new facility for innovation has also been established at the Hyderabad Airport campus to act as a platform for various innovation activities by various collaborating start-ups, industry partners and GMR employees.
