The 1st meeting of the Global Leadership Task Force of Corporates on Innovation constituted by the International Solar Alliance (ISA) was convened, Saturday evening, in New Delhi.

The meeting was chaired by Mr. Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO, SoftBank Group Corp. and convened by FICCI as the convener and secretariat of the Task Force.

This Task Force was set up by ISA on March 6, 2018 to put forth recommendations to promote innovation in the areas of, inter alia, solar finance, solar technologies, solar applications, innovations, R&D and capacity building.

The Task Force will further aid in developing a proper innovation strategy to address challenges faced by the member countries and partner countries of ISA.

This is a private sector-led Task Force under ISA, chaired by Mr. Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO, SoftBank Group Corp.

Members of the Task Force include GE from USA, TOTAL from France, LG Chem from Korea, GCL from China, SMA from Germany, and State Bank of India (SBI) from India. The meeting was organised by FICCI as the convenor and secretariat of The Task Force.

The meeting was attended by all members. Upendra Tripathy, Interim Director General of ISA and Mr Anand Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India addressed the first meeting of the Task Force as special invitees.

One of the key focus areas of the Task Force is to establish Solar Technology Application and Resource-Centre (STAR-C) Centres of Excellence in ISA member countries for creating local capacity for solar innovation, solar R&D, standards, testing, certification, quality control and skills building.

As a run-up to the 1st meeting of the Task Force, ISA and FICCI along with the support of NISE and INES (of France), organized on the previous day (April 27, 2018) an interactive session with Renewable Energy/Solar Energy institutes / R&D institutions of ISA prospective member countries to initiate brainstorming on STAR-C Centres of Excellence. A provisional DPR of STAR-C was presented for deliberations and feedback.

R&D institutes from countries such as Australia, USA, India, France, Finland, Singapore, Kenya and Togo and other key research institutions and representatives from National Focal Points of ISA participated in this session.