With children exposed to technology and innovation like never before, the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) has prepared a presentation for school kids to spread intellectual property (IP) awareness amongst the young. It is hopeful of launching it soon.

To begin with, the DIPP has written to the CBSE, the state public schools association in Delhi and the Delhi government to allow it to make presentations to students on the basics of IP. “The idea is to make children curious about IP and also teach them to respect it. We are starting with Delhi and will spread the initiative throughout the country eventually,” an official in the DIPP told BusinessLine.

The presentation, prepared with the help of the International Trademark’s Association (INTA), is a power point with a lot of pictures, situations from daily lives, interesting questions thrown at the kids and puzzles. “We want to attract students through attractive concepts instead of using boring definitions,” the official said.

For instance, the presentation deals with questions such as who can be a creator or innovator and whether things like downloading music or movies from sites like ‘Torrent’ is legal.

As both filing and commercialisation of patents is low in the country (less than 3 per cent of the patents are commercialised), the DIPP wants to catch potential innovators young so that they get interested in innovation and would be familiar with IPR and its scope, the official added.

While the 40-minute presentation, aimed at children from class 6 to class 10, is now designed as a one-time exercise, there could be follow-ups if schools show interest. “We are open to doing follow-ups if the presentations generate a lot of interest and schools ask for more,” the official said.

The DIPP is also targeting college students to spread awareness on IPRs, but at a much more technical level. “Our programmes in colleges and universities will have a two-pronged approach as we would be dealing with students who are ready to be innovators. There will be a two-three hour session for the students who are interested in the subject and we would also circulate ready-made material with instructions on how exactly to go about it,” the official said.

The programme for colleges will take some more time firm up but the DIPP hopes to be ready with it next year.