Bio: Subhash R Ghosh is the founder of Technoplat (a global platform that incubates and grows tech scale-ups). He also founded and organises #TechTuesdaysUK, a technology knowledge platform for tech innovators that hosts a hybrid monthly sessions in London on the first Tuesday of every month.
Q: How does Technoplat integrate AI into its venture-building process to support startups?
Over the last couple of years, AI has become a phenomenon of sorts. We've been using AI processes since we launched Technoplat in 2017.
We use AI primarily to give an initial level of filtering in terms of understanding company status, because our recruitment process is fairly different from any other traditional incubator, accelerator / venture builder. Our AI process helps us eliminate the kind of companies where we may not be in a position to contribute based on our expertise, HR and the kind of mentors we have.
We also use AI is to find out what exponential growth we can build up in terms of forecasting that particular technology or that particular cohort whom we intend to incubate. So we know exactly where they are currently in their growth stage, where they're coming from, and where we can scale them.
Q: What key AI trends are you seeing shaping the future of tech startups in the UK, Asia and the MENA regions?
So, AI is all over — it's becoming a default. One can pretty much see AI in every domain when you look around.
Having said that, to take a deviation from the technical part, we have another initiative called #TechTuesdaysUK, which is a technology knowledge platform. It's amongst the most popular ones in the UK since we launched it in January 2023.
We've run over 29 episodes since since the time we launched #TechTuesdaysUK and we organised few episodes on the various aspects of AI, and we also run two consecutive episodes on AI & Ethics.
The reason I mention this is because, on one hand, we already have a number of applications of AI across the sectors, and on the other, the next big wave is — 'Agentic AI' — which uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems. 'Agentic AI' is set to transform many service providers, such as those in financial services and customer support.
But at the same time, with every passing day, as AI is making more entries to our daily lives, we are also getting more conscious on the potential threats / repercussions of how AI is going to react in its fullest avatar. This exactly where raises the question of AI and Ethics, or what we call conscious technology is coming up big-time.
We need to be conscious of what AI can do for us and what AI should not do for us.
And to conclude on this, the topic of the next episode of #TechTuesdaysUK, taking place on the 6th of May is 'Agentic AI'. (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7303532362062090242)
Q: Given the kind of companies that you incubate, what proportion of them are AI compared to another tech?
The way we look at it, we don't look at AI as a vertical. We look at AI as a technology horizontal. So, the application of AI can be, for example in SpaceTech, in Financial Services or FinTech for that matter, or in AgriTech, and so on. But to answer your questions, we continue to remain focus on few sectors: AgriTech, FinTech, HealthTech, SpaceTech, TMT and Social Impact.
Within these, we onboard those scale-ups companies which are using AI and where we see an opportunity for technology in the growth process of these scale-ups.
I would say anything between 60 to 70 per cent of the companies that we have onboarded so far have embedded AI in some form or the other, which is encouraging.
Q: How do you ensure AI ecosystems are developing ethical solutions?
As I mentioned earlier, ethics is integral in the AI space. You’ve got to have it.
Given the way technology is moving forward and the way innovation is happening in the AI space, it's important to have a set of guidelines, boundaries and regulations in place so we know exactly to what extent we can go, as well as what we shouldn't do at all. It's good for mankind; not just for technology.
You need to be very sure we should not get into a territory which we cannot control.
Q: How can knowledge platforms like #TechTuesdaysUK provide or promote unbiased and relevant information amongst innovators?
I set up #TechTuesdaysUK about two years back —in January 2023. The whole idea of #TechTuesdaysUK is to democratise knowledge and encourage free-flow discussion. I believe that we have made reasonable success in this journey.
In #TechTuesdaysUK, on the first Tuesdays of every month, we get a curated set of people who are considered Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on a particular topic. In addition, we invite people with a common interest and common knowledge to come to discuss, ideate and nurture the tech topic scheduled for that particular episode.
This creates a huge amount of engagement, interaction, interest, and most importantly, a huge amount of knowledge.
Here’s what we've done in the last two years in 29 episodes—we got together technocrats, government technocrats, innovators, corporate expert professionals and, most importantly, students, from A level and beyond. All of them come together with a common purpose: to share knowledge, give knowledge and empower people.
As a result, with every episode we create a pool of unbiased, neutral, thought provoking and relevant knowledge hub on DeepTech.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to share?
AI is great. But human beings are far greater than AI.
