Meet Mitra, the robot designed by Bengaluru firm and made in China

When Bengaluru-based robotics start-up Invento came up with an idea for an intelligent robot, they had the skills to design and conceive the prototype, but not to manufacture it. So, the group headed to China and scoured the manufacturing hubs of Shenzhen and Dongguan, before finding the suppliers to flesh out their vision.

The result is Mitra, a robot that is already functioning in a Canara Bank branch in Bengaluru, welcoming clients, and it will soon headed for hospitals and movie theatres in India, welcoming patients and reminding them of their medical history, while offering suggestions for movie-goers based on their past visits.

Four prototypes, moulded in a Dongguan factory with circuit boards from Shenzhen, are currently being shipped to India. If the company is successful, hundreds more may be on the way.

"The software is all from India, which is around 80 per cent, but the hardware had to be good enough so we turned to China," explained Balaji Viswanathan, co-founder and CEO of the company Invento, as he showcased the idea to Chinese companies and potential investors on Wednesday in Dalian, a northeastern Chinese tech hub that hosted a rare meeting of Indian and Chinese tech companies.

Today, the Dalian government signed a first of its kind MoU with Nasscom, the Indian National Association of Software and Services Companies, to take forward the long-heralded coming together of Indian software and Chinese hardware that has been generally slow to crystallise.

The MoU says the Dalian government will help Indian IT companies set up units , and more importantly, "Promote the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing companies of Dalian and assist Indian software companies in expanding international market."

The Mitra case-study, although still at a nascent stage, has been seen as an example of what collaboration could achieve.

"This is another example that shows there is a lot to benefit from if we combine our respective strengths when we move towards smart manufacturing," said Gagan Sabharwal, Senior Director, Global Trade Development, NASSCOM. "With the new Digital wave, today we have a unique opportunity to merge hardware and software together to create smart solutions for the world."

Viswanathan now hopes to find a market in China for Mitra, and will be bringing the 5-foot-tall robot for future demonstrations. He is also in China looking for potential investors and local companies to partner with on the sourcing side.

Mitra's mould comes from Dongguan, a massive manufacturing hub in the southern Guangdong province. Its motherboard and source motors and controllers are from Shenzhen. It also has a Russian component, an indoor positioning system.

"We actually came to China for quality and efficiency, not for cost," says Viswanathan, saying the nature of Chinese manufacturing is changing rapidly and gone beyond the "cheap China" image that is still pervasive.

He believes there is a potential market for the robot in China, despite the massive domestic robotics industry. "We offer what they don't have yet, which is 99.2 per cent face recognition, the ability to build conversations and a natural language understanding, and a unique navigation system," he says.

Mitra, he points out, is named after the Vedic deity that symbolises good agreements and treaties, as well as trust. The name was originally intended to signal the relationship between Invento and its customers, but if the robot blazes a trail, it may well end up with a larger message for India and China.