GRADUATING IT TO KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTS
PRESIDENT
A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM GIVES AWAY STPI SOFTWARE EXPORTS AWARDS
The President,
Shri A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gave away the STPI Software Exports Awards
at a function here today. The Minister of Communications, Information
Technology and Disinvestment, Shri Arun Shourie, the Minister
of State for Communications and Information Technology, Shri Su.
Thirunavukkarasar, besides senior officials of the Department
of Information Technology were present. Speaking on the occasion,
the President complimented the Award winners for the significant
contribution they have made in the sphere of software technology.
He urged the IT sector to graduate itself to knowledge products
besides meeting the challenges that were emerging in the sector.
He particularly asked the IT industry to look forward to the convergence
of technologies and to channelise their resources to effectively
meet their social responsibilities.
Following is
the full text of the President’s Address at the function:-
‘I am indeed delighted
to participate in the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI)
Software Exports awards function. I greet all the IT industries
who are receiving the awards today for their significant contribution
in bringing the country's software industry to the global arena.
I also wish those who did not get the award this year, that the
country is grateful to them for what they are doing and sooner
or later, they will also receive this award- because I have the
confidence that you are the best in IT in the world. This function,
I am sure will generate lot of interest which will further enhance
exports by the IT industry. The exponential growth in IT business
is directly related to how much innovation and research results
we continuously inject to invigorate the industry.
Export Challenges
and STPI
We have seen that
growth of IT and telecommunication in India has established that
the data transformed into information has a business proposition
with a competitive advantage. I am sure by the end of this decade,
entire India will have IT enabled services in the fields of customer
interaction, finance and accounting, data search and integration,
tele-education, tele-medicine and e-governance. Our core competencies
that can be deployed in addition to what has been planned in 1998
include Information Security, Scientific Software Development,
e-Governance, Tele-education, hardware and chip design and wireless.
If we work and promote these areas with our core competencies,
many Indian IT companies will soon become MNCs. Indian IT industries
when they are working with various countries in business mode
and partnership mode, recently some hesitations have been seen
in a few instances in utilizing Indian know how. Whereas we see
in our country we allow large number of business corporates to
start IT product industries without any hesitation whatsoever
and we treat the IT professionals from other countries with utmost
respect. I can see a need for a policy discussion for ensuring
that the relationship between MNCs/Industries of other countries
and our Indian IT industries is built on a framework of mutual
trust and respect in a two way street.
Convergence of
Technologies
The technologies
are converging together to provide a quality of service (QOS)
with the reduced infrastructural setup. The information technology
and communication technology have already converged leading to
Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Now, nano-technology
is knocking at our doors. It is the field of the future that will
replace micro electronics and many fields with tremendous application
potential in the areas of medicine, electronics and material science.
When nano technology and ICT meet, an integrated silicon electronics,
photonics is born and it can be said that material convergence
may happen. With material convergence and biotechnology linked,
a new science called Intelligent Bioscience will be born which
leads to a disease free, happy and more intelligent human habitat
with longevity and super human capabilities.
Achieving global
Competitiveness
We should realize
a situation, our industry employing 500,000 people earning $10
billion which is less than one percent of the world market, from
another perspective. At the same time a typical international
software company with 50,000 employees earns $ 20 billion through
its world wide operations. I suggest that the Governments, Industry
and the academia can take this issue of increasing the domestic
IT segment through strong and sustainable use of IT for education,
health care and e-Governance by bringing out a roadmap. Based
on the current trend, if we have to reach $ 80 Billion we will
have to multiply our workforce 8 times which may not make our
operations competitive. Hence our software industry has to move
up the value chain and come up with innovative products that will
have a commercial impact in the international market. I am confident
that the Indian IT Industry would soon come up with such mega
initiatives.
Knowledge Products
We need to attain
self reliance in the infrastructural software sector with the
knowledge products, where the domain applications can be developed
and deployed for the services sector. It is essential to channelize
our resources from the industry, academic institutions and research
organizations and setting up the incubation centers in collaboration
with each other in the different parts of the country. These incubation
centers will continuously feed the technologies to the industries.
The student community is a big resource, the IT industries in
their own interest; have to equip the educational institutions
to harness the power of the student community. For effective competitiveness
with the research results, innovation as said, an effective triangle
of industries, researchers from academia/R&D and the student
community, it is possible to develop innovative products in the
domains of General Purpose Operating Systems, Real Time Operating
Systems through open source initiative, Embedded Operating Systems
to run the real time and mission critical applications for the
defence, space and aerospace applications, VLSI design, smart
card sector with a multiple authentication technology built-in
card with embedded encryption technology for the National ID Card
Initiative, Application Servers framework for middle tier business
applications, Relational and Object oriented Database management
systems domain, Indian Traditional Digital Security Algorithms
through our languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil and others which
have unique encryption capabilities.
Value addition
through Bioinformatics
The convergence of
bioscience and IT into Bioinformatics has given the thrust to
researchers for genomics-based drug discovery and development.
Pressure is mounting over the pharmaceutical companies to reduce
or at least control costs, and have a growing need for new informatics
tools to help manage the influx of data from genomics, and turn
that data into tomorrow's drugs. Indian IT industry has a tremendous
opportunity in the drug development.
e-Waste
When IT industry
grows into 10 times more IT business, a new situation will emerge
what is called e-Waste, such as old hardware in the form of discarded
electronic devices, computers, monitors, televisions and other
electronic boards etc, which are today non degradable. Hence there
is business proposition of research, development and production
of technology for building a biodegradable electronic materials
and possibly wearable computer products.
Single window
Smart media Convergent System (SMCS)
In India, unlike
in many developed countries, the Internet penetration is much
lower than the PC penetration, PC penetration is much lower than
the Cell Phone penetration, Cell Phone penetration is much lower
than Land Line Telephone penetration and the Telephone penetration
is much lower than the TV penetration. Though the cost of TV and
the PC are comparable, one prefers to invest on TV than the PC
since people finds much larger utility for the TV for entertainment.
Imagine the amount of information a villager gets for about Rs
200 a month- nearly 70 channels, more than 6 MHz per channel -
nearly like a PC with lesser bandwidth in single direction. Hence,
the liking for TV is all pervasive.
I am visualizing
a smart media which becomes a single window, a single device that
combines the functionality of TV, VCR, PC, Internet and Telephone,
all at the cost of a TV for our people to avail business opportunities,
benefits of e-governance and e-commerce, quality tele-education
and tele-doctor with voice communication at the home inclusive
of entertainment. The Indian IT industries to be competitive,
a joint research programmes have to get initiated to develop a
Smart Media Convergent System (SMCS) and to build a related business
capabilities.
Conclusion
Information Technology
and knowledge workers have got a tremendous responsibility to
contribute in the areas of infrastructural software's, real-time
software's, smart card and multiple authentication technologies,
and the application domains such as tele-medicine, bioinformatics,
multimedia convergence technologies, tele-education and e-governance
for rural areas apart from their business role. When we develop
knowledge products for the infrastructural domain, it gives a
large business perspective and helps us to compete in the international
market as well as to self sustain and self support IT growth.
I wish all of you
to endeavor to double our IT exports every two years till we become
a developed nation. Thank you.’