Vision for IT Sector in India

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Vision for IT Sector in India the next step

• By
• PANKAJ AGRAWALA
• Joint Secretary
• Govt. of India
• Department of Information Technology
• Min. of Communications and IT
• New Delhi

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Vision

• India has the potential to become a significant
  player in Global knowledge economy.
• Let us work to enhance Indian share in global
  markets from about 1 to 10 in the long-term.
• Key to success lies in long term research

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Focus

• Identify specific steps and areas for action
• The next step is to give the right impetus to RD
  in IT
• Telecom is another key areas for growth of
  knowledge economy
• The stake holders could be DIT / DOT / MTNL /
  BSNL/C-DOT / ITI/Other related Academic/ research
  agencies
• The next step
• Cyberspace is a New World
• Exponential growth means constant radical change
• This new world needs explorers, pioneers, and
  settlers
• Pioneering research pays off in the long-term

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The next step

• Cyberspace is a New World
• Exponential growth means constant radical change
• This new world needs explorers, pioneers, and
  settlers
• Pioneering research pays off in the long-term

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The next step..Contd.

• Long-term research is a public good
• The funding agencies to shift the focus to
  long-term research.
• By making larger and longer-term grants, we hope
  that university researchers will be able to
  attack larger and more ambitious problems

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Long Range Research Goals

• What makes a good long range research goal?
• -understandable
• -challenging
• -useful
• -Testable
• -Incremental
• -scalability

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Turings Vision of Machine Intelligence

• Alan Turing had predicted in 1950, that computers
  would be intelligent in 50 years with capacities
  of the order of 10 to the power 9 as against
  human memory of the order of 10 to the power
  12-15.
• This has happened and continues..
• Three more predictions
• prosthetic hearing,
• speech,
• and vision

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Bushs Memex

• Personal Memex Record everything a person sees
  and hears, and quickly retrieve any item on
  request
• World Memex Build a system that given a text
  corpus, can answer questions about the text and
  summarize the text as precisely and quickly as a
  human expert in that field. Do the same for
  music, images, art, and cinema

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Telepresence

• Telepresence Simulate being some other place
  retrospectively as an observer
• -(Tele Observer) hear and see as well as
  actually being there, and as well as a
  participant, and simulate being some other place
  as a participant
• -(Tele Present) interacting with others and with
  the environment as though you are actually there.

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Future systems

• Trouble free systems Build a system used by
  millions of people each day and yet administered
  and managed by a single part-time person
• Dependable Systems
• Secure System Assure that the trouble free
  system services authorized users and information
  cannot be stolen (and prove it.)
• Always Up Assure that the system is unavailable
  for less than one second per hundred years
  i.e.99.999999 or eight 9s of availability
  (and prove it.)

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Future systems(contd.)

• Automatic Programmer Device a specification
  language or user interface that
• (a) makes it easy for people to express designs
  (1,000x easier)
• (b) computer can compile, and
• (c) can describe all applications (design is
  complete)

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The Indian RD Landscape

• Research in National Laboratories (NPL, C-DAC,
  CEERI, IISc., TIFR, ECIL, C-DoT, ISRO
• Research in Academia (IITs, BITs, RECs, IISc)
• Research in Private Sector (IBM, SUN, Microsoft,
  HP, Motorola, HFCL, HCL, SCL etc.

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Objectives of RD

• Timely development of replacement of products
  being phased out
• Reduction of production cost to increase yield
• Reduction in environmental effect
• Reduction in energy consumption
• Innovation to open up new markets
• Innovation to increase market share
• RD to increase production flexibility
• RD to improve cycle time

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Importance of RD

• Most developed/ developing countries put 5-20 of
  profit margin in RD. Their Govt. Spending in
  RD is also about 5 of GDP
• Most MNCs grow with focus on research. Cisco is
  the leader in research with RD spending at 14
  of Revenues
• Indian companies and govt. deptts. should follow
  suit.

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Factors limiting RD in India

• Lack of government support
• Inadequate support services and proper
  infrastructure in place such as roads, railways,
  airports etc.
• Perceived risks too high
• Political instability

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Strengths and Primary Drivers of RD in India

• Large pool of intellectual capital
• Cheap availability of manpower
• Global recognition of Indian brains and skills
• Rapid approach to globalization
• English as a medium of education
• Fast growing middle class group
• Quality at low cost

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Opportunity Areas in IT

• Grid computing
• Broadband proliferation
• Converged/networked devices
• Miniaturization and personalization
• Offshore sourcing India as RD hub
• RFID Tags for tracking and identification i.e.
  smart cards
• Biometric devices to carry money or for
  identification
• 3 dimensional image processing and holographic
  images
• Develop affordable PCs and telephony

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THANK YOU