Today, all over the world, India is identified with information technology. However, ICT contributes only 2.5% of our GDP and about 20% of our total exports. Although our ICT industry has reached $20 billion, it’s a small part of the $3 trillion world industry pie. But we have the fastest momentum in this arena. I would like the knowledge technology to become the centerstage of India’s development. By 2020, ICT, along with biotechnology (BT) and nanotechnology (NT) should contribute 25% to India’s GDP, what agriculture contributes today. About 50% of India’s exports should be from these knowledge-based technologies.When we talk of the ICT industry, there is a wide-scale misconception that while India is good in software, it’s China that’s at the centerstage in hardware and we have little chance there. India’s poor show in hardware is not due to her inherent weakness, but singularly due to government apathy and wrong hardware manufacturing policies and poor infrastructure to support manufacturing. We need to wake up and announce an enlightened framework for hardware manufacturing. If this is done, I have no doubt that India will also play a dominant role in electronics and telecom equipment manufacture too. We can also create world-class virtual semiconductor foundries in India.

I believe that if we have to sustain the present growth rate of over 25% in the first half of this century, then we will have to emerge as a technology and product creator of this industry on a global scale rather than remaining merely as a software development or ITeS provider. The good news is that India is already emerging as the R&D hub in IT and the world IT giants are shifting here their R&D outfits here. This is a paradigm shift indeed!

In order to become innovators over and above service providers and to continuously push the value-added envelope forward, we will have to create great institutions for education and research in ICT. It is in this context that I had envisioned the creation of the International Institute of Information Technology in Pune.

Let us not forget the problem of ‘digital divide’. IT has not significantly impacted the common man of India; telecom has. Our computer and Internet penetration is very poor. I had given a proposal to the government for making available a standard multimedia PC at a cost of a good CTV. Internet access has to become pervasive and affordable. That is why I had initiated multilingual technology development at C-DAC to reach out to 93% population that does not understand English. We have also initiated world’s largest computer literacy program through ETH Research Lab and Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd. Through this program, over 500,000 people have become computer literate in the last 18 months. My vision is to have the largest number of computer literate people of the world in India by 2010.

Finally, we must recognize that India’s true wealth is its knowledge-based heritage and culture which began from the Vedic times, some 5,000 years back. India was world’s first knowledge-based civilization. ‘Veda’ means knowledge; not any knowledge, but the supreme knowledge, knowing which every other knowledge is known. India’s ascent and ultimate destiny is this supreme knowledge. And this message is embedded in India’s original name ‘Bharat’. Bha means knowledge, rather enlightenment, and rat means the society which is joyfully engaged in the pursuit of knowledge. That is the destiny of India.

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