International Institute of Information Technology

(Formerly Indian Institute of Information Technology)

DEEMED UNIVERSITY

Gachibowli, Hyderabad 500 019, Andhra Pradesh

Telephone: 91-40-23001967   Fax: 91-40-23001413

URL: http://www.iiit.net & http://www.iiit.ac.in

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

“India to be the IT Hub of the World”

says President, NASSCOM

 

 

International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad conducted 4th Open House in the form of “R&D Showcase-05” on its Gachibowli Campus on Friday, 11 March where Mr Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM delivered lecture in the Distinguished Lecture Series on ‘Importance of Research for Competitiveness in IT’.

 

Mr Karnik traced the historical growth of Industry from land, labour intensive days to wealth and capital era. Now the world is moving towards knowledge based industry based on intellectual property. He highlighted the need of automation in software development processes, which is the need of the hour. Discussing the changing world scenario relevant to India, Mr Karnik informed that competition in services industry is becoming global and one who is competitive in quality, as well as the price, will be the leader. The challenge thrown open in goods and services sector by opening up due to WTO initiatives, are tremendous opportunities for India, especially in the field of Information Technology.

 

Mr Karnik covered at length, the advantage India has at present, which can be leveraged and scaling capability to become a leader in providing solutions. Stressing the needs for innovative research and the India’s strength in diversity, as well as adoptability to the changing environment, the time has arrived where automation and machines will be able to deliver the much needed services. India’s challenge lies in using our young generation’s creativity and skill to capture different areas of industry in India, as well as abroad. He stressed the need for closer industry and academia interaction and taking on cutting edge, relevant research work in various institutions, to get the much needed competitive edge.

 

Mr Karnik informed that recently the Government has done major funding in Education and Science & Technology sector; and selecting Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, as world class institution by giving 100 crores. He informed that recent recommendation of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) to the Prime Minister, has further recommended setting up two more centres of innovative research, each being funded to the tune of Rs.500 crores. He also conveyed to the audience that setting up of a National Scientific and Research Foundation has also been accepted by the Government in principle involving an outlay of Rs.1000 crores to build the much needed research base in the country.

 

In his concluding remarks Mr Kiran Karnik was optimistic of India becoming a major Research Hub of the world. He quoted the IC revolution of Silicon era, followed by India and Chinese era and now IC revolution will imply Innovative and Creativity.

 

The lecture was attended by large number of invitees from IT Industry, Government Sector and Academia, including student community from IIIT and other Engineering Colleges. There was interesting discussion, where Mr Karnik explained the focus Indian IT Industry must have to support research work, if India has retain its present edge. The setting up of major MNC R&D Centre in the country, is a clear indication of India’s advantage.

 

Prof Rajeev Sangal, Director, IIIT who chaired the distinguished lecture session, highlighted the efforts being made in IIIT to strengthen the research urge among the student community and informed that today’s R&D Showcase is one more step in this direction. Last week IIIT had invited over 250 students from different engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh, for two days and exposed them to Excitement of Research’.

 

After the distinguished lecture, the R&D Showcase – 2005 exhibiting over 100 research projects being undertaken by IIIT were on display for the visitors. The R&D Showcase will be open upto 1900hrs tomorrow Saturday, 12 March 2005 for visitors. Some of the important projects using following technologies are being demonstrated:

 

Visual Information Technologies
Human Language Technologies
Data Engineering
VLSI and Embedded Systems
Networking & Security
Building Science
Earthquake Engineering
Bioinformatics
Energy Relations in Nucleic acids
Education
IT for Power

 

 

 

 

Maj Gen (Retd) Dr R K Bagga AVSM
Advisor (Outreach Div) & SCSL
Chairman, Div VII (Data Security) CSI
email: rbagga@iiit.net; bagga@computer.org