R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM
R Chandrashekhar,
President, NASSCOM
As the eINDIA 2014 moves towards conclusion, it is a good time to look back at the entire idea of Digital India. In fact, eINDIA and Digital India are different words to express the saame idea, though the difference lies in the fact that eINDIA continues to go well in line with e-Governance, while Digital India has to go a long way.
We are all in this event as either a part of technology enabler or a technology seeker, and are quite optimistic about the impact that Digital India will make in the coming times. However, people not a part of this gathering could be of different opinion and skeptical about the future of Digital India – whether it is a real vision or a pipedream! I, like many of the people present here, think it to be an idea whose time has actually arrived. What has given us this confidence is not the development occurring in the e-Governance space but the strength that we have in mobile space.
In last 10 years or so, we have observed that the number of mobile connections has reached from 100 million to a billion. We have not seen such kind of growth in this sector anywhere in the world except China. It is truly unprecedented in the history of any country that things are happening at such a fast pace and to such a magnitude, offering great opportunities. We also have an IT industry that commands around 52 percent of share in global outsourcing, has reach in 78 countries and enables 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies to remain competitive in the global market.
Another reason for the optimism here is the simultaneously occurring global evolution – whether it is social media or Cloud or some other technology. What we will see ahead is possibly a crowd-sourced tsunami.
