Microsoft eggs fellow IT firms to focus on country's challenges

Bangalore, Apr 19 (UNI) Asserting that technology will play a central role in sustaining the country's economic growth, Microsoft India Chairman Ravi Venkatesan today called upon IT companies to join hands to address the challenges being faced by a majority of the population.

Delivering the keynote address at a seminar here on 'India is Innovation', organised by Microsoft, in which top IT professionals from across the country were taking part, he said India was transforming from a low-cost advantage to a hotbed of innovation. At the same time, it was throwing up challenges in the areas of education, unemployment, infrastructure and shortage of talent.

Mr Venkatesan said IT entrepreneurs, who have excelled in their venture in the last few years and benefitted from innovative technology, should come together under one umbrella to address certain basic challenges being faced by the country and work for the betterment of the under-privileged sections of the society.

Detailing the Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives taken up by Microsoft to empower Women SHG groups by building credible micro credit system, Mr Venkatesan said it had yielded positive results. IT companies had a long-term self interest in addressing the basic problems of the common man in the country. A huge chunk of human resources had been left untapped in the country and one should not see it as a liability, but consider it as potential assets.

He maintained that mere e-governance could not help in any way unless there was an attempt to address other problems, including ensuring easy access to technology, accoutability in governance and solving impediments being faced by the agriculture sector. UNI MV GD GM1321