WiMAX holds promise for rural India: Craig Barrett

Baramati, Maharashtra, Nov 2 (UNI) Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett today stressed that WiMAX, a standards-based wireless technology that provides high throughput broadband over long distances, holds much promise for rural India.

Addressing a joint press conference with Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar after inaugurating the first ''Digital Hospital'' and WiMAX Network to help equip 100 mobile computer labs here, Dr Barrett said the initiative was part of Intel's ''World Ahead Programme''.

''Education and health-care are the focus areas of the program,'' Dr Barrett, who also represents United Nation's Global Alliance for information and Communication Technologies said. Apart from education and health care, the World Ahead Programme can be useful for self governance and economic development, he added.

In the programme here, the standard use of technology will increase quality of care while lowering health-care costs for patients. Medical knowledge can be accessed from electronic medical records or from doctors and experts in case of critical care patients.

''The IT sector has to adequately service your own population,'' Dr Barrett said while stressing that India can play a key role in Intel's World Ahead Program.

He informed that one billion dollars has been announced by Intel for such Programmes. ''We will invest heavily in Indian opertions and replicate the experience in other countries,'' he said, adding that three billion dollars have been earmarked for WiMAX infrastructure.

To a query, he said that Intel development teams are working in several places like Shanghai, Brazil, Egypt, and Bangalore to create PCs that have tailor-made software and hardware packages to suit local needs.

He said Intel's education programme was successful and the number of trained teachers were the proof of the success of Intel initiatives.

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