[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

Earlier in the year in Mumbai, The Indian President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, a rocket engineer and scientist, delivered:

1. The seminal address to a packed hall of CEOs on the concluding day of The NASSCOM Leadership Summit, 2006, which sets the tone of public policy for the Indian software industry; and

2. The valedictory address at the International Conference on Computing in High-Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP'06) organised by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), where the recent CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) of Geneva's grid computing breakthrough of One Gigabyte per second sustained data transfer was announced.

Who is Dr APJ Abdul Kalam?

Nearly 40 years ago a young man -- APJ Abdul Kalam -- stepped into the premises of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) at Colaba, Mumbai, to appear for an interview for the post of a rocket engineer. The youngster, interviewed by Dr Vikram Sarabhai -- Father of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Programme -- and Prof MGK Menon -- Director of TIFR at the time and later Chairman of ISRO -- was selected and on July 18, 1980, he launched India into the space age with the successful flight of the Satellite Launch Vehicle III (SLV-III). Earlier this year, the rocket engineer revisited the institute, which is the cradle of India's space and nuclear programmes, after nearly 40 years, to deliver the valedictory address at CHEP'06.

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is one of the most distinguished scientists of India and became the 11th President of India in 2002. His focus is on transforming India into a developed nation by 2020. He specialised in Aeronautical Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology. Dr Kalam made significant contribution as Project Director to develop India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully injected the Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit in July 1980 and made India an exclusive member of The Space Club. He was responsible for the evolution of ISRO's launch vehicle programme, particularly the PSLV configuration. After working for two decades in ISRO and mastering launch vehicle technologies, Dr Kalam took up the responsibility of developing Indigenous Guided Missiles at Defence Research and Development Organisation as the Chief Executive of Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). He was responsible for the development and operationalisation of "Agni" and "Prithvi" Missiles and for building indigenous capability in critical technologies through networking of multiple institutions. He was the Scientific Adviser to The Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence Research & Development from July 1992 to December 1999. During this period he led to the weaponisation of strategic missile systems and the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in collaboration with the Department of Atomic Energy, which made India a nuclear weapon State. He also gave thrust to self-reliance in defence systems by progressing multiple development tasks and mission projects such as Light Combat Aircraft.

As Chairman of Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) and as an eminent scientist, he has led the country with the help of 500 experts to arrive at Technology Vision 2020 giving a road map for transforming India from the present developing status to a developed nation. Dr Kalam has served as the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, in the rank of Cabinet Minister, from November 1999 to November 2001 and was responsible for evolving policies, strategies and missions for many development applications. Dr Kalam was also the Chairman, Ex-officio, of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SAC-C) and piloted India Millennium Mission 2020. In his literary pursuit four of Dr Kalam's books - "Wings of Fire", "India 2020 - A Vision for the New Millennium", "My journey" and "Ignited Minds - Unleashing the power within India" have become household names in India and among the Indian diaspora. These books have been translated in many Indian languages. He has been awarded the coveted Indian civilian awards - Padma Bhushan (1981), Padma Vibhushan (1990) and the highest civilian award Bharat Ratna (1997). He is a recipient of several other awards and Fellow of many professional institutions.

At the NASSCOM leadership summit, with a 1,500-strong retinue of policemen and security personnel standing on-guard, President Kalam urged the Indian IT industry to:

1. Aim at acquiring 50 per cent of the world IT market;
2. Revise their revenue target to USD 200 billion by 2010 from the current NASSCOM projection of USD 60 billion; and
3. Acquire a lion’s share of the world’s USD 300 billion global offshoring market.

"The NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2005 indicates that the addressable market for global offshoring including BPO is around USD 300 billion presently, whereas we are only tapping 10 per cent of this addressable market," President Kalam said. He also said that India’s cost competitiveness in software products must aim for quality and just-in-time delivery. "Since there are a number of countries competing for the USD 300 billion target, we continuously have to aim high," he said.

According to the Indian President the ITES (Information Technology Enterprise Solutions) and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) sector accounts for 3.5 per cent of the global market, which should be increased to 15 per cent of the global business volume. He asked the IT industry to focus on regions which require IT solutions in education, healthcare, eGovernance and eBusiness. The President said that the booming tech sector should explore new markets in Asia, ASEAN and African nations for achieving sharply higher growth. He also suggested to establish joint ventures with countries such as the Philippines, [South] Korea and other East Asian countries.

"The idea is to look East," he said, stressing that mission was convergence of "Bio", "Nano" and "Info" to make "the world peaceful, prosperous and safe." Citing examples from his visit to [South] Korea, the President also suggested tablet PCs for school students in the range of USD 100-150; embedded systems for use in "consumer durables to defence systems"; and leveraging knowledge products like tele-medicine, tele-education etc to reach the target.

"During my visit to the Philippines I found that they are very keen to work with India in the IT services and the IT sector. I also found that the electronic infrastructure is extremely well developed there," he said. Philippines has a 155 mbps bandwidth connectivity around Manila connecting government, educational and R&D institutions; APAN.NET, established in association with Japan."

He also said that India’s existing policy objectives for Africa should map on to its IT goals so as to establish a "Pan-African eNetwork that connects 53 countries for providing tele-education, tele-medicine and connecting the Heads of State."

The Indian Government is focusing on developing infrastructure in 63 cities, which include many Tier-II cities, President Kalam said in response to the software industry’s demands for better infrastructure to enable expansion into smaller towns and cities. Expansion into Tier-II cities will also reduce the cost of support infrastructure such as buildings, drainage, electricity and water as compared to what is incurred in the big cities, he said. BPOs should be promoted in Tier-II cities with a population of around one million and later extended to smaller towns having a population of about half a million.

At CHEP'06, President Kalam's address, which detailed the importance of networking and grid computing for scientific research as well as for educational purposes and knowledge acquisition, met with an enthusiastic response from both Indian and foreign listeners. With an active participation in the building of the Geneva-based accelerator Large Hadron Collider (LHC), it should be possible for Indian scientists and technologists "to enhance the development and production of Thorium based reactors in the country," President Kalam said.

"The knowledge you have gained and will be gaining in building LHC and the results will be of great utility to many technology ventures in the world," he said while suggesting his ideas to the global scientists attending the conference. To the computing particle Physicists, who are working on LHC, Kalam said one of the greatest challenges for the computing scientists working on such long-term projects is to make sure the technology remains robust and does not become obsolete. On the mission for space research and particle research, he said, "it would be worthwhile to consider the possibility of integrating the data from accelerators, the scientific simulations and the space and ground based observations."

President Kalam said India must aim at enhancing bandwidth immediately, and "as a nation, we must get 1 Gigabit per second connectivity." Addressing some of the world's leading scientists, he said, "I have a vision that bandwidth should be free and made available to all those who need it." Calling on the Government to take the lead in making it available, he dwelt at length on equitable access to education and knowledge in the digital era. Describing it as the "primary goal" of virtual universities, he said availability of high bandwidth would ensure that the best resources were accessible to all participants. "Bandwidth is the demolisher of imbalances and a great leveller in the knowledge society."

Prof Harvey Newman, a leading figure in research networking in the United States, said it was important to quantify the President's vision. President Kalam's vision of the knowledge grid was a great technical challenge and would require Terabytes per second connectivity to implement. It was a programme which, if implemented, would change the way people thought about networks and grids and the way they interacted with each other.

Prof Shobo Bhattacharya, Director, TIFR, said the President's vision was important in a country where high-quality human resources in education were scarce. Institutions such as the TIFR could contribute considerably to education if high-bandwidth networking were available. President Kalam praised the work of Indian high-energy physicists and welcomed their scientific collaboration with the European Centre for High Energy Physics [CERN]. After the valedictory function, he viewed the demonstrations set up to illustrate various high-bandwidth networking applications.

President Kalam said the Indian industries are beginning to understand the importance of fundamental science. "The Indian industries have still not tasted the result of fundamental research and have just begun to understand that if the economic growth of the country has to reach 10 per cent, they need technology which is based on fundamental research," he said in his reply to a query. "There is a realisation with the global competition also," he said adding, for both government and industries, realisation has come and "we are pushing it". When a research student asked on the importance of having the Bangalore model Indian Institute of Science in Pune and Kolkata, President Kalam said "it is to promote scientific and teaching culture in the country". "This effort will create scientific cadre in the country with employment assurance," he said adding, "I hope the parents are listening to this."

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We look forward to your further thoughts, observations and views. Thank you.

Best wishes

For and on behalf of DK Matai, Chairman, Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance (ATCA)

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ATCA: The Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance is a philanthropic expert initiative founded in 2001 to understand and to address complex global challenges. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats arising from climate chaos, radical poverty, organised crime, extremism, informatics, nanotechnology, robotics, genetics, artificial intelligence and financial systems. Present membership of ATCA is by invitation only and has over 5,000 distinguished members: including several from the House of Lords, House of Commons, EU Parliament, US Congress & Senate, G10's Senior Government officials and over 1,500 CEOs from financial institutions, scientific corporates and voluntary organisations as well as over 750 Professors from academic centres of excellence worldwide.

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Intelligence Unit | mi2g | tel +44 (0) 20 7712 1782 fax +44 (0) 20 7712 1501 | internet www.mi2g.net
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intentBlog:

Transforming India into a Developed Nation by 2020: The Indian President's Vision

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