INDIA'S LONG AND HOPEFUL JOURNEY TOWARDS 2047

In the evening session, there was a lively discussion between the Who's Who of the ICT industry as they discussed India's role in the world and its march towards the centenary year of Independence.

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Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, Cybermedia, said we have had a ringside view of the industry. We were in the pre-PC days back in 1982. It has been a ringside view, and there have been many innovations in the IT industry.

Gupta added that new technologies are coming in, such as loT, AR/VR, Al, etc., that will lead to many more transformations. We will be looking at a new world by 2047.

Harish Mehta, former Chairman of NASSCOM also chipped in. He said that competitors came together under the NASSCOM umbrella. There were many technology gatekeepers, such as scientists, etc. We had to sell the software vision to bureaucrats. Hundreds of regulations strangling the industry were then removed, and the industry really took off.

We were not really spending more on R&D earlier. We should be leading the technology race in telecom.

Sanjay Nayak, CEO & MD, Tejas Networks, said his company has achieved path-breaking stuff over the years. He said that we had asked the question around the year 2000: Why does India not have its own products? The Y2K crisis had also happened around that time. Telcos used to ask Tejas about their technology. Today, India needs to be a technology nation. Back in 2000, no one was willing to fund us. In 2008, China started coming into India. We need to think about long-term R&D. There needs to be the economies of scale. China and India bring that. You need to dominate your home market. 65% of the revenues from Huawei and ZTE comes from within China.

Every industry needs the cards to be set up in the right way. Then came Covid! The amount of connectivity and trusted sources became very important. The highest number of R&D engineers working after China is in India. The world is now looking for a source of trusted electronic products. India can become a leader.