'Technology transformation within 20 years'

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, DEC. 10. The next 20 years will see technology being transformed in India, Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister, has said.

Dr. Kalam was speaking at the valedictory of the national seminar on Development Reforms here today at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

"I anticipate new economic situations", he said adding that there was a possibility of India becoming a "knowledge society" with the help of the focussed tool of information technology and entrepreneurial push. There was a connectivity between India becoming a knowledge superpower and the transformation of India into a developed nation.

Dr. Kalam referred to two papers prepared by the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), and spoke of core competence of a knowledge society; its components; the people of knowledge superpower; and how to achieve rural development without a digital divide.

Knowledge was available in the country from a diverse range of sources both traditional and modern, Dr. Kalam said, which he called the "knowledge infrastructure." He said exploitation of new knowledge would decide the prosperity of the knowledge society, which would have two important components -- societal transformation and wealth generation. Societal transformation would be witnessed in education, healthcare, agriculture and governance, which would result in employment generation, high productivity and rural prosperity. Wealth generation should be woven around national competencies, such as information technology, bio-technology, space technology, weather forecasting, disaster management, tele-medicine and tele- education, technologies to produce native knowledge products, service sector and emerging areas due to convergence of IT and entertainment (infotainment).

The subject of discussion would be the methodology of wealth generation in these core areas; to meet the export target of $ 50 billion by 2008 using the IT sector; and simultaneously being able to generate IT products worth $ 30 billion domestically to pump into societal transformation. The role of multiple technology engines must be recognised as the vital difference between an IT-driven society and a knowledge driven society, Dr. Kalam said. After societal transformation and wealth generation, the third dimension would be the transformation into a knowledge superpower, which entailed the responsibility of strengthening intellectual property rights and protecting the nation's vast biological and microbial resources.

Experts must also take a hard look at the definition of a "developed nation," he added.

The Governor, Ms. V.S.Rama Devi, said: "While Indian brains were being used to sustain the IT industry in the West, India was still being dubbed a "developing country" by such countries. Development was not merely a material concept, but a human resource idea too, she added.

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