Prime Minister Lays Emphasis On Tech-Driven Future

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inaugural address at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2020; brought out the Indian government’s commitment to integrate technology into governance to deliver better services to all. He described technology as the prime reason our schemes have gone beyond files and have impacted the lives of Indians at a rapid speed and on a larger scale. The government has made technology a key part of all schemes and built its governance model on a ‘tech-first’ approach. Mr.Modi said the amount of tech adoption that has happened in the last few months may not have happened in a decade. “We are now in the middle of the information era, where change is disruptive”. Prime Minister observed.

He said, this also gives us the confidence that we can vaccinate a large population of people against the COVID-19 virus in a short period of time. The Prime Minister also urged the youth to play a bigger role in devising robust cyber security solutions that will effectively vaccinate against cyber-attacks and viruses.

In this context, it may be mentioned that technology is also helping organise this important summit in a virtual manner, in view of the ongoing COVID pandemic. “Digital India”, launched five years ago, is no more just a government initiative – it has become a way of life. It has allowed the nation to experience a more human-centric approach to development.

The Bengaluru Tech Summit is one of the oldest and most definitive events in the ICT, electronics, and biotechnology sector held annually in India. The Summit is organised by the Government of Karnataka along with Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society – Karnataka government’s Vision Group on Information Technology, Biotechnology and Start-ups–and Software Technology Parks of India. Today in its 23rd year, the event has become the place of convergence for the leading cross-sector tech companies to start-ups, technocrats to young innovators, policymakers to investors, researchers to academia, facilitating dialogue and collaborations.

This year, the theme of the summit is “Next is Now” and deliberations will be centred around the key challenges emerging in the post-pandemic world with a focus on the impact of prominent technologies and innovations in the domains of ‘Information Technology and Electronics’ and ‘Biotechnology’. 

The 3-day event will have four tracks on major themes, namely ‘Knowledge Hub’, ‘Innovation Corner’, ‘One Health’, and ‘Country Sessions’. Some of the key focus areas of the summit are aero-space and defence technologies, healthcare, future of work, start-up for public good,electronics and semi-conductors, reimagining digital health and COVID-19 pandemic preparedness, among others.

Global Innovation Alliance, a partnership initiative of Karnataka, will feature 15 countries which will conduct country sessions at the summit. These include Canada, Finland, France, Israel, the Netherlands, UK, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Taiwan, Switzerland, Denmark, Bahrain, Japan and Lithuania.

The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was also present at the inauguration (virtually), said that under the Indo-Australian partnership agreement signed in June, the two countries will be working on cyber and enabled technologies, a foundation for the digital economy. The two countries are set to launch the Australia-India cyber and critical technology partnership grant programme where experts from both countries will work on technology, framework and best practice standards.

The Consul-General of the Netherlands in Bengaluru, Gert Heijkoop said the Bengaluru Tech Summit is the perfect platform to bring the strategic ties between our two countries to an even higher level. The Hague Business Agency will launch a digital soft-landing program for Indian start-ups, during this year’s summit.

In the next couple of days, the event will see the world’s best minds streaming their vision, leaders forecasting the future, technocrats unravelling new products, and start-ups presenting cutting-edge ideas–towards a true tech-driven future.

Script: Biman Basu, Senior Science Commentator

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