India should become leader in Nanotechnology: Kalam
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 10 February 2005, 20:30 IST
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MUMBAI:President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam today urged the IT industry to strive towards becoming leaders in nanotechnology products, especially in the nanoelectronics area. Addressing the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) 2005 business summit, the president said Indian companies should become leaders in nanotechnology and should invest $300 million towards the nanoscience and technology research in partnership with like-minded multinational companies for the research, development and volume production of nanoelectronic devices. "This knowledge product development is a challenging area such as embedded software, networking software, real time software and integrated software for bio, info and nano," he said. He also asked the Indian IT and IT enabled services (ITES) industries to capture 15 percent of the global business by 2008 by developing innovative products. Kalam said the IT industry should move up the value chain and develop innovative products and increase focus on R&D to stay ahead of others. "Our first priority should be to capture at least 15 percent of the global business volume in these two sectors, which is expected to be around $1.2 trillion by 2008," he said. "The market share of the Indian software industry in IT services, ITES and BPO (business process outsourcing) alone should be around $200 billion by 2008," added Kalam. Complimenting the IT and ITES industry for taking the making the software industry in India worth $28 billion ($18 billion exports and $10 billion local market), he said the industry contributed to nearly 24 percent of the nation's exports. While the contribution of agriculture to India's GDP has reduced, contribution of manufacturing sector and services sector has increased altering the employment pattern in the country. "The growth in IT business is directly related to how much innovation and research results we continuously inject to invigorate the industry," said Kalam. "IT industry equally contributes for the national development through electronic connectivity such as telemedicine, tele-education and e-governance," he added. He said information and communication technology (ICT) had to be deployed in the country's "transformation strategy" along with newer technologies like biotechnology and nanotechnology. "I suggest that the governments, industry and the academia to work together to develop and market intellectual property products which alone can increase the per capita revenue non-linearly for the Indian software industry. "Hence our software industry has to move up the value chain and come up with innovative products that will have an order of magnitude commercial impact in the international market."

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