For now, Code for India has a few hundred engineers from Mehta's personal network here, programmers from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Visa.

However, Mehta sees a huge base of potential volunteers from India itself. The top 10 software outsourcing firms, Mehta said, employ a few million programmers.

"The goal is to have a team of million software engineers to develop softwares for India," Mehta said in response to a question, hoping that he would soon achieve the targets, given the thousands of requests he has been receiving from Indian techies after it was formally launched on Thursday.

Professor Vijay Pande of Stanford University, Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Manipal Global Education and Vish Mishra, Venture Director at Clearstone and mentor to 'The Hive' and 'The Fabric' have joined the Advisory Board.

"Code for India is a unique and commendable initiative whereby the sharpest of computing minds can apply themselves to altruistic causes. TiE Delhi NCR are proud to be associated with the programme," said Deep Kalra, President of TiE-New Delhi.

Mehta said the team would volunteer eight hours of software development per month to develop softwares worth USD 8-10 billions per annum.

"No amount of check donated by any rich people, would be able to match this massive volunteer effort to address the issues of concern to India through the power of software. 'Think Local, Hack Global' is the mantra for Code For India engineers who are building apps that empower marginalised communities with technology-based solutions to solve public service problems," he said.

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