The startup ecosystem will deliver the change needed across various parts of the nation: Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar Prasad, union minister for communications, electronics, and IT and law and justice while addressing delegates at IAMAI’s India Digital Summit 2020 in Delhi said that the startup movement globally will bring democracy into the field of technology.

The minister expressed his deep belief that the startup ecosystem will deliver the change needed across various parts of the country and industries, given the fact that India is home to more than 49K startups and many of them creating technology-based solutions.

“As Indians are seeking new avenues of their potential, we are looking forward to good startups aided by digital empowerment and transformation idea, promote and nurture them so that they can deliver a quality change.”

Prasad further said that mobile and internet penetration has a very important role to play in the growth of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning and more.

“The challenge, therefore, lies in how to use these technologies, particularly artificial intelligence for healthcare and agriculture development. Today, India has 268 mobile factories from a mere two in 2014. India has become the second-largest mobile factory in the world and now we are going to promote more export-oriented incentives. India will become a global data processing centre or what I would like to call as a data refinery which would not only process data but also data cleaning through steps such as an electronic policy, digital communication policy, open-source policy and the Personal Data Protection (PDP) bill.”

The minister also vouched on the acceptance of homegrown digital tools such as Aadhaar, unified payments interface or UPI, goods and services tax network (GSTN) and other government programmes. He stated that digital inclusion through homegrown technology is bridging the digital divide.

“We import software products worth $10 Bn every year and we export only $3 Bn,” said the minister, stressing on the need to strengthen the IT industry, which is said to employ 40 Mn. India has the potential to become a software product nation, he added.