From: Mustafa Akgul (akgul@Bilkent.EDU.TR)
Date: Tue 10 Jun 2003 - 18:36:28 EEST
-----Original Message-----
From: Levent Yanik [mailto:lyanik@edevlet.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 9:00 PM
To: tubisad@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [tubisad] Indian President to country's IT Professionals
Degerli Arkadaslar,
Asagida Hindistan Basbakaninin 28 Mayis, 2003 tarihinde Bilgi
Teknolojileri konusuyla ilgili yapmis oldugu IT camiasinda cok ses
getiren konusmasini tartismaya katki saglamasi dusuncesiyle
gonderiyorum.
Basbakan konusmasinin bir bolumunde Bill Gates ile yaptigi bir
gorusmeden bahsediyor bu bolume ozellikle dikkatinizi cekmek istiyorum.
Konusmanin Tam Metnine Bu Linkten Ulasabilirsiniz:
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/S/html/speeches/others/may28_2003_2.htm
Saygi ve Selamlarimla,
Levent Yanik
President & CEO
eDevlet Technologies
2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Suite# 140
Washington, DC 20006
The Indian Software Industry
Today the software industry in India is nearly 10 billion dollars
strong, with a flat domestic market of 2 billion dollars contributing
16% of nation's exports. While in the two decades we should aim at the
Nation's GDP to be doubled, the software industry's contribution is
expected to increase at least 10 folds. Software and Hardware industries
will becomes a formidable component of the nation's wealth.
After the September 11th incident, the Industry went through
difficulties. Though it must be said in defence of our great visionaries
in the Indian IT field that India did not feel the effect as much as
other developed nations, many Indian companies did shut down and many
young went jobless - albeit temporarily. The basic lesson that we have
learnt in the post September 11 era, is that "our software industry has
to be made more robust and less fragile, if we are going to make it the
most significant contributor to our economy". Tremendous market
potential that is available in our country in the area of
tele-education, tele-medicine, infotainment, e- governance etc., need to
be given business. If IT touches every one of the billion Indian people,
the IT market will become phenomenally large. This will ensure absolute
robustness. But, today the growing domestic market has been left mainly
to the government. Indian IT Industries have to evolve a long term
strategy for thoughtful investments and grow the domestic market without
solely depending on the Government. This, in the long run will show that
one can do IT business with social benefits and still make an economic
sense. In addition, our market base can be expanded actively to include
Europe, China, Korea, Japan and many other developing countries.
Competitiveness of Indian IT industries
I believe the Governments, Industry and the academia can take this issue
of increasing the domestic IT segment through strong and sustainable use
of IT for Education and Health care by bringing out a roadmap. Let us
our IT industry and economic growth employing 500,000 people earning $10
billion which is less than one percent of the world market, from another
perspective. At the same time a typical international software company
with 50,000 employees earns $ 20 billion through its world wide
operations.
Based on the current trend, if we have to reach $ 80 Billion we will
have to multiply our workforce 8 times which may not make our operations
competitive. Hence our software industry has to move up the value chain
and come up with innovative products that will sweep the world. I am
confident that the Indian Industry would soon come up with such mega
initiatives. A country which has seen what is networking of talents to
make more than 20,000 man year projects in satellites, fighter aircraft,
launch vehicles, atomic energy and missiles, can certainly think of
networking of talents in our industry, research laboratories and the
academia. This will ensure emergence of many Indian Multinationals that
would bring per capita revenues almost ten times higher than what we do
today. Today, our IT Industry is proud that 260 out of the Fortune 500
companies are its clients- When we march towards a Developed India, I
would like the IT Industry to lead the march by proclaiming that "260 of
the Fortune 500 companies are Indian MNCs". This is my dream.
Think different
I would like to narrate an event that took place in Rashtrapati Bhavan a
few months back when I met Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. While
walking in the Mughal garden, we were discussing the future challenges
in Information Technology including the issues related to software
security. I made a point that we look for open source codes so that we
can easily introduce the users built security algorithms. Our
discussions became difficult since our views were different. The most
unfortunate thing is that India still seems to believe in proprietary
solutions. Further spread of IT which is influencing the daily life of
individuals would have a devastating effect on the lives of society due
to any small shift in the business practice involving these proprietory
solutions. It is precisely for these reasons open source software need
to be built which would be cost effective for the entire society. In
India, open source code software will have to come and stay in a big way
for the benefit of our billion people. I2IT has to play a major role in
this national mission.
Indian Hardware Industry
While we see the growth of the software Industry, one cannot forget that
this has also come with investments on hardware of foreign origin like
about 1.88 million PCs, over 2 Lakh hubs etc. The rapid penetration of
Cell phones and the possible standardization of "Citizen Smart Card"
shows that, by proper planning, the country would find emerging
opportunities in the hardware industry.
A mission has to be initiated for bringing out a national citizen card
for multiple use such as voter ID card, bank operations card, ration
card. The Mission of national citizen card / smart card has to be an
integrated approach of multiple departments and industries. I understand
that technological requirements for such a card is within our
capabilities and capacity. I would urge Indian electronics majors to
form consortium with local chip manufacturers to rise up to this
emerging market.
My belief is that relying only on SW, may not be the best strategy for
the future. India should emerge as not only a "Software Industry" but an
"ICT Industry" with equal strength in SW, HW, embedded systems design,
integration, and total end to end solutions. The Institute has great
responsibility in research and development. With these remarks, Friends
I have great pleasure in dedicating this International Institute of
Information Technology to the nation.
Tam Metin Icin:
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/S/html/speeches/others/may28_2003_2.htm