Union commerce, industry and civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu set the tone for the nation’s biggest ICT (Information-communication-telecom) sector event, Convergence India 2019, by saying that India has an important role to play in this new world not only as a nation capable of adopting new technologies, but also one capable of innovating and producing new technologies.
“We have many companies in the country that have already made a mark in their respective domains, and they now have the opportunity to work together on building holistic solutions needed for the future we are heading towards," Prabhu said in his inaugural speech. He added that Convergence India will help in building a "new technology-driven global ecosystem".
More than 600 brands from 30 countries around the world are present at the Convergence India expo, which features conferences and mobile and embedded tech exhibitions organised by the India Trade Promotion Organisation, as well as the Internet of Things India 2019 expo organised by NASSCOM.
The event hopes to build upon the central government’s 'Digital India' and 'Make in India' initiatives through a display of a vast array of products pertaining to fields such as ICT, IT and ITeS, broadcast and digital media, emerging technologies and enterprise solutions, virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, robotics and cloud services.
In a parallel Digital India seminar at Convergence India, TRAI chairman R.S.Sharma pointed out how technology could improve connectivity. “Fibre is just one way and not the only way of establishing connectivity. When we talk about taking internet and broadband to the remoter regions of the country, we need to explore other alternatives, too. Cable TV, for instance, can be one of the most efficient ways of taking internet to the farther corners of India,” he argued. Adding to it, ERNET director general Neena Pahuja even suggested that “different alternatives like the vast network of power cable lines” could be used to send data.
“That’s the kind of convergence we have already begun working on. From education to healthcare to automobiles, connectivity is the underlying requirement to create inter-linked systems that can exchange data and solve major problems,” she added.
