Innovation is the answer to Indias challenges

As Managing Director for South Asia and Vice-President, Sales & Marketing Group, of Intel Corporation, Debjani Ghosh is responsible for establishing new growth areas for the US-headquartered tech giant in the region. She works with governments and industry in South Asia to establish policies and initiatives that help accelerate the adoption of technology in the region, especially as an enabler of inclusive growth and development. Two years into the Digital India, what is the experience of tech collaborators like Intel For nearly two decades now, Intel has been committed to digitally transforming India into an empowered society and knowledge economy with a focus on education, skill development and innovation. Now, with the government's vision for a digital India, we've got a higher impetus to drive the next wave of computing among non-urban users, and make an impact at the grassroots level. Our experience shows that public private partnerships and local innovation are two of the key components to achieve the Digital India goals. Over the last two years, we have collaborated with the government for multiple initiatives, one of the key ones being the creation of a blueprint for the digitisation of non-urban India. As a part of this, in 2015, we announced our flagship first-time PC user campaign, Ek Kadam Unnati Ki Aur [One step towards progress], to deliver PC access and digital skilling for non-urban citizens. Till date, we have touched the lives of 500,000 citizens across 11 states in the country, through 100 Unnati Kendra digital learning centres. In addition, innovation - more specifically, a local, sustainable innovation ecosystem - is needed to address the country's challenges. With 18 years of strong and consistent growth in engineering-focused R&D in India, we are committed to delivering high-end and advanced engineering work involving significant innovations across chip design, graphics, platform and software for cloud, datacentre, devices and IoT markets. These technologies have enabled us to create a community of Indian innovators across age groups, wherein hundreds of prototypes and a few real solutions have emerged from initiatives such as the IoT Labs, Intel India Maker Lab, and the Intel & DST Innovate for Digital India Challenge, to incubate and accelerate technology solutions developed by Indian makers. Last mile connectivity, especially in remote areas, remains a big problem in India. How can the government overcome this Last mile connectivity is not a problem that the government can and must solve alone; the industry has an equally critical role to play. We must realise that Digital India is a pyramid - the strength of its superstructure will depend on the base, and to create this base, a strong public private partnership across three areas, is the need of the hour. First, a strong base will be crystallised with the successful completion of the national fibre-optic project, which will on-board first-time internet users onto the network of a digitally connected India. Just as important as this project, is the industry's rollout of 4G network. Jointly, this would enable the delivery and scale of cloud as a utility to every citizen, creating access for over one billion citizens to on-demand e-governance and digital services in healthcare and education. Indigenous data centres, cloud-powered services, and connected devices will serve as the end-to-end platform to deliver and deploy these citizen-centric services. This will also generate data, analyses and insights to drive further innovation, releasing new services and businesses back into our economy. In parallel, there has to be a collective realisation that a transformative impact at the macro-level will begin by creating a digital footprint at the grassroots. For this to happen, industry, academia and government must come together to be the catalyst behind driving the government's Digital India vision and bringing about scalable change through technology access in the non-urban and rural areas. Finally, fostering a culture of local innovation that helps India develop tech solutions relevant for its non-urban regions, will help address issues related to last mile connectivity, as they come up with solutions that cater to local problems. To achieve this, there is a need to inculcate a temperament of innovation in our education system that would enable local solution thinking to solve India's problems. How deep is Intel's commitment to Digital India In which specific areas are you participating For almost two decades now, Intel has been committed to digitally transforming India into an empowered society and knowledge economy. Our commitment for Digital India can be broadly categorised into the following three focus areas:

1. Accelerating Innovation - There is a need to build a local, sustainable innovation ecosystem to address the country's challenges. We have been committed to delivering high-end and advanced engineering work involving significant innovations across chip design, graphics, platform and software for cloud, datacentre, devices and IoT solutions. These technologies are also available to makers, for whom we are fostering innovation opportunities at every level, from schools to colleges, from entrepreneurs to enterprises with initiatives such as the Atal Tinkering Labs, the Internet of Things Labs, the Intel & DST Innovate for Digital India Challenge, and the Intel India Maker Lab.
2. Building Solution and Ecosystem Leadership for the Backend Infrastructure - As part of our growth strategy, Intel is moving away from a hardware-driven infrastructure approach to a software-defined approach. This will enable customers such as the Government of India, to build solutions and lay the foundation for a digital infrastructure in the country. Big data analytics, cloud and HPC will accelerate through government initiatives such as smart cities and UID.
3. Skill Development & Capacity Development - Inclusive growth is the key to India's digital development. Every citizen has to have access to the basics like education, healthcare, and financial services. To achieve this, we have been trying to increase relevance and digital know-how for the population. More than 80 lakh citizens have been trained in the country across skill development and capacity building initiatives; Our flagship initiative for 2016 - 'Ek Kadam Unnati Ki Aur' has been a great learning experience, taking us to exciting new markets and tapping new demographics.

1. Jayalaxmi Agrotech, an end-to-end solution, with a user-facing app that delivers information about 20 crops in regional languages and audio-visual content, for the benefit of uneducated farmers. The data is delivered through a local server (Agripole) based on Intel® Edison. The solution is being used by 7400 villages, downloaded via 300 Agripoles, reducing input costs by 14 per cent and increasing profitability by 17 per cent. The company has secured 3 Fortune 500 clients and is currently even deployed in Ghana, Africa.
2. Asha+, a low-cost, handheld, 'point of care' device which tracks and monitors patient health levels remotely to allow millions of geriatric, post-op and rural patients to check their vital stats at home. This 7-in-1 device has had success in trials for both clinical and commercial use, and is currently in talks with healthcare clients in Sweden.
3. T-Jay*, a hand-glove that battles epilepsy with a wearable device that detects and diagnoses epileptic fits before they occur for real-time intervention. It reduces diagnosis duration from 45-60 minutes to real-time within seconds.