Information Technology and e-Governance Secretary Sunil Kumar Barnwal represented the State of Jharkhand in the boardroom discussion with Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella in the conference organised by Confederation of Indian Industry and Microsoft titled ‘Future Unleashed – Accelerating India’ in Mumbai.
In the discussion this Thursday, Nadella emphasized on building digital capacity of Government and society and promote the use of cloud space which Microsoft has developed in India.
“The potential in Jharkhand is immense as the State which has unique combination of huge rural population and urbanised industrial cities. Besides it has huge base of capable human resources with reputed academic and technical institutions like BIT Mesra, ISM Dhanbad, NIT, XlRI, IIM and many others,” said the IT Secretary during the conference.
Barnwal pitched for strategic partnership with Microsoft for increasing the digital capacity through digital literacy, supporting the promotion of the start ups, innovation and incubation. In order to increase the connectivity in rural areas of Jharkhand, he emphasized on use of television, white space technology and initiating some pilot projects in Jharkhand.
He stated, “There is ample un-utilized bandwidth under the TV white space and large digital content can be delivered through TV. It will also promote developing digital villages in J’khand.” Nadella responded favourably, mentioning that the mission of Microsoft is to empower the citizens through technology and Jharkhand would certainly be in its priority given its unique potential.
CII Chairman Kiran Karnik who was coordinating the discussion, also lauded the achievement of Jharkhand in recent time by becoming number three in ‘ease of doing businesses’.
Additionally, on behalf of Chief Minister Ragubar Das, Barnwal extended the invitation to Satya Nadella to visit Jharkhand in his next visit to India. The boardroom discussion Nadella was attended by Union Department of Electronics and Information Technology Secretary JS Deepak, Union labour Secretary Shankar Agrawal, Union DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant and several IT secretaries from different States.
