CAD/CAM training session in progress New …...CAD/CAM training session in progress My first job was with a factory making bindis. Little did I know, that there was something else

Microsoft recognized the potential in the worldís largest diamond manufacturing cluster in Surat, Gujarat, which comprises over 2200 units. We saw people with dreams to grow bigger and be successful. We understood that this would happen faster with greater access to computers. Microsoft started imparting computer and CAD specific skills to the community, which gave them the confidence to train more people. Today, diamond jewellery manufacturing units across the district are enabled & empowered with CAD skills, driving employment & efficiencies. In the words of Kiran, Keen Diamonds, ìAfter I attended the Project VIKAS CAD/CAM training, I was convinced that I can grow my business through new opportunities like jewellery design & manufacturing. Within a week of training, I implemented CAD/CAM in my company. And I have already started getting new customers. Thank you Project VIKAS.î

We at Microsoft see potential in everyone. For more on our efforts to unleash Indiaís unlimited potential, like Project Vikas, visit www.microsoft.com/india/unlimitedpotential /

New OpportunitiesCAD/CAM training session in progress

My first job was with a factory making bindis. Little did I know, that there was something else out there that would take me much further. That would allow me to nurture my dream and bring it to life.

An NGO supported by Microsoft under Project Jyoti, opened up its doors for me. I was given the opportunity to learn computers under Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential IT training program. I knew technology would eventually do wonders for the dream I had kept safe with me for so long.

My instinct was right. My learning took me places. I got a job with a leading financial services company as a Customer Care Executive. This experience gave me tremendous confidence. I worked hard and got promoted. My dream felt real now. Today, I run my own insurance agency and employ two people. We use computers to manage our business and it has increased our productivity. I am thankful to Microsoft for having helped me discover the fact that I can achieve a lot more. And that I can carry on dreaming.

We at Microsoft see potential in everyone. For more on our efforts to unleash India’s unlimited potential, like Project Jyoti, visit www.microsoft.com/india/unlimitedpotential /

I had a dream.

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Microsoft Interface | July-September 2009 1

C O N T E N T S

Cover featureICT IMPACTCan ICt bring out inclusive growth in India? read the abridged version of a white paper authored by Dr. ashok Desai on how India can harness the power of technology to catalyze balanced development.

PerSPeCtIveHigh-quality schools for employabilitythought guru, techie and innovator, Dr. ashok Jhunjhunwala believes that technology is a powerful tool, but not the panacea for India’s challenges, particularly those related to education in rural areas. In this interview with Interface, Professor Jhunjhunwala talks about how technology can be made more effective in learning.

Q&aICT Vision for IndiaNaSSCoM President and an ICt sector stalwart, Som Mittal talks about the role of It in bringing about inclusive growth in India and the role the Government and industry can play in making the country’s It vision become a reality.

CaSe StuDIeSThe One Digital Societya look at case studies from three projects--Shiksha, Jyoti and vikas that use the power of ICt to transform society

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E D I T O R I A L

2 Microsoft Interface | July-September 2009

Gradually, nations across the world, especially emerging countries are become aware of the importance of balanced, inclusive growth as a means of sustained development. Inclusive growth is all about reaching out to the underserved and providing them opportunities that can help them enhance their social and economic status.

Recognizing this, India too, has placed inclusive growth at the top of its agenda. India is now drawing up strategies and plans that are expected to propel the country on the path of economic, social and digital enhancement.

While we move up this path, it is imperative to maintain the right balance between rural and urban development, economic growth and inclusion; and national security and global standing. Information Communication Technology (ICT) can go a long way in easing the lives of citizens and businesses (large and small), improving their productivity and making them positive contributors to the economy of the country.

Going forward therefore, India needs to proliferate technology and harness and optimize the power of ICT for development. Technology adoption must touch three key areas—education, employability and small and medium businesses (SMBs). The enhanced use of ICT in each of these segments, can help change India and the lives of its people.

Our theme for this issue of Interface, “ICT for inclusive growth,” is a reflection of the existing mood in India. In this issue of Interface, we have a refreshing mix of articles that touch upon the different facets of “inclusive growth” and how India’s vision of 100 percent literacy and 100 percent employability can be achieved with the help of the state-of-the-art.

A number of people—all experts within their respective fields—have contributed to this issue of Interface, making it a “must read.” We hope you enjoy the effort and give us your feedback on the magazine. At the same time, do share your views on some of the subjects talked about in Interface. We will be happy to publish these in our forthcoming issue.

GaurI arora Editor [email protected]

National development through inclusive growth

C H A I R M A N ’ S S P A C E


Friends,

India is at a very interesting juncture. Despite global uncertainty, the country is still maintaining a growth rate of six percent, with sectors such as IT sustaining international competitiveness and manufacturing witnessing a gradual turnaround. We are at a point where several opportunities are being thrown up by the environment that can in the long run, help us become a stronger player in the global economy. However, before the country can do that, we must focus inward, and find ways to emerge as a developed nation, with balanced, inclusive growth that touches all segments of society.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the single thread that runs through all aspects of development, stringing together the country’s needs and potential. IT in fact, has emerged as the crucial infrastructure for the country’s development, a key driver of organizational competitiveness and the enabler of inclusive growth. In the last few years, it has become increasingly apparent that most of the concerns of Indian society, particularly related to healthcare, education, agriculture, or entrepreneurship, can be resolved with the application of technology.

Take education for instance. In order to overcome the shortages of teaching staff, infrastructure and funds, IT must be used to impart knowledge. New online and blended learning approaches that use rich multimedia—text, animations, video and communication/collaboration tools—can bring far-reaching changes to the realm of education, allowing learners to interact amongst themselves and geographically dispersed faculty.

Then of course, there are the eight million small and medium businesses as well as 40 million cottage/small scale industries that can be drawn into the digital revolution and benefit from its impact. Healthcare can be the other huge beneficiary of IT. Technology—such as high-bandwidth networks, coupled with IT-run kiosks or community centers in rural areas—can bring specialized healthcare to villagers. Expert doctors, sitting in reputed hospitals in the urban centers, can provide online consultation remotely to patients. A number of companies, including Microsoft, are working today on developing technologies that can be potentially used by sectors such as healthcare to provide basic services, at scale and cost, to the masses.

Similarly, access to microfinance, which involves giving small loans to people, cannot become commercially viable for companies offering these services, unless technology is involved to bring down transaction costs. Financial inclusion, where scalable models of branchless banking, and savings and credit instruments are delivered to the doorsteps of people, can become a reality using IT.

The government too can play an important role by ushering in policy and regulatory innovation, investing in telecom infrastructure expansion, catalyzing talent development skilling and focusing on how the local market can be encouraged to deploy technology. The government’s intent in this regard was made clear in Budget 2009, where the Finance Minister stated that every initiative and scheme that it launched was aimed at the “aam aadmi.” The recent surge in domestic IT spending in India by the private and public sector alike is a sign that some of these initiatives are bearing fruit. The foundation for inclusive growth is already in place. In the years ahead, the focus on balanced development will only get sharper.

Ravi Venkatesan Chairman, Microsoft

C O V E R S T O R YC O V E R S T O R Y



Indian governments, both at the center and in the states, have long been engaged in promoting informa-tion and communications technology (ICT) and encouraging its spread in relatively deprived communities and areas. The center has tried to apply ICT to administrative processes through its National eGovernance Plan, and to make ICT services widely available through Community Service Centers, which are the latest of its experiments in social development.

Such activities have the potential to aid implementation of government

programs, improve delivery of social services, inform the public of what ser-vices they can avail of and how, enable them to give direct and immediate feedback on the supply and quality of public services, and save resources and increase efficiency of govern-ment services. Similar initiatives have also been taken by some of the state governments and non-government organizations (NGOs).

The Role of ICT in development To begin, it would be useful to describe in greater detail the ways in

Dr. Ashok Desai is Consultant Editor of The Telegraph, a premier Calcutta daily, and a columnist for

Business World. In his stint with the Government of India from 1991 to

1993, he helped design the early economic reforms, especially in the areas of taxation, trade policy and

financial market regulation.

Can ICT bring out inclusive growth in India? Read the abridged version of a white paper authored by Dr. Ashok Desai on how India can harness the power of technology to catalyze balanced development.

ICT IMpaCT

C O V E R S T O R YC O V E R S T O R Y C O V E R S T O R YC O V E R S T O R Y


which ICT may help in development. These include the following:

a. Technology: ICT may offer new or improved technology to disseminate knowledge that’s most commonly involved in technological progress.

b. Learning: ICT may make educa-tional material accessible, and may provide a new way of learning, dif-ferent from the face-to-face mode of education of schools and colleges. ICT creates rich possibilities of self-teaching and offers education at the student’s pace, thereby accelerating the absorption of learning.

c. Remote services: It may make pos-sible the remote provision of services that hitherto required personal con-tact, and thereby save on transport, as for example in education or medical services.

d. Virtual libraries: It may provide repositories of literature to make knowledge more widely accessible and make possible incidental or informal learning.

e. Virtual markets: ICT may provide infrastructure for the creation of virtual markets, or add a virtual segment to physical markets. This also extends to financial markets. ICT can reduce the costs of bank service delivery, and cre-ate new modes of payment and credit.

f. Remote administration: ICT may permit the elimination of personal contact from some administrative processes as well as the travel involved.

The 5Cs of ICT The possibilities of ICT can be looked at in terms of the five Cs—Content, Connectivity, Capacity building, Con-sumer orientation, Convergence and Coordination.

Content: The content on official gov-ernment websites can change from the model of government as provider and citizens as passive receivers to a more interactive sphere where the content builds knowledge and capability.

Connectivity: In spite of the universal service obligation on private telecom operators, the objective of connect-ing villages has been too limited and poorly served. The result is that con-nectivity is low beyond cities and is concentrated even within cities.

Capacity building: The current last-mile distributors are the local people who run telephone kiosks or cyber cafes. However, as Internet services expand, it is critical that these kiosk operators augment their skills and capacity to service the consumers, and move from just a phone on the shop counter to dedicated, specialized knowledge distribution centers.

Consumer orientation: If content is expanded as suggested above, it will be important to ask who would be the consumers, and to adapt content to what they want. It would also be useful to devise a model that responds to changing consumer needs.

Convergence and coordination: As the number of content services

The Role of ICT in Development




increases and gets diversified, the need for coordination with the content pro-viders, the content disseminators (the service distributors) and the regulatory authorities will increase.

ICT adoption by the government The government fully embraced ICT around 1999 when it set up the Ministry of Information Technology. Subsequently, the National Informat-ics Center, under the ministry was set up to provide IT consultancy services to all governments. NIC ushered ICT adoption in day-to-day government functions such as mail, files, case files, land records, public distribution, and personnel management. NIC was also given the power to provide con-nectivity, as part of the government’s e-governance initiatives. As it turned out, these dedicated networks were underutilized for several years. The volume of government service for which the networks were designed was too low and maintenance was poor.

Moreover, several state governments made deals with private communica-tions operators active in the state, and when giving them right of way, obtained free or cheap telecom facili-ties. However, such statewide area net-works were not necessarily connected to NICNET and would have been useless for a national government network without interconnection.

a change in strategy It was in 2004 that the Department of Information Technology recognized the reality and made an offer to the state governments—that it would bear the cost of installation, operation and maintenance of their area networks for five years even if they were erected by private operators, provided they allowed NIC to interconnect the networks. It is not known how suc-cessful it was; but states continue to

operate their own, non-uniform area networks. From this offer emerged a new model—that of Community Service Centers (CSCs). The

central government proposes to set up 1,12,000 CSCs to provide broadband in rural areas. On May 1, 2008, 61,491 CSCs had been set up, letters of intent had been issued for 14,397, opera-tors selected for 16,447, 399 bids were being evaluated, and requests for pro-posals called for 6,662, leaving some 13,000 on which action was still to be initiated by state governments.

After the UPA government came to power in 2004, the realization dawned that the functions of the Government were not limited to such administra-tive services as giving passports and no-objection certificates; they also involved delivering such services as education, healthcare, rural livelihood generation, empowerment of the dis-abled, and rural connectivity. How this should be done was not clear. There-fore the government set up a non-profit company called Media Lab Asia (medialabasia.in) which could engage scientists and technologists and take in capital from outside the government. It has been working closely with teach-ers and students of the Indian Insti-tute of Technology, Kanpur. Amongst the innovations it has pioneered are e-sagu, a web-based agricultural advice system; sanyog, a communica-tion tool for children with cerebral palsy; shruti-drishti, a transcription system for Braille; infothela, a personal computer meant for accessing the Internet; digital mandi, which aims at digitizing mandis and connecting geographically remote mandis, among others. These innovations are good science directed at the poor and the weak. None of them has been applied on a mass scale.

Besides Media Lab Asia, there are many organizations that are experi-menting with other low-cost and scalable models. For instance, Green Foundation, an NGO, and Microsoft Research have developed and incu-bated a pilot program for creating a social network and learning platform for farmers called “Digital Green.” It uses laptops and DVD players to record successful farm practices. These are then shared with members of the local community. The content

As Internet services expand, it is critical that

these kiosk operators augment their skills and

capacity to service the consumers, and move

from just a phone on the shop counter to dedicated,

specialized knowledge distribution centers

C O V E R S T O R YC O V E R S T O R Y C O V E R S T O R YC O V E R S T O R Y


commodities they produce in a loca-tion close to them. And it gives them an opportunity to sell their produce to ITC at prices close to mandi prices. ITC has not created a market or markets; it has used market information and proximity to persuade farmers to sell to it. But it should be possible to cre-ate commodity markets on the model of exchanges.

Educational markets The ubiquity of educational markets is manifest in India; every town has numerous private tutorial shops, outside the formal school and college system. The enormous demand for education and the inability of the formal system is well recognized. Not only does the formal system not meet the expectations of the students, but it also leaves large numbers unserved, especially in rural areas.

It is in the field of education that the five C’s—Content, Connectivity, Capacity-building, Consumer orienta-tion, Convergence and Coordination—mentioned at the outset are particu-larly relevant.

Utility markets Hitherto we have discussed markets that exist but could be improved by the use of ICT. But there are also prod-ucts whose markets are fragmented or monopolistic and have not encom-passed rural areas, or at least not comprehensively. Amongst them, two are important: electricity and water. In fact, based on an innovative concept of virtual currency, ICT can stimulate the working of payment systems across verticals.

This idea of limited currency has now been picked up by institutions special-izing in payments and settlement. The first one to see an opportunity here was Indiamart, which has been running a web-based trade directory since 1996. The Indiamart model is designed to serve businesses. Because of the way our utilities function, retail customers face more serious problems in paying bills. Billjunction mediates between a customer’s bank account and utilities. It saves him the bother

is text-free and video-based, and uses community members to create real-life demonstrations.

Highest potential segments for ICT deployment ICT has been around for many years, and has found applications in busi-nesses from the beginning. Here, we shall take up those initiatives that, in our view, have the greatest potential: Financial markets The two markets that were comput-erized first were the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange. The connectivity is such that on March 31, 2007, 2.2 million clients could trade on the NSE on the Inter-net; they generated 12 percent of the NSE’s turnover. The BSE and the NSE represent an ICT-based template that works faultlessly. Commodity markets The financial template can be extended to commodities as well. The same trading technology can be used for them too.

Garment manufacturers in Tirupur for instance, have implemented an order tracking application which can be accessed by text messaging. This has led to better inventory management and brought down order turnaround times. The same service is also offered by a number of marketing firms, such as Trigger Solutions. The Tirupur Exporters’ Association also provides an order tracking facility on its website, which exporters can use to find out where in the supply chain their ship-ment has reached.

There are many commodity spot markets; all the mandis are commod-ity markets. But none of them uses the ICT technology that is the cornerstone of stock and commodity exchanges. So farmers do not use mandis to a great extent. Most of the trading in mandis is futures trading; spot trades are sparse.

This is where ITC’s e-Choupal has found a niche. It gives farmers information on mandi prices of the



of writing cheques and queuing up in utilities’ branches to pay bills. The same model has been extended by Paymate which, besides paying utility enables customers to buy from shops, malls and service providers connected to it, and lets them do it on their cell phones. Card and bank transactions are converted into simple entries on the cell phone, rather like SMSes.

Recommendations for ICT implementation At the end of the day, we have to acknowledge that development is a good thing; and ICT, being new, has unrealized potential. There are a number of suggestions our study has thrown up, which if acted upon would have the maximum impact.

First, connectivity is the key. The `government’s large, subsidized program has reached few and will never reach a substantial proportion of the population. Worse, the subsidies granted only to its own institutions and initiatives reduces private investment. What India needs is

TRenDs In InTeRneT usAgeRecent studies on Internet usage in India and the basic constraints it faces indicate the following:

Computer usage is low In 2007, there were only 65 million computer users amongst a population of 1.12 billion. Even if we take only adults, the proportion of computer users hardly reaches 10 percent.

even amongst computer users, the proportion of Internet users is low—only about a half access the Internet with any frequency. Nearly a third of computer users have never accessed the Internet. Teledensity has gone up to 26 percent, but the bulk of it is mobile teledensity. The number of fixed line connections is stuck and is falling; the number of broadband connections unconnected with wire lines is negligible. Therefore, connectivity would seem to be a constraint.

The number of Anglophones is 77 million 12 million more than the number of computer users, and 31 million more than Internet users. Internet use is confined to Anglophones. Lack of knowledge of or lack of facility with English seems to be a major handicap.

Computer intensity is low for two overlapping reasons. First, computers require electricity, and second, they are expensive. At the end of March 2008 according to TRAI estimates, there were 3.87 million broadband connections, 11.09 million Internet connections and 66.09 million wireless data connections. Clearly, five-sixths of the Internet users were accessing it through their cell phones. The government has a large program of broadband connections; but they will go only to government and public institu-tions. This will lead to a gross underutilization of broadband capacity, which is enormous. Instead of confining broadband services to “deserving” official and semi-official organizations, the government should permit all competing telecommunications operators to make as many connections as they like with its broadband backbone on the condition that they connect subscribers at a minimal price.

cheap wireless connectivity. One way to address this is for the government to erect transmission towers in backward areas for free-of-cost use by cell phone operators. Another is to give subsidized connections to private, commercial operators who keep banks of Internet-enabled computers for common access—Internet shopkeepers so to speak.

Second, expansion of Internet `use requires its spread amongst Indians who are not comfortable with English. All the components they need—scripts, computers, keyboards—are available, but they have had little impact. In the meanwhile, vernacular speakers have developed an entire vocabulary to communicate by SMS in Roman script. This new form of writing needs to be recorded, studied and developed for the Internet.

Finally, ICT provides a new `technology of learning which can make knowledge available to many, without the intercession of a teacher, who is the weakest link in the Indian system of education. It could spread literacy to young people, and could give them access to practical knowledge of skills and professions. What is lacking in this role is learning material on the web. Since advanced countries have full literacy and large enough traditional education systems to serve their populations, they have no incentive to create a web-based education system. Therefore, special effort is needed in India to create virtual libraries accessible through the Internet.

The importance of using the strength of technology to pursue developmen-tal goals may not be a new thought. However, what is required is a syn-chronized effort to ensure that these pillars of technology support can be sustained by the market so their impact on development goals can be maximized.

V I E W P O I N T


India, around 1.2 billion people strong, remains one of the youngest global economies today. A few years down the line, this significant “demographic advantage” is expected to improve fur-ther. As the Western world faces huge shortages of manpower on account of its ageing population, India will have a massive surplus of people in the work-ing age-group (between the ages of 25 to 55).

To most of us, India’s future, driven by this big “demographic dividend” seems extremely bright.. This “demographic dividend,” however, could remain

untapped, thereby jeopardizing India’s growth prospects. While India cer-tainly has the potential to provide global leadership in the area of skilled talent, owing to its readily available manpower, it will take a lot of effort before this untapped manpower base is integrated into the mainstream.

Recent studies and research by leading global analyst firms have thrown up interesting insights on the scenario. The NASSCOM-McKinsey Report for instance, indicates that only around 10 percent of India’s graduate and around 25 percent of learners getting out of

The challenge of employability remains a key concern, but ICT with public-private partnership can help, writes Rajeev KatyalDirector - Education, Microsoft India

V I E W P O I N T


If there was a way by which students

could be incentivized to stay within the system, or if they

were equipped with skills that were linked

to employment, the scenario would

see a massive transformation.

the country’s engineering institutions are actually “employable.” Sadly, the Indian education system does not equip learners with the right skills that match the needs of industry, and enable them to get jobs.

The “downturn” in India’s education system The challenge of employability, one of the biggest concerns facing India today, has to be faced by first handling the challenges of India’s education system. According to India’s education statistics, while there are 12.2 million students entering Class X, only around 50 percent—6.4 million, go on to Class XII. The approximately six million students who drop out, join the “potentially employable” workforce. The situation gets even more alarming as we move up the higher-end of the education chain. Only 3.9 million students go to college after Class XII, adding yet another 2.5 million students to this pool. Add to it the 3.9 million passing out of higher education and you have 12.2 million youth being added to India’s job seeking population annually (source: the Ministry of Human Resource Development).

Let’s take a look at the Gross Enrol-ment Ratio (GER)—the ratio between the actual number of students enrolled versus the number of students that can be enrolled. In India, at the middle school level, in Class VIII, the GER is 69 percent. In Classes IX and X it is 52 percent. In Classes XI and XII it is 28 percent and in college it is 11 percent! Obviously, students are dropping out of the system and creating these skewed statistics.

What are the reasons however, for students to delink from the education system? One answer is that there just aren’t enough schools in the country to accommodate the growing popula-tion of learners at the secondary and higher secondary levels and also not enough colleges. The number of gov-ernment secondary schools in India today, is a mere 10 percent of the overall schools in the country. Students

are also dropping out from school due to economic reasons, where low family incomes are compelling them to turn bread-earners at a young age. Of course, there could also be students who do not think a higher educational qualification is necessarily required or is desirable.

The fact is that between Class X to Class XII, nearly 8.3 million students vanish from the formal education scene and begin scouting for jobs. Added to this number are the 3.9 mil-lion graduates who pass out of India’s colleges. In all, there are approximately 12 million people entering the job market, the majority whom do not possess any skills that make them attractive to hirers. Today, nearly 90 percent of jobs are driven by skills. However, of the around 12 million job seekers, not more than seven percent have gone through any formal voca-tional training. Around 90 percent are not trained in any relevant skills.

The clear mismatch between the avail-ability of the workforce and what is required by the industry, is reflected in the growing numbers of the unem-ployable human resource pool. With-out jobs, these people typically get absorbed in the agricultural sector or are under-employed (that is, they are doing work that is below their existing capabilities).

Vocational training to the rescue And what is this lure, this big attraction, that can stop the outflow of learners from schools, reduce the drop out rates and convert “potential” resources to “job-ready” manpower? Simply said, it is vocational training, a strategy that can not only keep students in schools and colleges, but also redress the “employability” issue.

The National Skill Development Initia-tive has stated that over 500 million skilled Indians are needed by 2022. This implies that India must increase its annual vocational training capabil-ity to 15 million per annum, from the existing 3.1 million. In order to deliver

V I E W P O I N T


this vocational education, India can either build additional capacity and new institutions or leverage what is currently available.

Alongside enhancing its focus on vocational training, India must also pay attention to certification, intro-ducing it at every important phase of education. The way to go then is to introduce certification driven voca-tional training as part of the curricu-lum at each stage of the learning cycle. Vocational training should be made available at every inflexion point, with an increasing order of complexity in order to prepare students for the world of work. This certification should have Industry recognition and respect.

The role of ICT in learning The part that technology can play in education can never be overemphasized. Technology can bring learning to the doorsteps of students, opening the world of knowledge to them at the click of a key. Technology can also help overcome the problems associated with education delivery infrastructure as well as lack of teachers and quality content. Since there aren’t enough teachers, a three-pronged method can be followed.

Chalking out a strategy The government can play a major part in making the Indian education system “job-centric” and “employability-centric.” Today, there is a need to determine the number of skilled professionals required by industry, understand the kind of job profiles coming up, the number of people needed in each of these skills categories and build a compendium of jobs in key sectors. The government, which regularly initiates studies and research, can be a facilitator here.

At the next level, once the necessary skill sets have been identified, changes will be required in the curriculum, in order to create this expertise. Courses will have to be created to develop these specific skill sets. Finally, pro-grams will have to be made available to institutions in the vocational stream, so that they can go for large scale

student skills development. Addition-ally, there is a need to undertake the following:

Improve enrolment in the `secondary education space through vocational coursesCreate mandatory fundamental `vocational modules in IT, Communication and Life / Grooming skills as basic vocational training modules applicable to all secondary school students and at college levelEquip schools, ITI/ITCs, `polytechnics, colleges with IT Labs with connectivity in phases across IndiaLeverage 100,000 Community `Service Centers as skill development points in addition to the schooling system

Enable development of global `content that can be imbibed via e-learning or blended learning and is connected to relevant job skillsTrain teachers to facilitate `vocational/job relevant training through such contentConnect training imparted `to acquisition of world-class certificationConnect the trained and certified `students to sources of employment

Working together for employability It will take close collaboration and public-private partnerships between the government, the private sector and academia to make the country’s education system more relevant.

Much can be done to ensure that India gets on to the path of educational reform. The recently elected government has announced its intent to transform education, so that the goals of Access, Equity and Quality can be achieved. The task of overhauling the system may appear gargantuan, but it is not impossible. The time to ready the country for this major mission is now. India’s Demographic Dividend is currently in the realm of ideas. Let’s make it a reality.

P E R S P E C T I V E


It has always been said that technology can play an important role in transforming education in India. Do you see it as a vehicle of change in the area of learning? Yes, but not in a ready form. A lot of work needs to be done on the technology that we have. Work needs to be done to make it adaptive to learning. Today, we are seeing a lot of blind use of technology, which is not good for learning. Technology can have a huge impact on education, provided some serious work is done on it. We have to look beyond the hype and hoopla and focus instead on achieving the right results with technology and then scaling it.

Take the instance of technology being used to facilitate a live interaction between teachers and students. We need to examine and understand just how many students can be addressed through this interaction simultane-ously, for what duration, the kind of interaction and whether it will be a one-way process or allow for reverse questioning. In case it’s not live, and internet based, then we have to look at what kind of website material has to be created and how this can supple-ment the books and videos that are currently available and not redundant. The number of students that can learn and the focus that is needed, have to be figured out for technology to be successfully deployed in education.

Thought guru, techie and innovator, Dr.

Ashok Jhunjhunwala believes that

technology is a powerful tool, but not

the panacea for India’s challenges, particularly those related to

education in rural areas. In this interview with Interface, Professor

Jhunjhunwala talks about how technology can be made more

effective in learning.



The fact is whether you are doing

research or anything else at the more

advanced levels, ICT is a powerful tool for finding information,

material, etc

As another example, certain kinds of technology may be good for a certain group of students and not for all. Tools are being developed based on technology and not all these are good. In fact, few good tools exist that can meet the needs of learning. At the end of the day, it is what you do with the technology, what you develop on top of it that will make the difference.

Can technology impact government schools, enabling them to raise their quality of teaching to the same levels as private schools and stem the outflow of students from the system? Technology can make a difference to government schools—in fact it can make a difference to all schools. But can it replace teachers? I don’t think so. Besides, it will not bridge the difference between bad teachers and good teachers. Since technology is in itself not an answer, we will need to build high quality lessons and programs around it. So far, what we have, has not been as effective as it should be. What is being built works for certain segments of students, certain subjects and certain situations—not everywhere.

Technology enthusiasts tend to cre-ate technology that is not relevant for teaching. The educationists on the other hand, who know what is required to address the learning needs of different kinds of students, realize that this system cannot work. By and large, that is what is happening today.

Coming back to the question of whether technology can bring gov-ernment schools at par with private schools, I think not. There is a big difference in the quality of teachers in both the institutions and technology alone cannot narrow this gap.

How can educators be motivated to use ICT? There has to be a system of rewards and punishment! Technology is a tool that must be given to teachers so that they can use it to improve the delivery

of learning. There has to be a system by which teachers can be “pushed” and “attracted.”

A lot of effort is required to do this as technology is still a new tool for them. Since next-gen teachers are already acquainted with technology and have used it, there is relatively less effort required to push them towards it and get them to adapt it. The older teachers are the ones who have to be driven and incentivized. The system of recognition and punishment has to be deployed in order to encourage the use of ICT by teachers, especially in government schools.

Even if one section of teachers says, “okay, let’s go forward and make technology effective,” their peers will get encouraged and pick it up. Today, so much hype is being created. We are making so many computers and the internet available to schools, saying, “yes, this will make a difference.” The fact is it will make a difference, but we should not expect a transformation from day one!

In terms of infrastructure, what are the challenges that need to be overcome in order to ensure that rural schools have access to ICT? One of the biggest challenges facing schools in the rural sector is managing the infrastructure—computers, connectivity, the power supply, etc. Power is especially crucial and a major concern. What rural schools really require is for someone to completely manage the infrastructure—right down to the power supply and the UPS—for them. Infrastructure should be provided like a service, with the complete package on offer. In villages this is very important.

We have to look at a total solution. Furthermore, the total cost of outsourcing this infrastructure should be low—say Rs. 1,000 per month—so that schools can in-build this into their monthly budget. The package should include all the hardware, software, networking, broadband, and yes, the



power supply. The aim should be to power this infrastructure and keep it up and running 24x7x365.

What is the role that ICT can play in improving learning at the higher-end of the education spectrum? The fact is whether you are doing research or anything else at the more advanced levels, ICT is a powerful tool for finding information, material, etc. ICT can be used to provide good learning material to students at the higher, more advanced levels.

One of the biggest challenges that faces the Indian educational system today is a paucity of high quality teachers in schools and faculty in colleges? Is it possible to harness the power of ICT to redress this problem? It is possible to undertake a multiplication, where a good teacher impacts say 15, 30, 50 or 70 students. However, we are still not clear about how it can be achieved. Even one hour of “internet-based” teaching daily, by some of the best teachers, can impact a large number of students. However, there are still issues regarding how this live experience can be made interactive between students and teachers. This is currently not happening, but is doable. It can work because we have some excellent teachers and the technology that can enable broadcast of lessons.

Employability remains one of the key goals of any education system. How can India ensure that its education system is focused on building skilled industry-ready professionals? We have to build high quality finishing schools in order to achieve the goal of employability. This idea has to be thought out very carefully, and we need to create an IT-based environment where students can learn. Students should be provided hands-on, industry-oriented training for two-three months, and IT should be used as much as possible here.

Much is being said about the transformational impact of IT on the rural sector. Can a greater use of IT in education help bridge the rural-urban divide. How can it impact rural development? I am a firm believer of the fact that ICT can transform the rural landscape. At the same time, it is critical for us to figure out what works and withdraw what doesn’t. We have to recognize the initiatives that are failing. This requires intensive research. I don’t think technology is a fix. It is a good

tool, but more and more consumption of technology will not work. IT can play a huge role in connecting rural areas with the rest of the world and helping them emerge as hubs of culture and knowledge, but it has to be the right technology, brought affordably into rural India .

Are public-private partnerships (between industry-academia and government) becoming an imperative in the area of education, to take India’s vision (of educating every citizen), forward? Public-private-partnerships (PPP) are the only way to go. However, we need to experiment much more and develop the model best suited to our needs. The right PPPs have to be found where the private sector brings in the funding and the public sector provides the necessary incentives and regulatory environment to make things work.

T R E N D S


SMEs have proved to be the vital cog in the big Indian industry wheel. An examination of the larger Indian eco-system as well as its cost structures, will reveal that in order to produce goods or provide services at cost-effective rates, there is a need for SMEs. Today, nearly 40 percent of GDP and 40 per-cent of exports from India come from the small and medium sectors.

Leading analyst firm, Ovum, in its research has indicated that SMEs are keen to embrace new technology trends, such as managed services and find ways of reducing unnecessary up-front capital investment. Ovum has identified SMEs as potential business opportunities for equipment and service providers in India. According to Ovum, Indian SMEs are likely to remain “spenders,” even in this slowdown.

Deep Impact This despite the fact that in these times of economic hardship and global turmoil, the SME segment has been the most impacted.

If one had to describe the key chal-lenges facing Indian SMEs today, they would be fluctuating global curren-cies, a drop in international consump-tion leading to a shrinking of exports, competition from other emerging countries, a scarcity of low-cost talent and the collapse of the infrastructure and real estate sectors.

Role of ICT in transforming SMEs In such a scenario, SMEs are looking towards the IT industry and govern-ment to help them pull out of the crises. Therefore, how can government and industry help SMEs survive? The answer of course lies in ICT, which has been helping large organizations achieve great benefits—from lowering the cost of ownership or cost of pro-duction, streamlining the production or services and providing analytical information. ICT adoption has proved itself to be beneficial for all kinds of businesses around the world.

A recent demand Study titled “Waiting to connect” by the India Development

DInESh AgARwAl, the founder and CEO of IndiaMART.com,(India’s largest online B2B marketplace connecting Indian suppliers with domestic and international buyers) writes about how ICT can help change the SME sector

The TransformationalRole of ICT in the

SME Sector

T R E N D S


SMEs can use technologies such as

the internet, e-mail and mobile to reach out to their existing

and new markets as well as current and

potential customers.

Foundation (IDF) that investigates the use of technology in Indian manu-facturing units, shows that IT use by Indian businesses can lead to greater profitability and employment.

It also indicates that ICT contributes a 32 percent change in value added and enhances productivity. On the flip side its points out that small businesses, with more to gain from technology deployment are less likely to adopt it. The inhibitors to ICT adoption are stated to be inadequate access to power; lack of skilled workers; hesi-tancy to invest; and low degree of use among other industry players.

The question that arises is that if ICT can work for large companies, why not for SMEs? In order to combat the challenges of the global economy, these organizations do need to adopt ICT. Technology can enable small and medium companies to reduce their go-to-market cycle, reduce their finance cycle, reduce costs and bring them more customers.

SMEs can use technologies such as the internet, e-mail and mobile to reach out to their existing and new markets as well as current and potential cus-tomers. E-mail for instance, can help companies cut down their commu-nications costs. Computers too have become very inexpensive now—they are available at less than Rs 25,000 which is very cost-effective as com-pared to ten years ago.

Private sector to lend a helping hand ICT adoption by SMEs has to be sup-ported through more simple, home grown, indigenous solutions which have been developed keeping these companies in mind. A number of smaller players, who are particularly fearful of high-tech solutions could benefit by more affordable, easy-to-deploy technologies.

The good news is that technologies are already becoming available that can help SMEs implement IT in a flexible, convenient and cost-effective manner.

The phenomenon of “cloud comput-ing,” being actively promoted by the ICT sector today, is assuming relevance in this context. Hotmail was the first cloud computing application—e-mail on the Web, a real killer app. More such applications are needed—related to payroll, invoicing, accounting, etc. to further draw the smaller players towards technology. The SME sector is presently large, widely dispersed and often difficult to reach. It is a market that requires patient handling and hand-holding. A bottom-up approach can be a good way of reaching out to some of the companies, especially the micro, sub-Rs. 50 lakh businesses.

Building an ecosystem for SMEs Today, it is becoming necessary to build an ecosystem for the smaller players within industry, an eco-system that spurs these companies to deploy the state-of-the-art and address their pain points. There is need for a proper ICT movement, an SME ICT move-ment in India like the one seen for the outsourcing industry.

Initiatives such as Project Vikas, launched by Microsoft in collabora-tion with the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC), are steps in this direction. The Project, is aimed at stimulating the manufactur-ing competitiveness of SMEs across the clusters in the country using IT. The Indian government has also launched market development assistance and technology upgradation initiatives, which can be further tuned to recent technology trends to make them more relevant.

Overall, the emerging companies have the potential to grow into a vibrant force within the Indian economy, a major contributor to the country’s GDP growth. If they can harness the power of ICT, these companies can mature into more nimble, efficient and profit-able businesses. The coming together of all the stakeholders within the exist-ing IT-BPO eco-system to promote the SME cause, can help them fight their challenges and emerge as a stronger force within the Indian economy.

Q & A


What is NASSCOM’s IT vision for India for 2020? It is our belief that Indian technology business services is having a huge impact on the Indian economy, touching various facets and contributing towards inclusive growth. The impact is on the economy, employment creation—both in numbers and diversity—and the changes it triggers through technology in the domestic market.

In terms of economic growth, the expectation is that by 2020 the IT-BPO sector will account for around six per-cent of GDP and nearly 28 percent of the overall exports from the country.

Clearly, as a result of this growth, the sector will become the largest employer both directly and indirectly. The IT-BPO industry will create over 30 million urban jobs both direct or indirect. It will also spur significant job creation in rural and non-metro areas. Nearly 50 percent of the sector’s work-force will be constituted by women in 2020, up from 30 percent today.

We believe that the ICT sector will spell new hope for non-urban India. Technology will help increase the reach of healthcare, education and new economic activities to rural areas. By catalyzing infrastructure develop-ment, the ICT sector will enable the

NASSCOM President and an ICT sector stalwart, Som Mittal talks about

the role of IT in bringing about inclusive growth

in India and the role the Government and industry

can play in making the country’s IT vision

become a reality.

ICT Vision for INDIA

Q & A


development of at least 8-10 satel-lite townships around Tier 1 cities and around 10-15 Tier 2 cities will be upgraded to become world class.

How will this vision be achieved? At NASSCOM we feel we will have to rely on concerted action anchored on a five-fold theme. For one, the IT-BPO industry will have to catalyze growth beyond today’s core markets. The sector will have to win through the downturn by reinventing business models, foraying new verticals, geographies and customer segments and building a robust domestic market. Secondly, we have to reinforce India’s position as a

trusted global hub for professional services. For this, India needs to focus on building infrastructure, improve corporate governance and risk management, and security.

Third, it is important to establish India as a pre-eminent innovation hub with strong IP frameworks and

regulations, Centers of Excellence and Entrepreneurship. The capacity we have built over the last decade positions us well to play a more leading role, through innovation in newer areas like climatic change, healthcare, etc. Fourth, to meet the above we need to focus on talent development. In order to nurture over three million skilled professionals and develop a high calibre talent pool, a major overhaul of the Indian education system will need to be undertaken. Greater private sector participation, especially in the area of higher education will become a must if we have to fulfil the vision of creating employment for a large number of Indians.

Finally, ICT will have to be harnessed for inclusive growth. ICT solutions will have to be deployed in healthcare, education, financial services and public services. In order to proliferate the usage of these solutions, connectivity and access to IT will have to be pro-vided to the largest number of citizens in the country. and government.

Q & A


What is the kind of impact that the ICT industry has had on the economy of India? Undisputedly, the ICT sector has had an unparalleled impact on India’s development. ICT has had a direct impact on employment generation. Nearly 45 percent of new urban jobs between 1995-2005 have been created by the IT-BPO sector. The industry’s contribution to the area of education has also been immense and it has led to a 6x increase in tertiary education in the ICT exporting states. Diversity and global exposure have received a boost owing to the ICT industry, with women constituting 30 percent of the industry workforce. More importantly, the industry has contributed to building Brand India.

NASSCOM has been talking about how the IT industry has the potential to play a major role in addressing India’s societal challenges and contributing to the development of India’s key sectors. Going forward, how will the industry engineer this transformation? We have always said that the industry can transform India by harnessing technology to enable inclusive growth. ICT-enabled solutions in healthcare, education, financial services and public services can drive socio-economic inclusion of 30 million citizens each year, faster, cheaper and more effectively than traditional models.

Take the instance of healthcare. Nearly 50 percent of Indians do not have access to primary healthcare and technology can make it available at half the cost. Similarly, in the area of financial services, nearly 80 percent of Indian households do not have bank accounts. Technology can provide at least 200 million families with access to these services.

Technology can play an even more transformational role in the area of education. One of the biggest chal-lenges that the Indian education system faces today is the extreme

shortage of high quality teachers and faculty. This 3x shortage in teachers can be addressed through ICT solu-tions that link remote parts of India with leading urban educational institu-tions, taking high quality learning to the doorsteps of learners.

The e-governance initiatives will help in the government being more efficient and ensuring that social pro-grams are more effective and trans-parent. The time is right to get the country connected.

How can ICT transform the rural landscape? How can the IT industry catalyze this immense change? ICT can transform virtually every aspect of rural existence and emerge as a big change engine. Recent experiences have shown the capacity of the rural areas to learn technology without being computer literate. IT-assisted learning in government schools, for example, will not only bring back the fun and students into the education stream, it will also staunch the flow of “drop outs,” from the system.

IT will not only help schools in the hinterland to overcome the paucity of trained teachers, it will also impact job creation in the villages. Rural BPO is gaining prominence and has the potential of generating jobs for millions of citizens.

ICT’s role in bringing about financial inclusion, where rural citizens will have access to micro-banking and other such facilities. Rural India will benefit with the establishment of IT kiosks, that bring several government services at extremely low costs. A number of initiatives have already been launched which are making available several services that provide vital informa-tion related to agricultural practices to farmers to help improve their yield.

Today, fishermen in several coastal areas in Southern India are benefiting from the storm warnings and other fishing tips provided through ICT-run

The government can foster domestic demand through the national CIO office, by allocating 1-3 percent of its budget on e-governance.

Q & A


work very closely on the issue of tal-ent development. Despite this huge potential advantage, the fact is that most of this additional working popu-lation will not be “employable,” unless India is prepared with a solution. This talent will have to be rightly skilled so that it is of use to the industry and ready to be hired.

By 2020, the industry and the govern-ment will have to create deployable and specialized talent pools instead of what currently exists. Together they will have to build multiple manage-ment tracks and globalized exper-tise as opposed to delivery-centric management.

What is the role that NASSCOM can play in this environment? NASSCOM has to become an ambassador for global services and continue to entrench the India Inc. brand overseas. A key focus for us has to be the establishment of India as a trusted sourcing hub.

In order to further the government agenda of inclusive growth, NASSCOM will be collaborating with the policy makers to develop a national blueprint for IT-enabled solutions for major public services.

More recently, there have been signs that the Govern-ment is keen to appoint stal-warts from the IT-BPO indus-try to head some of its key technology-based initiatives. Is this going to be a trend? Yes, this is true. The Government is keenly looking at leveraging the expertise and experience of stalwarts within the IT-BPO industry to push its efforts towards inclusive development and ensure that the benefits of ICT are enjoyed by one and all. Whether it is the revival of Satyam Computers, troubleshooting at Air India or the deployment of a unified ID system for Indian citizens, the Government is certainly looking to enlist the help of the IT-BPO industry to resolve some of these challenging issues.

Community Centers. In the area of healthcare too, IT will make it pos-sible to bring state-of-the-art medical diagnosis and consultation to ordi-nary rural citizens. Specialists in urban centers will be able to reach out to patients in rural areas owing to high bandwidth connectivity.

What are the steps that the government can take to accelerate IT adoption across its own departments and ministries? The government will need to focus on spurring ICT adoption in its own key departments and ministries. This will bring about greater efficiency, transparency and productivity into policy making bodies.

The government can foster domestic demand through the national CIO office, by allocating 1-3 percent of its budget on e-governance. Currently, a number of projects are still in the pilot stages which need to get off the ground and into active deploy-ment. E-governance project roll outs, driven by broadband deployment, will provide a major spur to the domestic market and help IT penetrate across India’s rural landscape.

How do you see the future of industry-government partnership evolving? Besides catalyzing growth beyond today’s core markets by spurring domestic demand (through e-governance roll-outs), the government has to continue to improve urban infrastructure and public services in Tier 2 and 3 cities and townships. The government should also look at creating a national information infrastructure (Internet connectivity, national ID, ICT literacy) to leverage ICT for inclusive growth.

The IT-BPO industry meanwhile will need to invest in new business models and develop self regulatory frameworks to adhere to world-class standards in corporate governance and risk management.

The two stakeholders also need to

ICT has had a direct impact on employment generation. Nearly 45 percent of new urban jobs between 1995-2005 have been created by the IT-BPO sector.

C A S E S T U D Y


An important pillar in Microsoft’s inclusive growth strategy is Partners in Learning (PiL), a global program designed to increase technology access for schools, foster innovative approaches to pedagogy and teacher development, and provide education leaders with the tools to envision, implement, and manage change. This is done by inspiring, identify-ing, sharing and scaling practices

and behaviors that improve learning outcomes.

An important program under the umbrella of PiL is Project Shiksha, an initiative launched by Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates during his third visit to India in 2002. Through this Project, Microsoft delivers, comprehensive training and curriculum for students and teachers in government schools.

India is slowly but surely moving towards becoming a developed country and over the next few years, the world’s third largest economy. At the same time, significant challenges stand in the way of the nation, the most significant being balanced growth, which touches all parts of society, including rural India as well as the socially and economically challenged.

Recognizing the importance of inclusive development to the future of India, and the central role that IT can play in spurring this cause, Microsoft has committed itself to empowering students, educators, educational organizations, the developer com-munity, IT professionals, emerging companies and ordinary citizens to achieve their fullest potential. The company has done so by launching, over the past five years, wide-ranging programs that provide greater access to the latest technologies, local-ized and relevant training content as well as out-of-the-box solutions, that enable both individuals as well as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to stay ahead in a highly competitive environment.

ProjECT ShikShA: iT revolution for students and teachers

C A S E S T U D Y


Entailing an investment of USD 20 mil-lion over the last five years, the Project has already accelerated IT literacy to over 350,000 school teachers and more than 15 million students across schools.

Microsoft has also launched its Innova-tive Teachers Leadership Awards (ITLA), a joint initiative with the Ministry of HRD. This is a part of Microsoft’s Innovative Teachers program, a global community of educators sponsored by PiL. The annual awards recognize and applaud innovative teachers who practice the elements of 21st century learning in their own classrooms, and then incorporate these skills into the student learning environment.

Every year, teachers who exhibit the greatest innovation are selected by their respective countries as “Coun-try Winners.” These performers then compete at a regional level to emerge as “Regional Winners,” and finally go on to attend the Worldwide Innova-tive Teachers Forum, where the best teachers from more the 60 countries vie for the biggest global honors in four categories—Innovation in Com-munity, Innovation in collaboration , Innovation in Content and finally the Educators Choice Awards.

In this issue, we spotlight such an award winning teacher who trans-formed the learning experience of his students, and talk about a remotely located government school, that got a fresh lease of life owing to a pioneering and passionate trainer and the helping hand of Microsoft technologies.

Case Study: Chalking out a new path for students in Tehri The first account relates to the Gov-ernment Inter College Accharikhunt, a very distant school in the Tehri district of Uttarakhand, where Parambir Singh Kathait, an English and Social Studies teacher made a Herculean effort to change the life of his students.

Although nestling within beauti-ful mountains, the School lacked

basic facilities and had no access to public transport, electricity and the telephone! It was only in 2005 that it received an electric connection, four computers and a diesel generator for running them. In that year, Parambir, alongside a few other teachers, was sent to DIET Barkot for acquiring basic IT skills under Microsoft’s Project Shik-sha. Within a few months, he had the opportunity to attend the second level training program, where he learnt to create multimedia presentations and websites using FrontPage.

Working diligently, Parambir created a menu-driven, interactive, bi-lingual multimedia package that became extremely popular with students.

Realizing the impact that this teacher could have on students given the right environment, the Education Depart-ment transferred him to the Rajiv Gan-dhi Navodaya Vidyalaya in Dehradun in May 2008.

Parambir was also invited to partici-pate n the ITLA 2007 competition and selected to attend the Asia Pacific Innovative Teachers conference in Hanoi, Vietnam. One of the three teachers who made it to the final list-ing, his work was demonstrated in the worldwide ITLA competition held in 2008. The teacher ended up with the first prize in the “Innovative content” category in the contest, bringing honor to both his school and India.

In June 2009, Parambir was invited by Microsoft to attend the National Education and Computing Conference in Washington and asked to showcase his work.

Case Study: Putting the power of IT in the hands of the community The second narrative is about this quiet and sleepy hamlet in the state of Rajasthan, which awoke to IT literacy owing to Microsoft’s Project Shiksha and a teacher, Rajiv Godara.

It all began in GSS Dulmana, a distant village in district Hanumangarh, where a small school was established in 1959

ProjeCT ShIkSha Fact File

3,65,000 government school teachers trained

15 Million Students Positively Impacted

10 State Government Partners for 11 IT Academies 100s of government schools and educational institution tie-up

C A S E S T U D Y


ProjECT jYoTi: Fuelling employment and entrepreneurship

Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential—Com-munity Technology Skills Program was launched in India in August 2004 as “Project Jyoti.” As a part of this initia-tive, Microsoft partners with non-gov-ernmental organizations to support various programs aimed at empower-ing underserved individuals through the use of Information Technology.

The Program is focused on empower-ing unemployed youth, marginalized women and rural communities by imparting IT skills training—or basic computer literacy—and enabling them to explore employment and sustainable livelihood options. The pivot of the program is a Community Technology Learning Center (CTLC), where people of all ages and abilities can come to learn about computers, use the Internet, explore new careers, further their education and awareness, participate in community activities or

develop technology skills. Here, we take a look at how the Project altered the lives of two people, empowering them with skills that put them on the path of economic independence.

Case Study: Transforming Feroz from “zero to hero” Meet Feroz, the fourth child in a large family of eight, who overcame abject poverty and exploitation, owing to Project Jyoti, to make a new life for himself. The son of a labourer, Feroz managed to pass high school, without acquiring the skills that would help him gain employment. Understanding his plight, an uncle offered him a job in Delhi, even though he did not share with Feroz the nature of the work. Before he knew it, Feroz was in the capital city, working in Osmanpur in a 12-hour job which paid him a meagre Rs. 800 per month. A “Zari” maker (a local craft), Feroz worked overtime

ProjeCT jyoTI Fact File

Rs 47 crore investment made by Microsoft

Impact on 20 states and Union Territories

Around 1000 CTLCs established

Over 160,000 persons trained in IT skills

Partnership with 14 leading NGOs such as MSSRF, Datamation Foundation, the NASSCOM Foundation, among others for on-ground program implementation of the Project.

with the aim of providing low-cost education to children. Over 46 years later, with the support of the commu-nity, the school bought four comput-ers, which simply gathered dust until a proactive and skilled teacher wiped the slate clean and changed the entire set up.

Rajiv, who had attended an IT training program under Project Shiksha in DIET (District Institute for Education and Training) Hanumangarh, became the catalyst of the transformation in the rural community.

Realizing that simple computer tools could have a huge impact on the school as well as his village, Rajiv went about building an IT-savvy environ-ment. The teacher began by training his colleagues and encouraging them to undertake similar training under Project Shiksha. This pool of instruc-tors then created PowerPoint pre-sentations on various subjects, which were run in the multimedia lab of the school (housing over ten machines) for the students.

In order to proliferate computer learning across the village, the school arranged summer camps to provide IT training to villagers, members of the Panchayat, teachers and students of other schools that didn’t have com-puters, cooperative societies (dairies, depot holders), girl students who had dropped out from the system and women. These efforts unleashed a spate of benefits for all stakeholders—from improving the infrastructure of the school, to enhancing the perfor-mance of the students.

As far as the community was con-cerned, the digital divide almost vanished. Today, after being trained, the co-operative societies have begun using computers for maintaining their daily records. The women of the vil-lage, who have become acquainted with basic computer skills, are now lending their husbands a helping hand in maintaining school records. After the introduction of IT training on its turf, the school has managed to increase it student strength from 134 to 176, which is expected to go up further to 300 this year.

C A S E S T U D Y


ProjECT VikAS: Empowering SMEs

The vast and high potential SME The vast and high potential SME (Small and Medium enterprise) market is beset by challenges, particularly related to technology adoption. What SMEs require is affordable, easy-to-deploy and manage, out-of-the-box solutions, that address different verti-cal segments.

Recognizing these concerns, Micro-soft launched Project Vikas in June 2007, a vital initiative that helps individuals connect to valuable skills and new jobs and businesses to run and grow. A partnership between the

National Manufacturing Competi-tive Council (NMCC), Government of India, it equips SMEs with IT tools that enhance their global competitiveness.

Case Study: Chennai footwear mak-ers take a step forward with Project Vikas One of the significant activities launched by Microsoft under Proj-ect Vikas is the leather cluster it has created in Chennai, where it has helped SMEs in the area address their challenges and build market differentiators.

without payment, staying in virtual captivity of the owners. One day, how-ever, he managed to escape.

Respite came to Feroz in the form of Prayas, a Delhi-based NGO, that rescued and counselled him for over three months.

He also attended non-formal educa-tion classes organized for school drop-outs at the Prayas Education Center, and enrolled in the UP-CTSP training program in December, 2006, at a CTLC in Delhi. This learning completely altered his behavior, outlook to life, confidence and personality.

After completing his course in April 2007, Feroz was interviewed by a cable TV and Internet company that selected him as a Data Entry Operator. He now earns Rs. 5,500 per month, a far cry from his early days! From being very shy and vulnerable, he has now become a confident youth—sure of his own caliber and just what he wants from life!

Case Study: Vipul finds work and self worth Vipul Bhalani is a 24-year-old graduate from Talala, a taluka (akin to a block) in the Junagadh district of South Guja-rat. Vipul works as a Sales Manager in Reliance Money, (a financial services and solutions provider), with the Talala Branch and attributes his success to

the Microsoft-supported Community Technology Learning Centres (CTLCs).

The son of a farmer, Vipul completed his graduation three years ago, only to find that he had no job lined up or even the possibility of employment in the vicinity. Aware of his situation, one of his friends cajoled him to visit the local CTLC, which he found completely different. Vipul enrolled himself for a course at the CTLC, studying dili-gently and completing it within the stipulated time frame. Impressed by the efforts of the CTLC to bridge the digital divide in far off villages, he regularly started participating in all the awareness generation activities of the facility.

After completing the course, Vipul put his name down in the rural employ-ment exchange program of the center, only to hear about a vacancy at Reli-ance Money. The CTLC staff assisted him in preparing his resume and getting ready for the interview. These efforts reaped fruit as Vipul cleared the interview with flying colours and was soon appointed as Sales Manager in the company with a salary of Rs. 7,000 per month.

Today, besides working as an employee of Reliance Money, Vipul has also become a brand ambassador for the CTLCs—spreading the word about them and how one such center changed his own life.

ProjeCT VIkaS Fact File Rolled out in 9 cities till date.

Deployed across major micro-vertical industries like textiles, pharmaceuticals, auto components, gems and jewellery, and footwear.

Touched 2,000 SMEs from national and cluster portals

C A S E S T U D Y


I had burnt a lot of moneyin trying to buy and adoptlocal solutions. Vikas came

as a boon and providedme the opportunity to own

a world-class solution.Yogam Ramjee,

Managing Director RamjeeLeather, a part of the

Chennai Leather Group

The activity in Chennai kicked off with the signing of an MoU between Microsoft and the Ambur Economic Development Organization (AEDOL) in 2007.

The aim of the Project in Chennai has been to help leather exporters enhance their productivity by adopt-ing IT solutions. These solutions are helping them become more system dependent, not people dependent, thereby cutting down the element of human error.

As part of the project, Microsoft assigned PriceWaterhouseCoopers to conduct a study that would define an IT roadmap for Chennai by under-standing the business process pain points of the cluster, assessing its cur-rent IT usage and identifying solution opportunities.

Companies within the cluster have been updated about cutting-edge IT technologies and developments specific to the leather industry. The effort has been to develop the cluster in a holistic, modern way through new tech. ERP solutions developed by Microsoft partner, Firstware Solutions, for the leather units as well as product units have been demonstrated and deployed within participating leather units.

Microsoft in partnership with AEDOL has set up a state-of-the-art Center of Excellence—an E-Readiness Center in Chennai. Conceived as an IT hotspot in the cluster, the facility offers various training and skill development pro-grams for leather manufacturers.

In tune with the needs of the cluster, Microsoft has also set up a compre-hensive portal for the leather makers. This will give members an identity on the World Wide Web and access to international buyers for their products and services.

Case Study: a diamond is a Surat SMe’s best friend! This story sparkles with the ethereal light of the diamond cluster in the

city of Surat, which Microsoft’s Project Vikas took under its wing, made cutting-edge, and helped improve the lustre.

It all began when Pricewater-houseCoopers was assigned by Micro-soft to analyse the IT requirements in Surat’s diamond cluster, understand the challenges being faced by the diamond manufacturing firms as well as their IT usage and suggest technol-ogy solutions that could be adopted to best serve these needs.

The report indicated that there were inefficiencies which could be attrib-uted to the accounting function not being integrated to key business pro-cesses. It also showed that diamond manufacturers were facing problems in maintaining their inventory dur-ing peak seasons, managing produc-tion planning, tracking and control, accurately undertaking sales planning and forecasting and handling the high wastage of diamonds during the pro-duction process.

Based on these inputs, a range of transaction, point and collaborative solutions were suggested. While the transactional solutions included any functionality which was core to the operations of the firm and impacted the books of account, Point solutions (encompassing a diamond planning tool and tracking and identification solution), met the vertical specific needs of the industry.

Collaborative solutions included a Col-laborative Sales Portal—a repository of trade related information and platform for global customers and retailers to source finished diamonds through a “Request for Quotation” based tender-ing mechanism. An e-learning portal offered the cluster modular training programs for workers and supervisors, on a flexitime and flexilocation basis.

(Adapted from the Diamond Cluster ICT Diagnostic study, conducted by Pricewater-houseCoopers under Project Vikas)

N E W S B Y T E S


BSNL-Microsoft partner to bring Managed SaaS solutions to businesses

“With Project Jyoti, we aim to help realize digital inclusion by providing basic IT skills training to people of all ages which can be a source of livelihoods and information. We are glad to strengthen the relation with our NGO partners, for the common goal of taking the benefits of technology to underserved sections of the society and bringing about positive transformation.”Dr. VikaS GoSwaMi, Lead CSR, Microsoft India

“We are pleased to partner with Microsoft in this initiative towards empowering marginalized youth by facilitating basic technology training to them. Microsoft being an industry leader in IT solutions will definitely lend strength to our campaign and we believe that this association will help us contribute effectively to alleviating the condition of unemployed youth.” raVi PrataP SiNGh,Regional Director-South Asia, Aide et Action

“Customers find value in a combination of SaaS delivered via the Internet, thus making owning and managing IT more affordable and convenient. We believe that BSNL’s foray into the S+S model will provide ample value to businesses looking to leverage technology to maximize productivity while ensuring lower spends.”rajaN aNaNDaN,Managing Director, Microsoft India

This is one announcement that bodes well, especially for smaller businesses where affordability and cost are key. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, India’s leading telecommunications company, and Microsoft have announced a long-term partnership to launch BSNL Managed SaaS (Software as a Service) in India. This partnership will enable BSNL to offer hosted solutions on core Productivity, Collaboration and Line of Business Applications to business cus-tomers. BSNL has also launched “BSNL Managed Business Mail,” the first offer resulting from this partnership.

Based on Microsoft Exchange plat-form, BSNL Managed Business Mail moves beyond conventional e-mail options to empower businesses with tools to increase productivity, mobil-ity and collaboration at an afford-able monthly fee. This will provide a range of services for businesses across enterprise, SMBs and Public Sector

segments to enhance communica-tion coordination by enabling them to share e-mail messages, contacts, calendars, task lists and documents from any device.

The partnership and launch marks BSNL’s foray into managed business solutions based on the SaaS model. Since this service will be delivered via the Internet, users will save on upfront costs related to hardware, licenses and installation for their IT infrastructure. Business owners will also be able to focus on their core business tasks, without any disruptions and distrac-tions pertaining to IT headaches like security patches, software updates, monitoring and backups. In turn, this will eliminate need for in-house IT management manpower.

BSNL Managed Business Mail will be available in four editions at affordable prices starting from Rs. 420 per month.

Microsoft India provides a fillip to Project JyotiAnnounces fresh grant of Rs. 7.63 crores for NGOs to create IT-enabled sustainable livelihood options for underserved communities.

Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential-Community Technology Skills Program (UP-CTSP)—christened Project Jyoti, received yet another boost recently, with the company announcing an additional funding of Rs. 7.63 crore to three NGOs for enabling IT skills train-ing to underserved communities in urban and rural India.

The grant beneficiaries are Aide et Action (India), CAP Foundation and Mahila SEWA Trust, who will receive grants of Rs. 4.56 crores, Rs. 1.20 crores and Rs. 1.87 crores respectively in cash, software and curriculum. Microsoft is partnering with these NGOs with a view to accelerating digital inclusion

and bringing the benefits of technol-ogy to women, youth and underprivi-leged communities including unskilled and semi-skilled workers, traditional artisans and craftsmen, people with disabilities and refugees. The company will be offering these stakeholders a package of IT skills, life skills and other useful technical skills.

N E W S B Y T E S


“The issue of online security & safety is becoming increasingly pivotal. The website empowers the technology users with knowledge and information related with the various facets of online security. We are glad to have support from a company such as Microsoft which is known globally for its commitment towards ensuring the security of users Dr. GuLShaN rai, Director General, CERT-India

CERT India and Microsoft India launch SecureyourPC

windows MultiPoint Software Developer kit (SDk) becomes available in indiaMultiPoint technology, developed by Microsoft Research India, is catalysing IT adoption in the Indian education sector by overcoming challenges related to accessibility, affordability, and relevance: today students in only 7.02 percent of government schools have access to computers.

MultiPoint is a paradigm that makes it possible for several children to get a separate mouse—with a separate cur-sor on screen—for a shared computer. This technology effectively multiplies the value of the computer with the only increase in cost being that of the additional mice. The technology enables collaborative learning, with a group of students interacting with each other as they share a computer while giving them a chance to partici-pate. It also helps a teacher engage more effectively with students and monitor each child’s participation and progress. This enables all students to

become active learners and improves their classroom experience.

The next step for the technology is for developers to create programs and applications for MultiPoint, and the Software Developer Kit announced by Microsoft addresses this requirement. The SDK has been specifically designed for schools to help developers create content that can facilitate the use of multiple mice. The MultiPoint SDK will offer improved functionality, custom-ized control templates and support to Visual Studio 2008.

Microsoft is currently working with partners and independent software vendors and academic institutions in various countries to develop educa-tional software using the Microsoft MultiPoint platform. In India, the development of content commenced interestingly with senior technol-ogy students from Vidya Pratishtan’s

CERT India and Microsoft India have launched “Secureyourpc.in”—a website aimed at disseminating information on online safety and security to diverse audiences. The website aims to create awareness and provide people with exhaustive information on how to be secure online and ensure that they are both cognizant of, and ready to com-bat threats that could lurk online.

“Secureyourpc.in” delivers suggestions and prescriptive guidance on safe-guarding cyber security. The website creates, collates and disseminates information on security and privacy issues. Regular updates on matters of safety and security, downloads, good-to-use tips and suggestions, will be some of the features that the website provides. Secureyourpc.in, will provide specific information on online safety and security to women, parents,

teachers, children, or even SMBs. One of the most important aspects of the website is that it can be viewed in four different languages—English, Hindi, Marathi and Tamil—reaching a large audience base.

The initiative is supported by India’s leading chambers of commerce such as NASSCOM, MAIT, CII and IAMAI.

The website launch was preceded by a panel discussion on “Internet Security in India: Challenges and Responses” involving senior members from the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), Computer Emergency Response Team India (CERT-in), Microsoft India, MAIT, CBI and the Supreme Court. The dis-cussion was centered around the cur-rent status of Internet security in India and the measures needed to be taken to enhance the security levels.

Institute of Information Technology (VIIT), Baramati, Maharashtra. As part of this initiative, Microsoft will be creating content for various subjects, for classes ranging 4-7. These stu-dents participated in a contest run by Microsoft, with the winning team having created a Geometry lesson that teaches standard 4 and 5 stu-dents shapes and angles. It included quizzes to test their knowledge. The VIIT group is also conducting trails of MultiPoint in its fleet of rural buses.

Microsoft India also announced part-nerships with Edurite and Education Development Center (EDC) to develop the education content, curriculum and applications for MultiPoint. EDC, a global non-profit organization, designs, delivers and evaluates innova-tive programs to address some of the world’s most urgent challenges like education, and has already developed two kinds of MultiPoint applications.

CERT India and Microsoft India launch SecureyourPCCERT India and Microsoft India launch SecureyourPC

GLOBAL OUTLOOK


“Developing countries can achieve fast, sustaineD, equitable growth if they engage with the global economy and have committed leaders.” the growth report, 2008

The key findings of the Commission on Growth & Development’s report: “The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Devel-opment,” states that fast, sustained growth is not a miracle and that it is possible for developing countries, as long as their leaders are committed to achieving it and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the global economy.

The Commission is the result of two years work on the requirements for sustained and inclusive growth in developing countries led by 20 expe-rienced policymakers and two Nobel prize-winning economists. Its work has been supported by the Governments of Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the World Bank Group.

The Report indicates the following: Developing countries need to `know the levels of incentives and public investments that are needed for private investment to take off in a manner that leads to the long term diversification of the economy and integration into the global economy. Distinctive characteristics of `high-growth economies that have been able to grow at more than 7 percent for periods of more than 25 years since World War II can be emulated by other developing countries.

The current threat posed by rising `food prices, calls for prompt

But what is “inclusive growth”?inclusive growth in its simplest form means growth that is reasonably, indeed fairly shared, and that corresponds to both equality and equity. it includes measurable criteria and more intangible elements. The former (the measurable) includes such metrics as the Gini coefficient (measuring income distribu-tion), the literacy rate, the general provision and distribution of public goods, including education, health, electricity, water, transport infrastructure, personal security, etc.

inclusive growth also refers to intangibles, to perceptions and “feelings.” individuals will be prepared to put up with hardships today if they believe tomorrow will be better and especially if they can realistically hope that their children will join the ranks of the “winners.” while inequality is exacerbated by inequity, similarly the effects of inequality can be mitigated, at least temporarily, by a greater sense of equity. Knowing what is “inclusive growth” is one thing, how to generate inclusive growth is a totally different matter. whether we succeed in generating inclusive growth or not will, arguably,more than anything else determine the kind of planet we will inhabit in the 21st century. hence all stakeholders need to be fully engaged.

(A Definition created by the Indian Institute for Corporate Affairs (IICA), The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and IMD–The Evian Group)

india can turn its population into a distinct advantage. india has the potential to build a base of 200 million college graduates—a portfolio of educated people in every discipline. this is just 16 percent of india’s population. further, i would like to see 500 million certified and skilled technicians. implicit in this future is universal literacy. this is possible in 15 years, if leaders focus on this goal as a priority. think about what this means. india will have the largest pool of technically trained manpower anywhere in the world. this must be the starting point for global leadership.c. K. Prahalad, Management consultant, author and Distinguished University Professor of Corporate Strategy at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business

action to protect poorer people from price increases. It warns that malnutrition and reduced incomes will reduce long-term growth prospects. There is need for establishing a `mechanism to coordinate the policies of the growing number of influential countries and to safeguard the stability of the global financial system. A strong financial system is `needed in developing countries. There has to be careful supervision of the banking sector to prevent banks expanding credit too far. The removal of capital controls has to be in step with the financial market’s maturity. Growth is a crucial part of poverty `reduction and the improvement of people’s lives. It is impossible for poor countries to lift large populations out of poverty without growth. Growth is a long-term challenge `that requires leadership, persistence, stamina, pragmatism, transparency and the support of the population. Growth must be inclusive. The `Report highlights the importance of sharing the benefits of globalization, providing access to the underserved, and dealing with issues of gender inclusiveness.

Being a science teacher at a government school in Jalandhar, it was always disappointing to see a majority of students not opting for the science stream after the 10th standard. Having spent nearly two decades teaching science, I often wondered what I could do to inculcate a passion for the subject among students.

The solution wasn’t far away. In Microsoft’s Project Shiksha sessions, I discovered how effectively computers can be used in teaching. My mind was flooded with ideas. I organised engaging classroom sessions, conducted various science and math quizzes, and saw that students were slowly using computers to explore and make their reports better with relevant information and logic.

Our school was adjudged the best in ‘IT Practices & Computer Literacy’ in the district. And yes, many more of my students started opting for the science stream at the +2 level. Technology has truly made it possible. And made me feel proud!

For more on our innovative efforts to unleash unlimited potential, like Project Shiksha, visitwww.microsoft.com/india/unlimitedpotential

Everything seems possible now.

Microsoft recognized the potential in the worldís largest diamond manufacturing cluster in Surat, Gujarat, which comprises over 2200 units. We saw people with dreams to grow bigger and be successful. We understood that this would happen faster with greater access to computers. Microsoft started imparting computer and CAD specific skills to the community, which gave them the confidence to train more people. Today, diamond jewellery manufacturing units across the district are enabled & empowered with CAD skills, driving employment & efficiencies. In the words of Kiran, Keen Diamonds, ìAfter I attended the Project VIKAS CAD/CAM training, I was convinced that I can grow my business through new opportunities like jewellery design & manufacturing. Within a week of training, I implemented CAD/CAM in my company. And I have already started getting new customers. Thank you Project VIKAS.î

We at Microsoft see potential in everyone. For more on our efforts to unleash Indiaís unlimited potential, like Project Vikas, visit www.microsoft.com/india/unlimitedpotential /

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