The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday said Microsoft India will be setting up a Centre of Excellence in Visakhapatnam as part of its digital inclusion drive in the state, besides sharpening focus on raising productivity.
The technology giant signed an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh government in deployment and use of information and communications technologies to offer better citizen services in the state, an official release said.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu hosted a breakfast meeting for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella - who is currently on a visit to Hyderabad - at his residence.
The meeting lasted for 80 minutes, during which Nadella assured the state government of total cooperation in utilisation of cloud data for improving citizen services. “He (Nadella) has also agreed to set up a Centre for Excellence in Visakhapatnam. He promised to visit Anantapur district during his next visit,” the statement said.
According to the MoU, the state government will use technical knowledge from Microsoft India, which will support building of up to three proof-of-concept (POC) solutions to apply Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and Advanced Visualisation in education, agriculture and e-citizen services, an official release said. “These POC solutions will be built and deployed to address specific problems within each of the fields to achieve better outcome for the state,” the release added.
Microsoft interested in working with entrepreneurs, says Satya
Microsoft is interested in working with entrepreneurs on building last mile technological connectivity with India’s rural areas, CEO Satya Nadella said on Monday.
Addressing a gathering at T-Hub, a technological incubator promoted by the Telangana government, Nadella advised the start-up community to learn from the failures.
“Whatever technology you use, like white space technology, it is important to get the last mile connectivity to rural areas. We are interested to work with entrepreneurs in that space. The idea should have marketability,” he said.
Microsoft recently launched a pilot project in Kenya to deliver low-cost, high-speed wireless broadband and create new opportunities for commerce, education, healthcare, and delivery of government services across the African country.
It is the first deployment of solar power-based stations together with TV white spaces, a technology partially developed by Microsoft Research, to deliver high-speed Internet access to areas currently lacking even basic electricity, Microsoft had said. Nadella said people celebrate failures only when they learn lessons from them and correct mistakes.
“Failure plays an important role as it gives an opportunity to learn from it. Celebration of failure comes only when we learn lessons from it,” he was quoted as saying by a government official in an interactive session where media was not allowed.
Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, Nasscom Chairman B V R Mohan Reddy and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories CEO G V Prasad were also present during Nadella’s visit at the T-Hub. T-Hub is a technology incubator with collaborative efforts from Indian School of Business (ISB), International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Hyderabad) and NALSAR University of Law besides various other organisations.
An entrepreneur, who was present during the interactive session, said it was a great inspirational and thought provoking speech by Nadella who said concept, capability and culture are the mantra of success.