Mangalore :
The Department of IT has ambitious plans for tier II cities in the state. The ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) group has plans to develop Mangalore and six others cities to develop as emerging ICT centres in the state. Also, under the Start-up warehouse programme over 1,000 start ups will be set up in the state.
The other ICT cities are: Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga, Belgaum, Tumkur and Shimoga. These seven cities will receive special attention from the state to help them develop as next ICT centres, said IT and BT minister SR Patil.
He was speaking after inaugurating conference on ‘Mangalore, the emerging ITE destination’ a satellite event of State’s flagship ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) event Bangalore ITE.biz here on Friday.
Patil indicated that to start with the state will set up incubation centres in these seven emerging cities. He also said that sufficient funds would be provided to development of skills and setting up new talent development centres in these cities. Regarding the start up warehouse programme in association with Nasscom, Patil said there are about 10,000 such start ups planned in the country and about 1,000 would be in the state.
Also, under the Electronic System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) policy, the state will set up Greenfield and Brownfield clusters. This is as per the recommendations of ICT group, which is on the lines of National Policy on Electronics.
Infosys completes 18 years of its operation in Mangalore
Kris Gopalakrishnan , Chairman, Vision Group on IT and Co-founder and Executive VC of Infosys, recalled his company’s association with Mangalore and said that this was the 18th year of Infosys setting up its shop in the coast.
Mangalore was the first centre outside Bangalore Infosys established. The DNA of this region has the culture of entrepreneurship and business,” he said.
Despite dark clouds over IT industry globally, Indian scenario was robust with a growth of 12% to 14%, which was four times more than global average, he said. He emphasised the need to establish a electronics manufacturing facilities in India which will help the country bridge it’s Current Account Deficit. Regarding trends, he said mobiles and its applications were trending and will contribute to growth if tapped.
He emphasised the need to tap into tier II cities as it had multiple advantages over Bangalore in terms of life style, operations cost and attrition rates.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Citu> Mangalore> Belgaum / by Stanley Pinto, TNN / August 3st, 2013