— Photo: G. R. N. Somashekar

ALWAYS AHEAD: Paul S. Otellini, President and Chief Executive Officer, Intel Corporation, addressing a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday.

BANGALORE: India plays a pivotal role in Intel's new "World Ahead" programme, says Paul Otellini on his first visit to this country, as the Chief Executive of the world's number one silicon technology player.

The $1 billion initiative, will include venture capital activities, education and community outreaches — and research aimed at creating computing products that will make a difference to the world's `unconnected' millions.

India has a `double role' in this scenario: A $800 million war chest has already been deployed since December last year, to address educational needs, including a teacher training programme that is Intel's largest such initiative, any where in the world.

Launching the programme, here on Tuesday, Mr. Otellini said the other India-centric angle, was in the very creation of the products to fuel "World Ahead": Intel's Bangalore-based platform definition centre — one of only four worldwide — has designed and developed three different computing platforms: a rugged community shared PC working off a car battery; a low cost-full feature PC with an extremely small form factor that would be available within two months from five different Indian manufacturers at prices at least 20 per cent cheaper than comparable configuration and a students' notebook PC, the "ClassMate", that will be manufactured by partners worldwide next year, under the company's "Eduwise" initiative for schools.

When it came to the connectivity to reach the 850 million Indian households now untouched by computers and the Internet, Mr. Otellini saw WiMax as the way to go. "This is the best solution for low cost, high bandwidth access to telemedicine and e-learning resources", he said. He added that the company was cooperating with over 14 WiMax trials now being carried out in India by service providers like BSNL, Tata-VSNL, Bharti, Sify and others.

On Wednesday, Mr. Otellini will lead a large team at the Intel Capital CEO Summit in Mumbai when chief executives of dozens of companies in which Intel has invested worldwide, will meet to discuss opportunities in India.

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