The State government is keen on making Visakhapatnam the financial technology (fintech) capital of India in two years and Tirupati into a centre for education and research on digital technologies from this year.
“These two are on top of the State government’s agenda,” Special Chief Secretary to Chief Minister and IT Advisor J.A. Chowdary said on Thursday.
In an exclusive interview to The Hindu , he said several leading fintech players including S&P Capital IQ will set up offices in Visakhapatnam. GITAM University has agreed to set up a Fintech Academy to impart one-year PG diploma and three-year degree in fintech. Several companies from Singapore have shown interest to invest in Vizag.
Super Fab Lab
The world famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology would open a Super Fab Lab in the city soon, he said adding IT Special Economic Zone proposed at Kapulauppada on the city outskirts would become home for several fintech players. HSBC, which was the first to start its operations in the city, would be asked to scale up its operations.
Mr. Chowdary said the International Institute of Digital Technology (IIDT) proposed at Tirupati for development on the lines of Indian School of Business (ISB) would be operational at a temporary campus from October/November. It will launch one-year PG diploma initially and M.Tech and other advanced courses later. “One of the IIITs will be asked to mentor IIDT. Incidentally, this will be the first virtual mode university with a deemed university status,” he disclosed.
IIDT will have separate schools of excellence for studies and research in Internet of Things, cloud, cyber security, big data analytics, model computing and digital use expansion.
He said all these initiatives would put Andhra Pradesh in driver’s seat with rich pool of highly skilled manpower. “Our endeavour is to become the leader in upgrading of Web 1.0 to 2.0 Version,” he stated.
