Terming it as “some kind of elitism”, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah urged the IT fraternity to address the predominant use of English in the industry and bridge the language barrier to connect with a vast majority of the population. Suggesting that the use of English has created a barrier for their work reaching the entire population, he urged the industry to create “technologies” to bridge language barrier.
He was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce Conclave, ‘Vision 2020’ in Bengaluru on Friday, and in attendance were top leaders of the IT industry, including Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy. “Knowledge of English is definitely an advantage... and importantly for communicating with the overseas clients who are mostly in the U.S. and Europe,” said the Chief Minister. But, he was quick to add that there is a need to think of “disruptive technologies to translate from people’s mother tongue to English and vice versa”. He pointed out that bridging the language barrier would help “our artisans, traditional designers and others, who are hamstrung by language to market their skills”.