NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant called upon the students to set global standards and compete internationally to make India an export-oriented nation.
Addressing the eighth convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IITH), held on the campus at Kandi, through video-conferencing from New Delhi on Saturday, Mr. Amitabh said that India must be centre for innovation and research and development and should compete with Japan, the United States, Europe and China.
“We are using technology to the optimal level and digital technology has made it possible to address you from here. We are going through a phase where abundant opportunities are there to grow and prosper. No country has become developed nation without exports. Japan and China are exporting and penetrated several countries. Therefore we have to think and penetrate the global markets,” he said and urged the students to consider the world as their market.
Future challenge
Referring to the fast paced urbanisation, NITI Aayog CEO said by 2050 about 70 crore million Indians will be in urban areas, and space that is two-and-a-half time the size of America is needed to accommodate them. “For over 500 schemes we are transferring money directly to the beneficiaries. We are only the country having one billion bank accounts and one billion cell phones and using biometric. Through direct bank account transfer we are able to save about ₹90,000 crore. This is the power of technology,” he said and pointed out that the trend had slowly started to reverse and startups are coming to India.
He stressed the need of bringing more women into the work force, there is a need to take their share to 48% from the present 27 % to add ₹ 700 billion to the GDP.
Chairman of IIT-H Board of Governors B.V.R. Mohan Reddy said the institute is the first in India and third in the world to start Artificial Intelligence course in B.Tech and has signed partnership agreements with several institutes.
IIT-H director (officiating) Ch. Subrahmanyan said 522 students, including 200 B.Tech, 69 Ph.D, graduated from the institute on Saturday. He also stated that nearly 350 sponsored projects received a funding of ₹550 crore.
