The Hindu Business Line : `India could tap smart appliances space'

LIKE a surgeon who slices with a scalpel, aided by advanced robotics systems for complex surgeries, thus cutting short procedures and enhancing precision, the Indian software professional too needs to harness the power of technology to open emerging sub-systems such as smart materials and appliances.

The President of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Mr Cleon W. Anderson, who represents over 3,60,000 experts from across the world,spoke to Business Line about some trends and the potential the country holds.

Mr Anderson, who was in the country to attend an international conference on smart appliances, said in the case of a prostrate surgery, smart applications such as robotics have helped cut short surgical time by about half and have improved efficiency many fold.

"Given the current pace of technological advances and going by Moore's Law and the convergence era knocking at us, we are not far away, may be a decade from now, when people will actually use plasma screens not just for entertainment and information, but for all electronic business and governance applications.

"This calls for greater innovation among Indian techies. They cannot remain complacent, as competition in the form of China and other regions is not far off. The Indian advantage of technological lead is just about year and a half and they need to build on this advantage by tapping newer sub-systems such as nano technologies, bioinformatics and smart appliances which are set to become ubiquitous," said Mr Anderson.

"The issue of outsourcing needs to be actually addressed as `right shoring' as work will flow to countries based on local skills. This outsourcing debate was something, which we could have done without, as this is pretty narrow- minded. In fact, if this issue had was not raised, all these engineers/ techies who have moved out back home, would have remained in the US and perhaps the US would have gained," he said.

Mr Anderson said lately, some complain of reverse brain drain that is actually harming the cause of innovation. In fact, trade barriers slow down tech progress. "You can follow what I do, but cannot track what my mind does," he said, advocating free flow of human resources, as artificial curbs do not work in a networked environment.

"Now, when someone visits a posh office in India, he can locate a foreign Coke vending machine, a HP workstation powered by Microsoft-based software. If this is the case, why should one complain about the whole issue of offshoring? I recently visited Seoul, where cell phone users are actually able to drill in commands to their refrigerator and cooking range even before reaching home. We are not far away from this world. Slowly, but surely, the rest will catch up," he said.

"The Indian software sector can now build on their strengths and tap the potential of the emerging market out there in medicine, genetics, micro technologies and biomedical research as, even within the technology skills sets, there is a great convergence taking place right from developing standards to actually helping them meet the requirements of people," said Mr Anderson.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
NIS Sparta: Clarification

Moser Baer, IIT-Delhi to work on tech for optical data storage

HCL Info Q2 net rises 13.5 pc

Nucleaus Soft Q3 profit trebles

Helios & Matheson Q3 net at Rs 5.6 cr

Sify trims net loss

Qualcore expansion

Pentasoft board okays merger with Silicon Valley Tech

Borland buys TeraQuest

Indiasoft 2005 to be held in Chennai; to focus on SMEs

Sasken gets certification

`India could tap smart appliances space'

Kenexa Interview Builder