TN diaspora to act as anchor to sustain initiatives at investors’ meet

Tamil Nadu government plans to tap the goodwill of the Tamil diaspora, individuals and organisations elsewhere to act as ‘anchors’ to follow up and sustain the initiatives taken at the coming Global Investors Meet 2019.

This thought came after a recent visit to the US by a delegation led by State IT Minister M Manikandan to woo investors for the forthcoming Global Investors Meet (GIM)in January 2019.

Once a visit is over, it is difficult to follow up on the different initiatives. Hence, there is a plan to anchor such visits, said Tamil Nadu IT Secretary Santhosh Babu.

Ideally, government officials in important cities like San Francisco, Austin and Seattle can be appointed. However, a lot of individuals and organisations are there who are willing to act as anchors.

The IT department is in discussions with The Indus Entrepreneurs, a Silicon Valley-based non-profit supporting start-ups, and individuals.

“We would like to do this after GIM 2019,” he said at CII Connect 2018, a two-day conference and exposition on ICT on the theme, Accelerating Progress: Inclusive Digital Growth. Referring to digital strategy, Babu said, it is not only for business but also for governance. For instance, organisations such as Tamil Nadu eGovernance Agency, TN Arasu Cable TV Corporation, TN FibreNet Corporation, TN Virtual Academy and the Electronics Corporation of TN operate in silos and compete with each other.

Measures will be taken to coordinate them, go paperless so other departments too follow, Babu said.

On providing end-to-end applications of nearly 200 services to citizens online, Babu said compared to other states, Tamil Nadu lags on this. The industry and government should work together to provide service to citizens at their doorstep. “This is our shared dream,” he said. IT Minister Manikandan said the State government plans to establish IT parks at Ramanathapuram and Cuddalore districts and a Centre of Excellence for Fin Tech at the STPI in Chennai this year.

There is also a move to create a tech forum to promote growth in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Machine Learning and electronic hardware manufacturing to provide more employment opportunities.

Considering the higher mobile penetration, m-Governance is effectively implemented in the State.

To procure IT hardware and software at a competitive price for government departments, it has been proposed to develop an e-market portal at a cost of ₹30 lakh, he said.

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