Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Dec 03, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Dec 03, 2002 |
|
|
|
|
|
Info-Tech
-
Software `IT should help common man' Our Bureau
KOLKATA, Dec. 2 INFORMATION technology, or, for that matter, any new technology should be of help to the common man, otherwise it is of no purpose, according to Mr R. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director of Tata Sons Pvt Ltd. He was addressing a session at Infocom 2002, a seminar organised jointly by Nasscom and Businessworld here on Monday. He felt that there are several contradictory trends in the current society and new technology can play a crucial role in straightening things out. In this context, he said that ordinary people must see the power of IT. ``For that to happen, one must try to change the context of an age-old problem. Once the context of the problem is changed, it is easier to solve it,'' he said. He urged the eastern region States to try and develop themselves as a destination for IT entrepreneurs instead of IT experts coming to their capitals and advising them how to do it. ``Replicating the success of Andhra Pradesh or Karnataka will not help their cause,'' he said. To cite examples of IT changing business equations, Mr Gopalakrishnan talked of four instances and all were related to the Tata companies. The first two were strictly business related. They were about Rallis India and Telco. While the first company used simple communication methods such as e-mail and short messaging system (SMS) to send daily sales reports, Telco used the e-auction procedure to reduce their cost of raw material purchases. The third example was that of software developed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the national adult literacy programme. Mr Gopalakrishnan claimed that the software would teach an adult to read in 40 hours. The fourth example was related to the Tata Kishan Kendras run by Tata Chemicals. These centres study the soil composition of an individual farmer's agricultural land and subsequently advise him on proper use fertilisers. He felt that modern technology has been successfully utilised in these cases for bettering the common man's life.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | Home |
Copyright © 2002, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|