The Karnataka government has announced a project to instal WiFi facilities in all gram panchayats across the state. It will initially start with 2,650 gram panchayats.

Karnataka, which is one of the leading states with regard to technology adoption, is taking this initiative a few months before it is set to go to the polls in 2018.

The state, which is also furthering the cause of start-ups, is looking to give a stronger push to the ecosystem. New-age incubation network centres have been set up in a few colleges across the state, with the aim of encouraging young minds to innovate and invent and become entrepreneurs, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said.

He added that centres of excellence have been set up in areas such as aerospace and defence and the Internet of Things, which would support other emerging technologies such as data science and artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics, cyber security.

Industry seems to have taken note of this. Nasscom has partnered the Karnataka government in setting up a centre for data science and artificial intelligence, with the aim of helping entrepreneurs.

The Chief Minister also assured that Karnataka continues to strengthen the information technology sector with investments in a series of proposed projects such as a Hardware Park at Devanahalli, Information Technology Special Economic Zone at Mangaluru, the Arya Bhatta Park at Hubballi and several incubators on a public-private partneship model.

"In a nutshell, 921 acres of land of the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) is available in the newly developed clusters across these areas," he added.

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