Karnataka's Information Technology (IT), Bio-Technology (BT) and Tourism Minister Priyank M Kharge says the state has undergone a paradigm shift in IT space, with the only-services model to research and development (R&D) model, as Danish Manzoor, Executive Editor, IBT India, catches up with him for a candid chat.
"Today we are also one of the top five R&D ecosystems of the world that has spun off a lot of innovations. And we are also the second best ecosystem for start-ups. So I see the shift is slowly moving from services to innovations," Kharge said.
On future plans and roadmap, the minister said that the government is extremely focused on the IT landscape especially on skilling on emerging technologies.
The 38-year-old minister vetted his concern on job creation and retrenchments. Skilling on new technologies is very important especially in the IT department, so the graduates get jobs here, the minister added.
He further highlighted that the government is concentrating on bringing in more startups under its ecosystem. "We are trying to boost the startup ecosystem to ensure innovations and inventions happen here, which further led to investments," Kharge explained.
He said that they are building excellence centres in partnership with the industry to provide quick skill-building programs. "We have already set up centres of excellence for aerospace, cyber-security, animation, and gaming. Moreover, we are coming up with centres of excellence for artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data," he added.
On the flip side, the minister also said that over 90 percent of startups fail in achieving the desired result and it is a cause of concern for the government. "To ensure that more startups succeed is the reason the government has created a startups cell, created a comprehensive entrepreneurship platform called Elevate 100," Kharge delineated.
Speaking about international investors, Kharge said that Karnataka is one of the most favorable destinations for investments and the state is very keen on ensuring the ease of doing business.
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