The State Government is considering a mega Connect event in Chennai to bring stakeholders in the Information Technology sector together and have smaller Connect programmes in cities that have IT special economic zones, Santhosh Babu, IT Principal Secretary of Government of Tamil Nadu, said here on Friday.
Speaking at the inaugural of Connect Coimbatore, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry, Dr. Babu said the State Government and the CII would set up a Tech Forum in Madurai at the IT park to teach emerging technologies to students. A Centre of Excellence (CoE) for fintech has been established in Chennai at a total cost of nearly ₹23 crore. The Government of Tamil Nadu, Software Technology Parks of India, and a few financial institutions had jointly set up the Centre to develop products for the finance sector.
Devesh Tyagi, Senior Director of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), said the Centre could accommodate 58 incubatees for five years. The STPI was collaborating with industry and academia to create Centres of Excellence across the country for several technologies. “We have identified 21 domains,” he said.
The existing plug and play facilities were transformed into laboratories under the project and they would become self-sustainable in five years. Under BPO project, it has created 48,300 seats in three years in tier-two and tier-three cities. This included 43 BPOs in Tamil Nadu with 20 in Coimbatore region.
According to Suresh Raman, head - Chennai Region of Tata Consultancy Services, India has made some strides in Industry 3.0 and there is tremendous opportunity in Industry 4.0. “There is a lot more untapped potential in Coimbatore,” he said.
Senthil Ramalingam, co-convenor of the ICT Panel of the CII - Coimbatore Zone, said the theme of the Connect Coimbatore meeting was “The Fourth Industrial Revolution - How it Can Impact You ?” and it aimed to provide meaningful insights into technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, digital transformation, and automation.
R. Varadarajan, Chairman of CII - Coimbatore Zone, said automation was happening every day. In the last two decades, there is a leap in technology and now “we are looking at AI, IOT, and Machine Learning”.