Google Says Keen to Help With Digital India Initiative

The Narendra Modi government's plans for Digital India initiatives are refreshing and exciting and Google is ready to help it out in this project, its Chief Internet Evangelist Vinton G. Cerf said Tuesday.

"The aspirations of the new Indian government and its initiatives of Digital India are very refreshing and exciting," he said in his address at a seminar organised by FICCI in New Delhi.

Asked whether he has any suggestions for the government on this project, Cerf said: "I don't need to prescribe anything, the reason for this is they are already building the network to extend it out to the villages."

"My impression after two days discussions is you (the government) already have a well laid out plan. Now you have to execute. The passion is clearly there, the energy is clearly there," he told reporters on the sidelines of the seminar.

Cerf said he met Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad as well as some officials of the department of electronics and IT. "They convinced me about absolutely making this happen."

"Basically we said Google is interested in being helpful. We have some ideas [that] we shared with them. It is very clear that private sector is going to play a major role in making this happen," he added.

Prime Minister Modi in his Independence Day address to the nation August 15, 2014 envisaged a Rs. 1 lakh crores ($16 billion) Digital India project to transform the country into a digitally empowered and connected knowledge economy.

Talking about the challenges in the education system, Cerf said in the IT industry in 21st century, one needs to upgrade himself/herself on a regular basis to retain usefulness in the industry.

He also mentioned that the rate of change of jobs are taking place very fast. "Some jobs are five years old or even less. One should have suitable education to anticipate or adapt to new jobs."