Sam Pitroda

Dr. Sam Pitroda
Adviser to Prime Minister of India on the Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations

The importance of Broadband

--- T r a n s c r i p t ---

With 5 billion mobile phones world over first phase of the telecom revolution is beginning to end. However the second phase of the telecom revolution world over is about to begin and here at the center of it is going to be Broadband.

Broadband offers unique opportunities world over to change the paradigm for development. Broadband is going to be critical in redesigning processes related to governance, education, health, agriculture, employment, innovations and lot more. Broadband is going to make local events international and international events local. Broadband is very critical today for emerging markets to expedite the process of development. With Broadband the old model of education for example where teacher spends most of his/her time on creating content and delivering content will completely change because the content is going to be available on the net by best of the best experts and can be delivered through Broadband on multiple devices and as a result the role of the teacher will change to that of a mentor. Similarly role of the doctor will change. Physical presence will have a different meaning in virtual world. Telemedicine will allow us to reach out to large number of people in remote areas to provide simple diagnostics, appropriate health advise, delivery of medical services. So broadband opens up whole lot of new opportunities that we had never thought about before.

In this new world, we can create new order through Broadband. In countries like India, where we now have billion connected people with almost 600 million mobile phones and we are adding 15 million new mobile phones every month, month after month. We see Broadband as a huge opportunity to create level playing field, inclusive growth and really a unique opportunity to lift 400 million people below poverty line. We can improve their public delivery systems for services, we can provide them better education, better information on agriculture, food, employment opportunities and all of this offers hope to expedite the process of development.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Sam
• Pitroda
• India
• broadband
• commission
• digital
• development
• internet
• mdg
• united
• nations
• itu

[dilipjoym]

Broadband is the way to go ! Broadband = level playing field.

I am a great admirer of Sam Pitroda. Hope he and his team will do the great service to india of facilitating the wide deployment of broadband internet connections in india.