A chat with Intel’s Debjani Ghosh on India’s road to digital literacy

We recently caught up with Debjani Ghosh, Managing Director of Intel, South Asia, and talked India’s digital literacy initiatives and its potential impact on the nation’s growth. Intel, with their National Digital Literacy Mission, have set their sights on the goal of making at least one adult from the country’s 147 million rural households across the country digitally literate.

While the chip fabrication company has always been at the vanguard of the advancement of computing in the desktop and enterprise space, they are a relatively new entrant into the mobile device ecosystem. With the aim of now being present in any computing device that is connected, they have actively forayed into the tablet space and are on the cusp of launching low-cost SoCs (System on a Chip) that will also find their way into smartphones in 2015.

With the ever-swelling adoption of smartphones and tablets, users are generating increasing quantities of data. Of prime importance will be the need to process, analyse and apply the findings within this potentially game-changing information, all of which will also drive immense opportunities for employment in the broader context.

Some of the key issues that need to be overcome on this road to digital literacy, says Ms Ghosh, is the need to customize and localize the digital experience in the Indian context. While stating that the government and the industry have in general lacked focus in addressing the domestic usage of technology, the nation has managed to excel in building technology services for foreign markets.

Listen in below as she talks about why it is high time the Indian industry expands this nascent market for local technology services, while the government focuses on setting up centers of excellence instead of waiting to play catch-up.