Cisco has signed two agreements with NITI Aayog and BSNL to work on e-Gov, Smart Cities, 5G, IoT and skill development in India. The company announced the next phase of initiatives under its ‘Country Digital Acceleration’ program, whereby it works with countries across the world to accelerate existing government goals for driving economic growth through high-tech innovation. After completion of 50 projects in phase one, Cisco has signed two agreements with the NITI Aayog and BSNL as part of the next phase of CDA in India.
“India is going through a transformational journey, with initiatives like Digital India and Smart Cities helping to power its digital economy. The next initiatives in Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program underline our commitment to help accelerate India’s ecosystem of talent, entrepreneurship, and innovation, all of which can continue to help drive economic growth. We are thrilled to collaborate with the NITI Aayog and BSNL to bring greater value to India and its citizens,” said Cisco CEO and Chairman Chuck Robbins.
The current set of investments will focus on fostering innovation and entrepreneurship through the Atal Innovation Mission and in developing use cases to showcase the possibilities of 5G in citizen services and application of innovative digital technologies in transportation modernization, said Cisco.
Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary Telecom said “India is waking up to 5G technology and is expected to see widespread usability with enabling policies like the recently released draft of National Digital Communications Policy 2018. This collaboration with Cisco will provide a platform for showcasing how 5G-based e-citizen services are bringing about a change through the use of new age technologies. It will also shed light on the power of a 5G network which opens up a number of exciting opportunities in the citizen services space thereby making it secure and efficient.”
Cisco said that it has made over 25 strategic investments in growth stage companies in India. To further support the start-up ecosystem in India, Cisco signed an agreement with NITI Aayog to boost connectivity and collaboration across all 100 Atal Incubation Centers in the country by equipping them with Cisco’s cutting-edge conferencing platforms like Webex Teams and Cisco Webex Board. These solutions converge voice, chat, video meetings, group messaging, file sharing, and whiteboarding securely, all in one platform. Cisco Webex Teams and Cisco Sparkboard will facilitate information exchange and collaboration among all Atal Incubation Centres in India and Cisco’s other incubation and innovation centers across the world enabling entrepreneurs to build businesses, innovate and go global with digital solutions.
To facilitate new citizen services, especially in government and public sector, Cisco signed an agreement with BSNL to set up a dedicated location to demonstrate use cases using 5G to solve citizen problems in areas such as education, healthcare and agriculture using technologies such as IoT, surveillance, and Artificial Intelligence.
Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman NITI Aayog said “Digitization is the catalyst for economic growth. The government is actively promoting a start-up ecosystem and recognizes the need for providing a conducive environment through right investments and alliances. Our collaboration with Cisco is aimed at creating a sustainable innovation ecosystem in India to better compete in the global digital economy and improve digital inclusion for our people and businesses.”
