VP calls upon youths to come up with innovative ideas to address India's problems

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday called upon the youths to come up with innovative ideas to address the problems faced by the country.

Addressing the students and faculty of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing (IIITDM), Naidu said that youngsters should come up with ideas on how to best use technology for easing people's lives and bring transparency in governance.

He further said that our aim should be to build an inclusive society in which every person feels integrated into the nation's development.

Exuding confidence that India was well on way to becoming the five trillion-dollar economy, Naidu called upon the youth to develop a positive outlook towards life. "It is very important to succeed in life as it gives you new energy and dynamism," he said.

However, he expressed concern over the low levels of digital literacy, especially in rural India. He called for sustained efforts to increase digital literacy and suggested special focus at the school and college level.

Naidu also called for creating more digital content in Indian languages.

"If the benefit of digital technology and e-governance have to reach the last man, it has to be in Indian languages", he said and exhorted the students and academia to work for creating more digital content in Indian language, terming it as their 'Digital Social Responsibility' towards the society and nation.

Naidu also called for making cybersecurity an inalienable part of all our digital literacy programs. This would help in faster adoption of technologies, he said.

Discussing various challenges and opportunities on the economic front, the Vice President expressed concerns that India despite being the world's fifth-largest manufacturer, the share of manufacturing in our GDP has remained around 16 per cent.

"Our aim is to increase this share to 25 per cent of GDP," the Vice President said while listing various government initiatives to promote manufacturing such as Make in India, Start-up India, MUDRA and Stand-up India, easy availability of credit to MSMEs and setting up of industrial corridors.

Naidu said that MSMEs face more challenges as compared to bigger corporations in the adoption of new technologies and exhorted institutions such as IIITDM to address this by creating professionals who specialize in 'Smart Manufacturing'.

Expressing disappointment over the fact that none of the Indian university figures in the top 100 global institutions, he called for concerted efforts to improve the teaching methods and the learning outcomes.