'India to be a global player in infotech'

India has the unprecedented opportunity to leverage a large, young population with information technology skills. This will make India the leader of a new world of technology, information and knowledge, said Mukesh Ambani, chairman Reliance group while addressing participants of the three-day technology festival, 'Synapse-2004' at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute for Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT), through video conference, here on Friday.

Students from across the country representing more than 200 premier educational institutions are participating in the festival organised by DA-IICT, set up by the Reliance group.

The DA-IICT has been granted the deemed university status by the government of Gujarat.

Advising the student community that their facultative abilities in learning teaching and research would help shape India's future, Ambani said, "We must allow knowledge to build and further build upon itself in an unending manner. India has about a billion people and our challenge is to make the world see them as a billion brains."

Ambani, the chairman of the board of governors of DA-IICT, while speaking on the subject, 'Leadership in the knowledge age' said, "Spectrum and sparkle of the new world opportunities are exhilarating and they call for new mindset. The new mindset should be such, that can bring about intellectual competitiveness for India and could further shape up new economic opportunities whereby it could help raise productivity in the economy and would be able to deliver services at the doorsteps of the people."

Ambani asserted that, "We are fully committed to bring about this larger vision through DA-IICT and Reliance Infocomm, which plays on the convergence of information technology and communications. It is an initiative that is unparalleled anywhere in the world."