Dr Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar, Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development, Mr Sanjeev K Sharma, Deputy Director General of the Department of Telecommunications, Dr Neeraj Mittal, Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen.
It gives me great pleasure to be here for the opening of this Innovation Xchange.
On behalf of ITU, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Government of India and in particular, the Department of Telecommunications under the leadership of the Ministry of Communications, both for hosting this Innovation Xchange session within the auspices of WTSA 2024, and for hosting the ITU Area Office for South Asia and the Innovation Centre at C-DOT here in New Delhi.
I am especially pleased to be here at this session on Innovation, which does not merely show the great strides we are making in technology. More importantly, they show its purpose and the benefit technology brings to the world.
India has been leading the way with its own vibrant technology ecosystem, standing at the forefront of research, development, and entrepreneurship, notably through its successful scaling of the Unified Payments Interface, its rapid deployment of 5G and the success of its Digital Public Infrastructure. India has the potential to shape not only the future of India but also global digital transformation.
The purpose of today’s Innovation Xchange is to enable young innovators from the Indian research community to collaborate and exchange ideas with their global counterparts. I am confident that the result will be to accelerate R&D in key areas, including 5 and 6G networks, AI, IoT, and secure communications, contributing to the broader ITU vision of a connected and sustainable future.
As you know, this is part of ITU’s much broader engagement with students, academics, and researchers, which includes capacity building through competitions and hackathons, like the two-day hackathon that took place here at WTSA 2024. Other initiatives include the Robotics for Good Youth Competition, which encourages young minds to explore innovative applications of AI and robotics in order to address real and pressing societal challenges.
The goal of all our innovation platforms is to provide resources and mentorship not only at country level, but also to students and researchers, giving them a structured environment in which to test their ideas. These initiatives are fostering a global network of young innovators, all of whom are committed to creating solutions that drive sustainable development. That’s a wonderful purpose!
Meanwhile, ITU’s digital innovation work under the Telecommunication Development Bureau, focuses on empowering countries and ITU members to build their innovation and digital entrepreneurship capabilities. Our goal is to align national strategies with sustainable development goals and promote global and regional partnerships for inclusive digital growth.
Key to this is our Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development, which we established last year to help member states accelerate their national development ambitions in five strategic objectives. These are Trends Research Readiness, Ecosystem Initiative Development, Entrepreneurship & SME Growth, Policy Experimentation and Open Innovation.
I must pause here and recognize Dr. Neeraj Mittal, Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications, who is a co-chair par excellence, for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Board! We are lucky to have such an energetic expert and visionary leader to guide us.
The Alliance works through various vehicles, including Acceleration Centres and its Digital Innovation Board, with 33 high-level members from government, the UN, industry, academia, and civil society.
In addition, ITU organizes Innovation Forums to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing on digital innovation, with this year’s Global Innovation Forum coming up in Malta just next week. We also collaborate with partners to organise Innovation Challenges, provide an Ecosystem Learning Curriculum and Ecosystem Development Strategies, including Digital Innovation Profiles tailored to countries. And we share success stories of good practices in ecosystem performance.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure today’s Innovation Xchange will be just such a success story. In the next couple of hours, we will listen to young innovators as they share groundbreaking ideas. Sessions will cover different themes in emerging technologies, including NextGen Networks, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and the Internet of Things, Quantum Communications and Secured Networks.
As I conclude, I hope many of you will join us for the Global Innovation Forum 2024 next week. Those who cannot get to Malta will be able to follow the discussions online, so I encourage you to do that. Finally, I wish all the participants a stimulating and enlightening experience at today’s Innovation Xchange, where we look at technology and the benefits it has the potential to create for so many.
Thank you!
