Overwhelming for BTS-2020 despite COVID-19 crisis, Says Deputy Chief Minister and IT Minister Dr C N Ashwatha Narayana
Bengalru, NFAPost: The 23rd edition of flagship tech summit organised by the Karnataka state government “Bengaluru Technological Summit-2020” (BTS-2020) is all set to be held virtually for the first time on Nove 19, 20 &21 and will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaking at a press meeting, Deputy Chief Minister Dr C.N.Ashwatha Narayana, who is also the minister of IT, BT and S & T, said there has been an overwhelming response from industry and experts than ever before despite the Covid-19 pandemic for the 23rd edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit 2020.
“The 22nd edition of the event held in last November had witnessed 21 countries, 253 international delegations, 44 sessions, 262 speakers and 12,350 visitors. This time the response has surpassed that of the last year’s,” said Deputy Chief Minister Dr C.N.Ashwatha Narayana.
Collaboration with IISc
Deputy Chief Minister Dr C.N.Ashwatha Narayana said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been emphasising for the larger use of science and technology to better delivery of services, will inaugurate the event.
“The state government had decided to establish an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Centre in collaboration with IISc, Bengaluru. The government has taken this decision by realizing the importance of the potential of AI in finding solutions to the problems of the future,” said Deputy Chief Minister Dr C.N.Ashwatha Narayana.
The Deputy Chief Minister also pointed out that it s high time that the Agri sector needs to be focused on and about 60% of the people of the state depend on this sector for their livelihood.
“While, on one hand, the economy is growing, the contribution from the Agri sector is falling down. This has become a matter of serious concern. The contribution from the Agri sector for GSDP is just 16%, at present. This needs to be increased to at least 30% in the next five years. This only can put a check on migration to the urban from rural areas and this would also enable the growth “Beyond Bengaluru” also,” said Deputy Chief Minister Dr C.N.Ashwatha Narayana.
Multi-track Conference
This year’s BTS theme is ‘Now is Next’ and the summit will feature Multi-track Conference, International Exhibition, Global Innovation Alliance, STPI-IT Export Awards, Smart Bio Awards and Bengaluru Impact Awards. The other popular programmes among students namely Rural IT Quiz, Biotech Quiz and Biotech Posters will also be held virtually.
The summit is happening at a time when Karnataka government and Tesla are still in discussion on establishing of latter’s regional base in the state along with other policy reforms with regard to land acquisition, Industrial Facilitation Act, Labour Act, free-market for agriculture to attract more investors.
He also pointed out that the developments in the field of Bio-Technology will make a huge impact on agriculture and health care.
“This should be leveraged for value addition to agriculture produces, processing and other beneficial processes. At the same time, the quality healthcare system needs to be established by the application of these developments,” said Deputy Chief Minister Dr C.N.Ashwatha Narayana.
Education sector
The DyCM also stressed on the importance of the education sector as its is a fact that sustainable development will happen only through education.
“The human resource required for the industry should to be ready at the education level itself. This would become possible when there will be more collaborations between educational institutions and industry players. This would facilitate to change the present industry based economy of ours to one that of institution based economy” he added.
Karnataka Vision Group Chairman on IT and Infosys Co-founder S.Gopalakrishnan (Kris), Karnataka Vision Gropn on BT Chairman Biocon Ltd Executive Chairperson Dr.Kiran Mazumdar Shah and Karnataka Vision Gropu Chairman on Startup Prashanth Prakash spoke on the occasion. Dr.E.V.Ramana Reddy, Additional Chief Secretary to Chief Minister and Dept. of Electronics, IT, BT and S&T, Smt. Meena Nagaraj, Director, Department of IT/BT were present.
