Madurai

By January 2022, the Chennai Secretariat will move on to e-office and soon the entire State will follow suit, announced Dr. Neeraj Mittal, Principal Secretary, Information Technology, Tamil Nadu.

Delivering the keynote address at a two-day conference, Connect Madurai, hosted virtually by CII, Madurai zone, he said emerging technologies are the bedrock of growth in future and as per the new mandate of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, they will help to steer Tamil Nadu to be a forerunner in attracting investments.

“Technology has to be used for a purpose; it is a means to an end and that end is important,” he said, urging participants to think of ways for the way forward.

Managing Director of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ajay Yadav talked about an upcoming tech festival with top companies. “We should be in a state of readiness and become a destination of choice with job opportunities across the State,” he said.

The conference looked at Madurai beyond its jasmine, jallikattu and jigarthanda to showcase the city as the gateway to South Tamil Nadu for bringing in more business.

Given the city’s infrastructure under the Smart City project, the abundance of local talent and growing manpower, vibrant civil society, the geographic location, network of transport and connectivity, participants rooted for more power for the city that is on the threshold of emerging as a manufacturing and industrial hub.

Bureaucrats, industrialists, businessmen, entrepreneurs, academicians and students, exchanged their thoughts on how small businesses and start-ups could become big players and how the future unicorns could be supported.

Points of view on how to retain talent and make the curriculum more responsive to emerging technology, the shift towards digitisation and creating an innovation ecosystem generated much interest and new promises.

Information, communication and technology are integral tools of change and development. Madurai Collector S. Aneesh Sekhar said to accelerate the journey of growth, all stakeholders needed to tap into sectors such as tourism, health, culture, food.

“Madurai needs to position itself with sectoral collaboration to fill the gaps,” he said. “We need to decongest our old city where heritage is hidden and lost,” he added.

Tirunelveli Collector V. Vishnu said the true ambassadors of any city are the sons of the soil.

“We need to build on the strong Tamil diaspora, work on emotions, connect them to their roots for handholding budding entrepreneurs,” he said, and added, “There is potential existing, youth need to be confident about their employability prospects.”

Among others who spoke included Madurai CII Chairman B. Subbaraman, ICT taskforce convener G. Kalyana Sundaram, Director, Software Technology Parks of India, Sanjay Tyagi, S. Sathyanarayanan from Honeywell Technology Solutions and K. Pusurshothaman from Cognizant Technology Solutions.