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New Delhi: Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India working with the objective of encouraging, promoting, boosting Software Exports, and nurturing the startup ecosystem in the country celebrated 31st Foundation Day on the 6th June 2022.

“Exports through STPI units have grown from Rs. 17 crores in FY92 to Rs. 5.69 lakh crore in FY22, this has happened because we have been an enabler, we have never acted as a regulator. We have shown to this world that if you want to see the growth of industry, in place of regulating it, enable it,” underlined Shri Arvind Kumar.

In line with the resounding success of the Indian IT services industry, STPI is now also augmenting itself to become a catalyst to make India a Startup and Product Nation. In this endeavor, STPI has launched 20 Centres of Entrepreneurship and 12 NGIS centres across the country to accelerate innovation-led entrepreneurship in emerging technology domains.

Speaking on the inaugural address at the 31st Foundation Day ceremony Shri Arvind Kumar, Director General of STPI congratulated all the employees and said, “STPI has won the trust of all stakeholders including government & industry in STPI and this trust infuses transparency in the organization.”

STPI started its journey from 3 centers and now has 62 centers pan-India with 54 centres in Tier II and Tier III cities. Today, the US$200-plus billion IT industry, comprising 18,000-plus firms that directly employ 4.47 million-strong workforce, that contributes 8% of GDP is a testimony to the STPI’s resolute performance in transforming the Indian IT industry into a global outsourcing destination for software exports.

The first historic event that heralded the genesis of the IT Industry in India was the establishment of three Software Technology Parks at Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, and Pune in 1989. Consequently, on 5th June 1991, these three STPs were merged to create a single entity Software Technology Parks of India.

The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is working on modalities to promote software products in the country. Through various initiatives, it is planning to replicate the success the country achieved in software services. Currently, India is among the top nations in providing software services.

“We will focus on software products to capitalise on dynamic global trends in technology adoption. We have achieved success in software services, now we plan to replicate the same in software products. We plan to create similar ecosystem for software products,” said Arvind Kumar, Director General, STPI, while talking to The Tribune recently.

“Akin to software services, we want to promote software products industry and become a world leader in it,” he said.

A software company develops a single product or a product suite and runs the business by selling it to clients, whereas a software services company may or may not have a product. Their focus is on providing software development or any service related with software products such as testing and UI/UX design etc.

On future initiatives, he said the STPI was chalking out strategies to bring IT/ITeS industry to tier-II and tier-III cities. “Our focus is on Centre for Entrepreneurship. We plan to develop at least 25 such centres across the country. Currently, we have 20 such centres in various domains.”

Kumar said the Centre would soon come out with New Data Centre Policy to boost data centres in the country. “We are aiming at becoming one of the major hubs of data centres in Asia,” he said.

Tribune News Service

Vijay C Roy
Chandigarh, May 31

Public sector undertakings (PSUs) have played a catalytic role in creating employment opportunities and infrastructure in the country. Today, more than 28 percent procurement is done by PSUs through their SMEs, said Arvind Kumar, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India.

PSUs must adopt a collaborative approach and collaborate with companies that are good in technology. This collaboration will create a lot of data. Collaborative approach can take PSUs to the next level,” said DG, STPI, adding that PSUs must invest in technology, which is creating a startup ecosystem in the country.

Stressing upon the role of PSUs in addressing the challenges of startups, DG, STPI further said, “We have already celebrated 100 unicorns in the country. Despite the fact that we have created 100 unicorns, two things are lacking. One, the time taken to become a unicorn, and the second is the valuation. PSUs can play a key role in addressing these challenges of startups. We should give problem statements to the startups. Unless we give problem statements to the startups, it will take more time for startups to become unicorns, get investment and get good valuation,” he added, while speaking at the 3rd National PSU Summit in New Delhi.

Once you give a problem statement to the startup, they will develop some products. That product will not only be used by PSUs, it will be used by the whole country, SMEs can also adopt these products and those can be exported, said Kumar.

Reiterating the Prime Minister’s idea of ‘monetize and modernize’, the DG STPI informed that the government is willing to spend over Rs 100 trillion to modernize our PSUs. All PSUs must adopt the technology. They should create a skill and support the startup ecosystem in the country.

PSUs must transform themselves. PSU must adopt tech as fast as possible. The government has adopted technology with the right intention with a bottom-up approach. When the government has adopted tech so fast, there is no reason for PSUs to say tech adoption would take more time, he concluded.

New Delhi, May 18, 2022: Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is a premier science & technology organization under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). STPI has been the pioneer as Data Communication Service Provider in India since 1993 and the first organisation to provide point-to-multipoint Microwave Radio network for Internet services in India. As category-A Internet Service Provider (ISP), STPI provides high speed data communication services to numerous organizations.

Advanced Internet Research Operations in India (AIORI) is funded by MeitY, and the program is assigned to STPI for its proven track record of implementing large and complex nation-wide programs. Root name servers are the servers at the root of the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy. The root servers are the entry points to the Domain Name System (DNS), the distributed database which Internet applications use to look up the numerical IP addresses associated with text-based domain names. Worldwide there are 13 named root servers (A to M) operated by 12 organizations, having 13 root server IP addresses, which can be seen from any single location at any given time. There are around 1,348 root server instances around the world. Out of 198 “L-Root” instances servers hosted globally, 6 of them are currently hosted in India, out of which 4 “L-Root” instances are hosted by STPI under AIORI program.

“In an era of ever-growing Internet bandwidth consumption, new applications and services are reinventing the expectations from technology for which stable and fast internet is at the core. STPI’s hosting of four L root instances at 4 different locations in India namely Mohali, Mumbai, Bangalore & Guwahati as part of AIORI program is a contribution to the cause envisioned in the Digital India Initiative. The AIORI program delivery is a commendable example of collaboration between MeitY, STPI, India Internet Foundation & Internet Society Kolkata Chapter who joined hands as the implementing agency. The experience of IIFON’s running a root instance in Kolkata and Domain knowledge of community created by ISOC Kolkata chapter, was extremely helpful in removing the bottlenecks early in the program.” said Shri Arvind Kumar, Director General STPI.

The program has developed and deployed 5 anycast servers to enable next layer of resiliency in handling of the DNS resolution traffic from these installed servers. Currently, these 4 L root instances are handling on average of 10K of DNS resolution traffic load (DNS Queries) per second originated from India and now approximately serving 10% of global DNS resolution queries of 198 L root instance servers deployed worldwide. “The technical complexity of AIORI program in terms of creating DNS anycast network and then hosting L root instances for name resolution and benchmarking in India, has created an indigenous capability. The program and its research focus to measure various internet protocol parameters including DNS latency, DNS routing detours, DNSSEC readiness, National/International Traffic Detours etc. through pan India deployment of anchors, is of national importance and has a global impact” said Shri Subodh Sachan, Director STPI & Chief Investigator AIORI Program.

AIORI program is being managed from STPI Kolkata office and the entire AIORI infrastructure is hosted at STPI Kolkata. The AIORI platform, powered by open-source programs, provides end-to-end “Platform-as-a-Service” capabilities for Internet Measurement.“Most of the countries or regions have leveraged Internet measurement platforms to improve user experience. Enabling a DNS anycast framework, Internet Measurement hub and DNS benchmarking infrastructure with hosting of 4 L root instances has ensured that India can adequately demand a place on the high table of Internet Governance globally,” said Shri Anand Raje, CTO AIORI Program &Co Founder – India Internet Foundation.

For more information refer Annexure and visit https://aiori.in

RSVP

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