Indian-born Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella on Tuesday met Union Minister for Information Technology and Electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad, and discussed ways that the Indian government can work with the technology giant for better opportunities in areas such as rural health and leveraging LinkedIn for creating jobs.
Nadella and Prasad had a closed door meeting here for over half-an-hour, which was attended by senior ministry officials including the IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan, Additional Secretary Ajay Kumar, and UIDAI CEO A B Pandey.
Though Nadella did not make any comments to media, Prasad said the meeting was productive.
“Microsoft is doing good work in India. In particular, we have appreciated their initiative for digital inclusion in villages, the Harisal pilot project in Maharashtra where they brought in technology and connectivity for digital health and digital education...,” Prasad said after the meeting, adding that “this is something I am considering for replication in our larger vision for Digi Gaon initiative”.
Finance Minister Aurn Jaitley in the Union Budget for the 2017-18 fiscal had announced that a Digi Gaon initiative will be launched for the provision of telemedicine, education and skills with the help of digital technology.
The minister said that Nadella also discussed cloud and LinkedIn, and creating job opportunities in India. “We already have a cloud-first policy, and we have empaneled Microsoft too. But LinkedIn’s involvement in skilling professionals, to be exposed to good job opportunities also were talked about detail,” Prasad said.
However, the minister said there was no discussion on H-1B visa issue. Aruna said that there were discussions around Aadhaar, India Stack, cloud first, mobility first and startups.
