'We can do a software on hardware'

Education fair turns dream destination for career seekers

Newly emerging sectors bring a lot of promise and a lot of work is waiting to happen in these areas.

Education and health are the primary areas of concern for a growing country like India and there are several opportunities in these two fields, said M N Vidyashankar, Principal Secretary, Department of Commerce and Industries.

He was addressing students and parents after inaugurating Jnana Degula, the annual
Deccan Herald-Prajavani event organised to guide students in making career choices.

“We have to acknowledge that we are a knowledge-intensive economy. For every problem, the solution is based on technology,” he said, giving a picture of the commerce and economy sectors in the State.

In the technology arena, the State now needs to focus on hardware. Karnataka alone accounts for nearly 39 per cent of the country's software exports. It is time for it to focus on hardware, Vidyashankar observed.

A small country like Taiwan is able to produce 90 per cent of the world's laptops.
Karnataka too has to start thinking of setting up start-ups in the hardware sector.

For this very reason, the State government is in the process of creating a IT Investment Region in Bangalore, he said. The first phase of it will be completed in the next eight or nine months, he said. A large hardware park will also be established.

“We visited Taiwan recently to learn about the hardware sector there. Many companies in the country expressed interest in teaming up with us,” Vidyashankar said. A Taiwanese Park will also be set up here by a native company. The government wanted to establish close ties with the country that is ahead in the hardware sector, he said.

The principal secretary pointed out that the future in Karnataka will not just be software, but also hardware.

“We are already the hub of Information Technology, Animation, Biotechnology and Gaming. We want to be the hardware capital of India. That future is in your hands,” he told the audience. 

For those interested in pursuing Aerospace Engineering, the next few years in the State's development agenda looks promising, Vidyashankar said. Presently, not many institutes in India offer the course and there is no awareness about the employment opportunities in the sector, he said.

Vidyashankar took the students through the existing scenario and future prospects in the field. There is no company in the world that completely manufactures an aircraft by itself. Aircrafts are always assembled with over five million spare parts, he said. 

Numerous opportunities

“As much as 67 per cent of an aircraft is electronics. This area holds numerous opportunities. An aerospace park is also coming up around the Bangalore Airport, he said. Apart from this, medical tourism is flourishing.

Areas like animation promise a lucrative career, with the City hosting several animation companies. He gave the example of the 3-D film Tintin, a part of the animation of which was made in Bangalore.

North Karnataka will emerge as a hub for manufacturing units and Mysore is being looked upon as the next destination for software, Vidyashankar said. Revealing the government's plans, he said several campuses of IISc, DRDO, ISRO, TIFR and other research agencies would come up in Chitradurga.

Campuses around IISc

“The Indian Institute of Science wanted to establish its campus in Chitradurga. After the land was granted to IISc, the other premier science research institutes want to establish their campuses around IISc. If we look at the North of Bangalore, where IISc is located, we can see a similar hub of research institutes around its campus, which extends till Krishi Vignana Kendra.”

“Even though, at present we do not have plans of extending Metro beyond the city, very soon we may need Metro to connect these hubs of research institutes and premier organisations between Bangalore and Chitradurga.” To connect these zones, a National Industrial Management Zone is being planned in Sira, he added.