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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

sampitroda life history

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] on Tuesday approved the setting up of a National Innovation Council to prepare a road map for the 'Decade of Innovation 2011-2020'.
Sam Pitroda [ Images ], adviser to the prime minister on public information infrastructure and innovations, will head the National Innovation Council.
The Council has been given the mandate to evolve an Indian model of innovation focussing on inclusive growth and creating an appropriate eco­system conducive to fostering inclusive innovation.
It will delineate appropriate policy initiatives within the government required to spur innovation. It will also promote the setting up of sectoral innovation councils and state innovation councils.
While encouraging all important sectors of the economy to innovate, the NIC will take special efforts to facilitate innovation by micro, small and medium enterprises.
Innovation in public services delivery and encouraging multi-disciplinary and globally competitive approaches for innovations would be focused on by the council.
The National Innovation Council would have as its members:
  • K Kasturirangan, members of the Planning Commission;
  • Arun Maira, member of the Planning Commission;
  • Ramesh A Mashelkar, former director general of CSIR;
  • Kiran Karnik, former President, Nasscom;
  • Devi Prasad Shetty of the Narayana Hrudyalaya;
  • R Gopalakrishnan, executive director, Tata Sons;
  • Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson, Biocon [ Get Quote ];
  • Shekhar Kapur [ Images ], film director;
  • Saurabh Srivastava, chairman, CA Technologies;
  • Anil K Gupta, professor IIM Ahmedabad [ Images ];
  • Sujatha Ramadorai, professor, TIFR;
  • Chandrajit Banerjee, director general, CII;
  • Amit Mitra, secretary general, FICCI;
  • Samir Brahmachari, director general, CSIR; and
  • Sanjay Dhande, director, IIT Kanpur [ Images ].
R Gopalakrishnan, additional secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, will be the member secretary of the National Innovation Council.


By providing public access to telephones, Mr. Sam Pitroda revolutionized the state of telecommunications in India. Currently, Mr. Pitroda is the Chairman and CEO of World-Tel Limited, an International Telecom Union (ITU) initiative. He is also the Chairman and Founder of Sevend high-technology. Sam Pitroda is also the founding Chairman of a non-profit Foundation for' Revitalization of Local Health Traditions in India. As a result of his pioneering works, Sam Pitroda holds more than 50 patents and has lectured extensively on Telecom, Technology and Development, in almost all parts of the world. Sam Pitroda has also featured in several newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programs.

Background
Satyanarayan Gangarm Pitroda, better known as Sam Pitroda was born in Titlagarh, Orissa, India. Sam Pitroda did his schooling at Anand Vallabh Vidyalaya in Gujarat and Masters in Physics and Electronics in Baroda. In the year1964, Sam Pitroda went to the US and did his Masters in Electrical Engineering in Chicago. Thereafter he worked at GTE and formed Wescom Switching, Inc. In the year 1984, Sam Pitroda returned to India and founded the Center for Development of Telematics (CDAC) and later became advisor to the PM of India on National Technology Missions. Mr. Pitroda lives in Chicago, Illinois with his wife Anu, son Salil and daughter R                                             central for development of telematics 

The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) is the Telecom Technology development centre of the Government of India. It was established in August 1984 as an autonomous body. It was vested with full authority and total flexibility to develop state-of-the-art telecommunication technology to meet the needs of the Indian telecommunication network. The key objective was to build a centre for excellence in the area of telecom technology.
While the initial mandate of C-DOT in 1984 was to design and develop digital exchanges and facilitate their large scale manufacture by the Indian Industry, the development of transmission equipment was also added to its scope of work in 1989.
electronic wallet 
An encrypted storage medium holding credit card and other financial information that can be used to complete electronic transactions without re-entering the stored data 
NEW DELHI: Technology evangelist Sam Pitroda has another innovation up his sleeve and this time, he says, it will change the way people the world over look at money and carry out transactions by putting a "digital wallet" into mobile phones .

The inventor of the Casio Digital Diary, which was a rage in the 1980s, Pitroda’s company C-Sam has developed a mobile money transaction platform that, he vouches, will transform today’s concept of banking, credit cards, payments and money.

His latest innovation has also been explained in his new book -- "The March of Mobile Money: The Future of Lifestyle Management" -- that was released by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia at the India International Centre Tuesday evening.

"Today all your credit, debit cards are put in an envelope and sent to you. In the future, your plastic cards will be digital and sent to your new address -- your mobile phone," Pitroda said at the well-attended launch function.

"This involves the convergence of banks and merchants along with the user. And this is already happening. It is almost here."

Pitroda, who is advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on public information, infrastructure and innovation, says the inspiration for his latest invention was his wife Anu, who would spend hours writing cheque after cheque.

It was then he thought of the concept of "mobile money" that combines the cash you have in your bank account, credit cards, bank accounts, mobile phone and a secure transaction gateway all into a digital wallet of convenience.

The book has been co-authored by his long-time associate at the Chicago-headquartered C-Sam Mehul Desai and published by Harper Collins.

Pitroda said the use of technology and communications in commercial activities can help transform a country like India, empower citizens, reach social uplift programmes more effectively and bring about a drastic lifestyle change in both urban and rural areas.

With over 600 million mobile phone subscribers in India, this electronic version of the leather wallet can deliver personalised and secure services individually to a wide spectrum of users covering almost all sectors, he said.

In today's world, Pitroda said, more than 10 billion cards are produced every year. "The mobile wallet would, in the future, replace these cards, bringing down the cost of transaction and increasing efficiency."

Pitroda, who also chairs the National Innovation Council and headed the now defunct National Knowledge Commission, had filed a patent for the mobile wallet in 1994.

The technology, he says, is already present and used in some form in countries like Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Singapore. This apart, a version of this technology - called iMobile -- is also being used by ICICI bank.

The application of this technology -- as has been with his numerous innovations, notably the Casio Digital Diary -- seems simple.

To pay for a transaction, one has to navigate to the menu of a mobile phone and click on the designated icon. The phone asks how to pay, and one then clicks on the credit card. The transaction is done over a secure encrypted platform.

What is more, one can also plug-on this platform to a computer, see the history of transactions, the balance cash, the spending pattern, charts, graphs and even take a printout of receipts, said Pitroda.

"With mobile money, I can buy something from Brazil, pay in rupees, and charge it to my account in Chicago."

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