Vaishnaw inaugurates Entrepreneurship Cell, Centre of Innovation

Union minister for telecom and IT Ashwini Vaishnav on Wednesday inaugurated the Entrepreneurship Cell and Centre of Innovation at the Centre for Development of Telematics here, an official statement said.

The government has approved a Rs 124 crore proposal for setting up incubation centres in the Delhi and Bengaluru campuses of the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) under the Digital Communication Innovation Square (DCIS) under Champion Services Sector Scheme. “COI has been established to spur indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship in various domains of Telecom like IoT, M2M, AI, ML, 5G, etc by encouraging local startups to play a significant role in strengthening the overall technological framework fuelled by synergistic collaboration amongst research and development, academia, industry and startups,” the statement said.

Centre of Innovation (COI) would accelerate the design, development and deployment of cost-effective and globally-competitive telecom solutions in the country, it added. During his visit to the C-DoT, the minister reviewed C-DOT’s ongoing technology programmes, including 5G, Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and advanced Security projects.

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“He (Vaishnaw) lauded the extraordinary efforts of C-DOT’s teams in creating a wholly indigenous end-to-end 4G system powered by C-DOT’s Core and RAN (radio access network) from the local industry partners. He hailed this achievement as a concrete step towards achieving ‘AtmanirBharta’ in the field of telecom,” the statement said. The minister also expressed confidence in the abilities of C-DOT and the local technology ecosystem in building world-class 5G networks fully driven by home-grown technology and assured the government’s full support to C-DOT in making it a global leader in the telecom sector.

Vaishnaw also mentioned about the opening of the Regional Office of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in India would foster research and innovation in the emerging areas of telecom and lead to the creation of greater opportunities for wider contributions by home-grown talent towards the evolution of various global telecom technology standards, the statement said.

C-DoT Chief Executive Officer Rajkumar Upadhyay said the minister’s visit to C-DOT and boosting the morale of researchers by showing them a direction that would shape the contours for the design and development of holistic telecom solutions in the country.