India invites SA to join it in e-network
Kalam said the platform, which would be based on next generation broadband internet connectivity, would integrate the core competencies of the partner countries to build and market “knowledge products” for economic development.
Kalam made his proposal to further build on the e-network that India has offered to African countries in a video address from New Delhi to the International Science Innovation and Technology Exhibition in Sandton yesterday.
The Indian president also delivered this year’s Phillip Tobias lecture at the exhibition via video and was the recipient of the Tobias Award.
Kalam said the platform could act as “a launch pad for many
The purpose, he said, was knowledge creation, dissemination, storing, and re-use, which would involve, “the co-ordinated design and delivery of complex systems in the knowledge domain”.
The areas to be covered are energy, ways of enhancing agricultural productivity, water treatment, disease diagnosis and screening, drug delivery, food preservation and storage, health, pest control, hardware and software development, automotive hardware and software embedded in devices, and genetic and stem-cell research.
Although Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena was at the exhibition, there was no response from the department to Kalam’s proposal.
The proposal follows an initiative launched by Kalam in an address in SA two years ago for the creation of a pan-African e network for the use of Indian satellites for tele-medicine and tele-education between African countries and India.
Inet-Bridge
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