Bhubaneswar: Microsoft India showcased cloud technologies for citizen services in Odisha on January 19, 2018 and also reaffirmed its commitment to partner with the state in its progress. The company discussed its focus on enabling better e-governance services in the state, in alignment with the Prime Minister’s ‘Digital India’ mission, with representatives from the state government. The meeting was also attended by Surjya Narayan Patro, Minister for Food & Civil Supplies, Cooperatives, Government of Odisha. Microsoft is the only provider of services across all three clouds in the country – private, public and hybrid cloud, and was the first global public cloud service provider to be accredited by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology(MEITY).
Microsoft technologies currently power several core e-governance and critical projects in Odisha including the Odisha State Data Center, which is run on a Microsoft platform. In order to revive India’s fading and forgotten indigenous handloom forms, the company is also engaged in the DigiKala project which is currently being implemented in the Nuapatna and Barpali districts of Odisha, in partnership with the Digital Empowerment Foundation. The project, which has touched over 22,000 weavers and 9,000 handloom stations in these regions, focusses on the inclusive and decentralized use of ICT and digital tools in critical aspects of cluster development such as scaling up weaving skills, design, marketing, and entrepreneurship, besides creating sustainable livelihood options for the youth in these clusters. The weaver communities in these regions use Microsoft developed apps- ‘Sprightly’ and ‘Kaizala’- which helps their business create marketing and promotional content, and keep track of inventory and team members.
Ashutosh Chadha, Group Director Government Affairs and Public Policy at Microsoft India, said, “We at Microsoft believe that technology holds immense potential to help all the residents of every state. Realising the numerous benefits that our technology has to offer, and to achieve our mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, we feel keen on partnering with the government of Odisha. We aim at leveraging technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, IoT and data to help Odisha in their journey to contribute to the Digital Transformation of the nation.”
As part of its commitment, Microsoft India has been collaborating with governments, academia, industry and researchers across India with the intention of advancing state of the art computing and solving crucial world problems. The company has set up three cloud datacentres in Pune, Chennai, and Mumbai two years back and the availability of local cloud services – Microsoft Azure, Dynamics, and Office 365 – is accelerating cloud innovation and opening new possibilities in e-governance and inclusive growth. It also works with 29 state governments and over 5,000 startups to accelerate India on its digital transformation journey.
Microsoft has been working closely with several state governments in India to support their digital infrastructure, enhance their citizen services and drive efficiencies in their administrative and governance operations. It is deploying cloud computing and Machine Learning solutions to improvise facilities in different areas including education, agriculture and healthcare.
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