Aus aims to provide solutions to India’s ICT problems

Amanda Hodges and two delegates at Taj Deccan, Hyderabad

Aiming to strengthen India-Australia relations in commercial IT research and development (R&D), with a focus on optimization, simulation, cybersecurity, etc., a six-person delegation from Australia is visiting Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and New Delhi to interact with the Indian IT industry, as part of the Australian ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) Centres of Excellence Mission to India. At a media briefing attended by The Dollar Business in Hyderabad, when asked about the never-ending Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), which just passed its deadline, Amanda Hodges, Senior Trade Commissioner, Australian Trade Commission mentioned that she hopes that the ongoing FTA negotiations between the countries will conclude within six months or so. According to her, “this mission is a platform for Indian companies to learn about Australia’s capabilities in the ICT field, and see this as a chance to partner up with Australian tech companies and research institutions”. Some Australia-India research and industry partnerships include iGATE and RioTinto’s R&D centre in Pune, “Rio Tinto Innovation Center”, and ABB and RMIT University’s “Australia-India Research Centre for Automation Software Engineering”. Moreover, six major Indian IT providers – Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, and Cognizant – have invested in Australia, and are seeing increasing growth rates. As is mentioned on their website, there are many opportunities for the Australian IT sector to provide solutions to, and support Indian multinational companies to increase their global businesses, and gain a competitive advantage in the international arena. As per the Global Innovation Index 2015, Australia is ranked 11 when it comes to ICT use, has an overall rank of 7 for ICT, and is ranked 10^th worldwide when it comes to R&D. In addition, technology spending in Australia grew at 4.1% in 2015, and in a review of national cyber security maturity across 15 Asian-Pacific nations, ranked second. Thus, there is much that Australia has to offer in terms of ICT, and as expressed by Hodges, Australia can help the Indian IT industry provide viable solutions to their customers as well.

February 25, 2016 | 06:30pm IST

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The Dollar Business Bureau - Feb 25, 2016 12:52 IST

Aus aims to provide solutions to India’s ICT problems

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