Telangana govt seeks Microsoft's cooperation in varied areas

The Telangana government has sought IT giant Microsoft's cooperation in areas such as digitisation of classrooms and last mile connectivity to rural areas, the state's IT Minister KT Rama Rao said on Monday.

Nadella on Monday visited the T-Hub, a technological incubator for start-ups set up by the Telangana government with the support of Nalsar, IIIT-Hyderabad and ISB.

"We (both Nadella and Telangana government) have explored several avenues of collaboration, one of which is start-up ecosystem.

“We requested Satya (Microsoft) to participate in building the start-up ecosystem in Hyderabad.

“He has shown keen interest in that," Rao said.

"We also talked about collaboration in the white space technology in which the Microsoft is pioneering.

“We want to build the last mile connectivity using Microsoft white space," the minister told reporters after the meeting with the Microsoft chief at T-Hub.

According to Rama Rao, Nadella wanted local entrepreneurs to come forward to partner with Microsoft in various areas.

The IT minister also said they requested Microsoft to engage with the government to provide cloud technology that is useful to small and medium entrepreneurs.

"The last initiative we talked about is in the field of education.

“Telangana is focused on providing best education.

“Therefore, we requested the Microsoft to work with us in digitising our classrooms," he said.

The minister further said that the government would closely work with Microsoft in taking forward the initiatives.

According to him, Nadella is impressed with the government's IT initiatives and T-Hub.

Image: Satya Nadella. Photograph: Reuters