Intel to invest $ 100 mn

"The fund has already invested in 15 start-ups including Rediff and Cyber India Online Ltd (CIOL) over the last eighteen months," Barrett said. The company would expand its India Development centre in Bangalore by increasing the software professional from the present 50 to over 500 in the next three years.

"Intel’s recent acquisition of Bangalore-based Thinkit Technologies would supplement design capability sourcing from India," he added. On the company’s education initiatives, Barrett said that Intel would train about 1,00,000 Indian teachers as part of its worldwide programme to train 4,00,000 teachers on usage of technology as a learning tool.

LOW BANDWIDTH: Barrett said India would have to address telecom infrastructure issues like bandwidth and Internet access cost if the country was to reap the benefits of Infotech revolution. "Two of the major technological challenges facing India today are low bandwidth and high cost of Internet access. These have to addressed to compete in the race for Internet leadership," Barrett said while addressing a seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

He said reforms in Indian economy and liberalisation of telecom sector were very positive signs but there was much more to do on building a world-class telecom network.

Barrett said E-commerce was witnessing an exponential growth and the worldwide business-to-business (B2B) on the net would touch seven trillion dollars by 2004 of which a significant chunk would be from Asia. Indian share in the B2B business would also increase to billions of dollars in the next four to five years from virtually nothing at present.

Talking about the growing impact of Internet, Barret tsaid E-commerce would account for about 30 per cent of the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the US by end of this decade.

Barrett said the company would expand its teacher training programme to ten major cities throughout the country by the end of the year. Barrett who visited the Intel Training Lab at Ramjas school said that the company had set a target of covering over one lakh teachers in India under its programme this year.

Evaluating the success of the programme he said that his interaction with teachers and students of the school had proved that teachers had not only gained knowledge but were able to use computers deftly. "The aim of our programme is to encourage both teachers and students to not only be aware of technology but to be able to use it to one’s advantage," Barrett said.