Last month, I was invited to the – “NASSCOM CEO’s forum with Mr. Bill Gates on Transforming India Through Technology” at The Taj Hotel, New Delhi. Bill Gates was in India to receive the prestigious Indira Gandhi award for Peace, Disarmament and Development on behalf Gates and Melinda foundation.
These are some notes from the event.
Gates started off with his thought,
“Over the next decade, the way we interact with computers shall change”.
He said that the use of mobile phones would move on to identifying people and identify diseases. He also talked about remote healing mechanisms which would become popular in times to come. Bill Gates condemned the policy of the American government on data privacy and immigration.
The event hosted some of the leading entrepreneurs from various sectors which included automobiles, health and medicine, technology, and more.
Gates explained why he had to shut down his Facebook account after getting several thousand invitations within a few days of joining the service. He proudly says that he loves being away from computers and doesn’t call himself a 24-hour technology person. He is not crazy about mobile devices but loves seeing youngsters use them. Gates though confesses that he loves reading and does it often off-screen.
On being asked about his views on social networking, he said that this has been prevalent for a long time and it’s just a buzz word.
Elaborating on the consequences of the recession, he said that recession has definitely not put a pause on innovation, and companies like Microsoft are still investing in India.
Gates had mixed views on the national ID project which is to be headed by Mr. Nandan Nilekani. He said that a similar project in the U.S. was not successful.
The event was live-blogged on the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT blog.
