3 best quotes from Microsoft’s Future Unleashed

MUMBAI, INDIA: From Gandhi is the messiah of the digital world, to rolling out details about pet projects, the first day of the two day Microsoft event, Future Unleashed had it all.

We bring you the three best quotes that surmise the mood for the first day.

"Gandhi is the messiah of digital world": Anand Mahindra, Chairman and MD, Mahindra & Mahindra

The Occupy Wall Street Movement of 2011 and the most recent Volks Wagon episode, which he said reflects on what happens when one damages the environment because of greed.

This not only creates an imbalance among the populace (1 percent owns 50 percent) but also builds insecurity with regard to environment.

Technology can and will change this. But it can only happen if the decisions taken by the 20 percent also include the last mile of our society.

"We want to develop smart villages," Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister, Maharashtra

Technology can empower people, and that is what we are set-out to do. We have launched many e-services, and our goal is to launch many more in the near future.

Secondly, we want to set-up not just smart cities, but also smart villages and we have chosen Arisal, the capital of malnourishment for the smart village project. Our goal is to use technology to not only ensure food security for the people in the village, but also make them self-sustainable by enabling them to market their produce directly to the consumers via technology.

"Start-ups are a very important part of urban India": Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

We are closely working with start-up through our Accelerator Program since the last few years, but we are planning to start a new program for start-ups that will create a single platform which will help in solving urban problems.

Under the new program, the start-ups can apply for individual access up to $120,000 (Rs 80 lakh) worth of Azure computing to help India's smart cities explore solutions and run smart city digital pilots.

Cities can also apply for access to these services and solutions on Azure through a new portal which connects start-ups with cities and their needs. This initiative is anticipated to impact over 50 smart cities in the next year through a catalog of over 50 start-ups and ISV solutions.