Relevance, affordability drive tech: Hector Ruiz

NEW DELHI: India could rank among the IT powerhouses but technology would have to percolate to the lowest segments for the heady pace to sustain. Hector J Ruiz, chairman, president and CEO, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), was airing his views at the CII-CEOs forum on 'India: What next after Software & BPO,' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi last night.

Dr Ruiz said that, from his experience of work in countries like Brazil, China and India, he would advocate the need for technology to be relevant, innovative and affordable.

Relating to the topic under discussion, he quipped: "The real answer to 'what

next' is 'who knows.' But telling Indians what to do was a difficult proposition as they had earned a very respectable position for themselves and, in the coming

five years, the world's technological standards would be decided by China and

India, more by India than China."

Any programme that was planned for more than three years became irrelevant, Ruiz observed. One could only prepare for such hectic challenges by investing in education and India had got its priorities right, its IT training set-up proving an ideal foil, he added.

Giving an illustration of what the reach of the internet could do, he pointed out that, in the United States, the cost of healthcare had been brought down by 50 percent by modernization of the health sector and releasing it from the clutches of the bureaucracy.

"Imagine what would could happen if we can put this technology in the hands of 7.5 billion people, estimated to be half of the total population of the world by 2015, he said alluding to his famous proposal.

On his vision of India, he insisted that technology was the most important method of changing the social milieu, but added it was just as important to take up projects that were relevant.

"To meet the challenges of the Goliaths in the world, companies that make ten times or even 100 times more profit than you, one has to stay ahead of them in thought and preparing for the future. That is why we are spending more money on understanding the customer than watching the moves of our rivals " he stated.