Access to Knowledge in America and India, Remarks of Dr. Sam Pitroda
June 14, 2017, The Internet Archive, San Francisco
Ambassador Venkatesan Ashok. My friend, Carl, whom I have known now for several years, and have worked together on and off in India and in the US. Our host, Mr. Kahle. Ladies and gentlemen. Good evening.
It is indeed a special privilege for me to be here with you on this special event to really talk about sharing knowledge between India and the USA.
My interest in this project clearly started way early when I was chairing the National Knowledge Commission set up by Dr. Manmohan Singh in mid-2006 or so. At that point in time, we were really interested in building the institutions and infrastructure India would need to drive knowledge-based economy in the 21st century.
We essentially focused on access to knowledge, which included libraries, networks, translations, affirmative action program, reservations, quotas, broadband networks. We looked at all kinds of education from primary to secondary school, vocational, university education, medical education, distance learning, open sourceware, teachers’ training.
Then we also looked at creation of knowledge, who creates knowledge, how knowledge is created. Coupled with that, we looked at intellectual property, patents, copyright, trademarks, and application of knowledge in agriculture, health, and small and medium scale industries. Finally, the role of knowledge in governance. As a result of this initiative, we built the National Knowledge Network.
We built a variety of portals for environment, energy, water, teachers’ training. Then finally, we built a massive portal on Mahatma Gandhi.
In my early days, I went to a Gandhian school as a young boy of 10. All of the Gandhian values were ingrained in our day-to-day life. Being a Gujarati family living in Odisha, Gandhi was the only connection for my parents to Gujarat. We constantly kept Gandhi alive in our thoughts, in our day-to-day activities.
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