'India needs innovation to deal with challenges'

New Delhi, November 19: President Prab Mukherjee on Thursday said India needs innovation to tackle various challenges in different fields like education and healthcare.

Speaking after meeting top 10 winning teams of ‘Innovate for Digital India Challenge’ at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president said he was happy to learn that department of electronics and information technology has collaborated with Intel India to run the competition that aims to identify, support and mentor companies with workable IT solutions to problems in various sectors.

He also expressed hope that the innovative solutions would be developed to benefit the citizens of the country. “We face the challenge of scalability and mass applicability of solutions to the problems of public concern. The solution lies in harnessing the digital revolution backed by innovations.

“The digital revolution has in a way de-centralised governce. Today, any innovation happening anywhere in the country or the world can be replicated and adopted suitably on large scale,” he said. The president said the ‘Digital India’ campaign of the government aims to work on providing digital infrastructure as a service to the citizens, providing governce and services on demand and digitally empowering the citizens.

Innovate for Digital India challenge will provide a platform for innovators and other stakeholders to collaborate and continue to bring forth affordable, workable and innovative solutions to the problems of the common man, he added. A book ‘Technology innovation for inclusion’ was also presented to the president by Greg Pearson, vice president Intel Corporation.  (IANS)