Microsoft partners with southern Indian state on improving citizen services

Reuters: Microsoft Corporation signed an understanding with the government of southern Andhra Pradesh state on Monday (December 28) to partner in the field of public cloud computing and digitised education system during the visit by its CEO, Satya Nadella, to India.

Nadella met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

“A great start to the day with @satyanadella. Discussed on technology initiatives & @Microsoft’s partnership with AP,” Naidu tweeted after meeting Nadella.

Earlier in the morning, Nadella visited the campus of T-Hub, India’s largest incubator for start-ups, in southern Hyderabad city.

Nadella, who is on four-day visit to India, met Information and Technology Minister of Telangana state K. T. Rama Rao and discussed on improving citizen services in the state.

“We talked about four different things. Firstly, we discussed on public cloud enablement of lot of services which help small and medium industries, big scale industries in Telangana. Secondly, we talked about digitalising all of our classrooms across various government schools in Telangana. We also talked about Microsoft ventures investing and supporting the start-up culture in Hyderabad. We also talked about how Microsoft can leverage the white spaces and promote last mile connectivity in Hyderabad,” said Rao.

Hyderabad-born Nadella interacted with the techies at the T-hub.

Nadella, a 46-year old born in India who led the creation of Microsoft’s Internet-based, or ‘cloud’ computing services, is only Microsoft’s third CEO in 39 years, taking over from Steve Ballmer, who inherited the job from Bill Gates in 2000.

During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Silicon Valley in the United States in September this year, where he met Nadella, Microsoft said it planned to take lost-cost broadband technology to some 500,000 villages across the country.