Desh, other NRIs plan $1 bn tech institute

MUMBAI, MARCH 25: A group of US-based entrepreneurs of Indian origin plans to spend $1 billion to establish a global institute of science ...

MUMBAI, MARCH 25: A group of US-based entrepreneurs of Indian origin plans to spend $1 billion to establish a global institute of science and technology in India in collaboration with leading American universities, a government statement said on Friday.

"A $1 billion corpus will be required to make the sponsors’ vision a reality, and they have already secured commitments of $300 million," the statement said.

The sponsors include Gururaj `Desh’ Deshpande, founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks Inc; Vinod Khosla, general partner in venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, who was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems Inc; and Vinod Gupta, chairman of Info USA Inc.

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"This initiative establishes a new standard for philanthropy in India," the statement quoted Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as saying. The announcement coincided with the visit of US President Bill Clinton to India. Ã²F3Ã³ CMC, Acrossworld tie-up: Acrossworld Communications Inc, a California based leading telecommunications network service provider to emerging markets, today signed an agreement for system integration and network services with India’s leading computer service provider CMC Ltd.

Acrossworld is part of the President Clinton’s US India Business Council delegation, a CMC release stated here today. Under the agreement, Acrossworld will provide world-wide network connectivity in India, which includes electronic commerce, electronic business management and application service over the network the release stated adding this strategic partnership will help in marketing CMC’s system integration and network services to global customers and international organisations like World Bank group. Though the company already has a presence in India by providing network services to e-indiabiz.com, it intends to commence its full-fledged operations in the later half of the calendar year 2000, by tying up with two leading network providers.

According to Anat Bernstein-Reich, senior vice-president, Acrossworld Communication, "This tie-up will synergies Acrossworld network solutions experience and CMC’s domain expertise in the service sector like insurance and banking, and together help them leverage the emerging global opportunities by building India-based next generation networks."

According to the release, as a leading company which provides global network service solutions that connect corporations to their offices, customers and vendors in emerging markets, the company would move towards identifying emerging needs, trends, issues and requirements in e-commerce, intranets, extranets, ERP solutions, customer relation management and workgroup collaboration.