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Indian IT and Law and Justice Minister holds roundtable with UK and India Tech Community discussing abundance of opportunities for collaboration.

Taking forward their India-UK Tech Alliance, NASSCOM and techUK, in collaboration with GSA, UK held a high level Roundtable discussion with Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Electronics & IT and Law and Justice, Government of India. This was attended by CXO’s of leading UK and Indian technology companies in the UK, senior officials from UK and Indian Government, as well as leadership team of NASSCOM, techUK and GSA executives.

NASSCOM President, Debjani Ghosh highlighted the role of the technology sector in catapulting the Indo-UK trade partnership. She endorsed the partnership between techUK and NASSCOM that will support the flourishing IT sectors in both India and UK by developing stronger linkages on co-creation, innovation, skilling partnerships and making policy recommendations to generate business confidence, especially keeping Brexit in mind. This is especially critical in a world where artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics and cybersecurity will be major technology growth areas. The meeting discussed the need to work collectively to better manage technology challenges like data privacy and security issues, especially in the context of next-gen. technologies i.e. AI, IoT, big data in priority sectors that have huge social impact including healthcare, fin-tech and social inclusion. Union Minister, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad reiterated the need of both governments to share knowledge, collaborate on research, innovate and create partnerships via deploying complementary technological strengths. Julian David, CEO of TechUK, commented, technology is at the heart of the UK India relationship. We are delighted alongside NASSCOM to welcome Minister Prasad. Collaboration on next generation technologies as well as ensuring a pipeline of future skills is vital for the success of both economies and the benefit of its citizens

As a background, the India-UK Tech Alliance was created, on 18th April 2018, as a formal structure by NASSCOM and techUK to increase collaboration on skills and new technologies, assist in policy development and encourage innovation. The Alliance members met on 21st June 2018, and jointly urged the UK Government to support the operationalizing of the joint “future skills initiative” to upskill UK technology workers to bridge the skills gap and design a flexible immigration system that allows for  frictionless mobility of skilled workers between India and UK.