Living today in an Information Society, we are witnessing the building of a knowledge-based economy where business is knowledge based, participants are knowledge workers and wars, if any, would be the knowledge wars. As we stand at the doorstep of the new millennium, Information Technology is going to create a fundamental change in many ways, like in Administration, Education and Business.

Administration is going to fulfil the citizen charter. Illiteracy is going to be replaced by computer literacy. Business is going to see a paradigm change where, the globe will be looked upon as one Institution, where the design will be carried out at one place, material is supplied from another, assembled at a third, tested at yet another place and supplied to customers all over. Communication has already broken geographical barriers. Most importantly, the new Society is going to address the quality of life at its root. It is here we see the greatest challenge of the previous century being realized as we enter into the new millennium.

What is the role of a development institution in this scenario? Indeed we see a shift in the role. With the liberalization in the economy, the need to compete globally is increasingly felt. Development Institutions have therefore a very important role to play. In fact, the traditional division between a Developer and a Manufacturer has diminished, because if what we develop or make is to be useful, it has to go to its beneficiary. A model where technologies developed are used up or get commercialised quickly is therefore the need in the current scenario. I view C-DAC in this perspective. The responsibility is therefore two-fold – one where continuous development efforts in advanced technology areas have to be put in to remain competitive, and the other where these technologies reach the beneficiary through a market access mechanism. The Government funding for high technology developments, like in other models of western economies, should continue. Technology development should also provide spin-offs through which commercial business is supported for a viable self-sustaining operation of the institution. This keeps both the challenge and motivation of the members alive together.

C-DAC has made a beginning and a successful one, in this direction. We have our Multilingual Multimedia technologies as one example in this context, and the software technologies for select applications such as Power, Telecom, Health and Government sector as another example. These have been driven by the core strength in high performance computing technology that we developed right from the beginning. The vision we have created for ourselves in fact leads us to believe in it and continue to work in that direction – “To emerge as the premier R&D Institution for the design, development and deployment of world-class IT solutions for economic and human advancement”.

Through the C-DAC house magazine, we attempt to not only seamlessly communicate within the C-DAC family, but also the outside world about our activities and accomplishments.