The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Microsoft India to improve access, deployment and use of ICT for offering better citizen services and drive digital inclusion. The MoU was signed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during his meeting with Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
Naidu hosted a breakfast meeting for Nadella, who is on a private visit to Hyderabad. The meeting that lasted over an hour mainly centred on how Microsoft could help accelerate development process in Andhra Pradesh through deployment of IT. Nadella also showed interest in the ambitious Rs 2,500-crore e-pragathi project recently taken up by the state government.
The Microsoft CEO invited the state to send an IT team to Seattle, US to study how the technology giant’s services could be utlilised for better implementation of this project. “Given that Andhra Pradesh is already leading in e-governance, this partnership with Microsoft will bolster Andhra Pradesh’s position in the world’s digital map,” he said.
“We are committed to empowering every Indian and Indian business and government organisation to achieve more,” said, Anil Bhansali, MD, Microsoft India (R&D). “We are excited about leveraging the power of Microsoft Cloud and mobile technologies for the success of Andhra Pradesh,” he said.
According to the MoU, the state government would use technical knowledge provided by Microsoft India. Microsoft India will support building of up to three proof-of-concept (POC) solutions to apply Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and Advanced Visualization in the fields of education, agriculture and eCitizen services.