Mumbai, Aug. 21: S. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Infosys co-founder and chairman of Axilor Ventures, has launched "itihaasa Research and Digital" - a company that will research topics related to the IT industry and the emerging trends of the sector.
This follows the launch of the itihaasa application, a digital museum that tells the history of Indian IT since the 1950s.
The not-for-profit company will take initiatives to partner industry associations and researchers in top universities in India and abroad to study the evolution and impact of the IT industry in India and its future prospects.
"Our first project itihaasa, history of Indian IT, is to relate the story of the IT industry to many more people across the world. It unearthed hidden nuggets and insights that make for a most compelling digital museum,'' Gopalakrishnan said.
The project has seen around 8,000 downloads. It has 600 short videos featuring well-known personalities from the domestic IT sector, over 37 hours of footage, besides 350 archived photographs and articles. It is available for free download on the iOS and Android platforms.
Gopalakrishnan said the history of Indian IT was an ongoing research and it would be updated periodically.
Internet use
Web users in the country are expected to more than double to 730 million by 2020 with the rise in rural users. According to a Nasscom report, the number of internet users in the country stood at 350 million at the end of 2015.
India, which has a user base next only to China, will remain the fastest growing market. An overwhelming majority (75 per cent) of these new users are expected to consume data in local languages.
A rise in internet use is fuelling the growth of online shopping, which is estimated to account for two-thirds of the total e-commerce market, edging out travel.
The e-commerce market in India was valued at $17 billion in 2015-16. By 2020, it is expected to reach $34 billion with 175 million individuals transacting online.
Another major beneficiary would be financial technology. Overall, India's fintech market is expected to grow 1.7 times between 2015 and 2020.
