PM Narendra Modi, US Vice President Kamala Harris to be invited for November tech summit

BENGALURU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US Vice-President Kamala Harris will be invited to the Karnataka government's flagship annual event Bengaluru Tech Summit-2021 (BTS-2021) from November 17-19.

Announcing this on Monday, Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan said the summit would be held in hybrid format.

Narayan, who also holds the IT/Bt and S&T portfolio, convened a preparatory meeting with officials of the Department of Electronics, IT/Bt and S&T, and Chairpersons of the Vision groups today.

Kris Gopalakrishna, Chairperson, State Vision Group for I-T, Dr Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Chairperson, State Vision Group for BT, Prashanth Prakash, Chairperson of State Vision Group for Start-ups, virtually attended the meeting.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited to inaugurate the conclave and US Vice-President Kamala Harris will be invited to participate in the event," Narayan said.

In view of the possible third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the conclave Driving the Next would be organised in the hybrid format comprising more of virtual and a part of the physical model, the Deputy Chief Minister was quoted as saying by his office in a release.

Last year, the event held in virtual mode for the first time evoked an overwhelming response from experts and delegates, and more than 25 countries had participated.

This is expected to further increase in the forthcoming event, he added.

According to the release, the first day of the summit would be Thought Leadership Day (Hall of Fame), the second day would be 'Technologies and Strategies Day (Hall of Techies) and the third StartUps Day (Hall of Future).

Prior to these, Beyond Bengaluru events would be conducted in Mysuru, Hubballi, and Mangaluru during September and October.

The dates would be decided upon shortly.

Central Ministers Nirmala Sitaraman, Ravishankar Prasad, Harsha Vardhan and Nitin Gadkari, among others, would be invited to participate in the programmes, Narayan said.

During the Beyond Bengaluru events, the reports pertaining to Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM), Engineering R&D, and IESA (Indian Electronics and Semi-conductor Association) would be released, he said.

To give prominence to academic participation in the events, it has been decided to involve Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) and Higher Education Council, the release said.

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