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INDIA
India is the world's second largest exporter of computer software, after the United States. Places such as Hyderabad (which now wants to be known as Cyberabad) are home to many information technology firms.
The city of Bangalore has become India's version of Silicon Valley. The Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) has a reputation for nurturing some of the best minds in computers and engineering.
In the past, concerns have arisen over a so-called "brain drain," as IIT graduates left India for graduate degrees and lucrative careers in the West. Now, the IIT alumni who have made it big in the software boom are giving back to their country. They are reversing the brain drain by bringing venture capital dollars directly to the graduating students, who themselves have great ideas for startup ventures.
India faces a special challenge: How to bring technology to its people. Nearly half of India's adults cannot read or write. Hyderabad has initiated an "e-governance" system that puts computer kiosks in government buildings, to limit the bureaucracy and provide easier access to information.
In Mumbai, there is an ongoing experiment with video e-mail. It allows taxi drivers to speak to their wives -- who live in villages some 900 miles away -- via the Internet. The wives can then record their responses on video and send them back to Mumbai as e-mail documents.
Another project, called "Hole in the Wall," put an Internet kiosk in a poor Indian neighborhood with surprising results. Children who could not read or write immediately took to the computer, figuring out how to use it with no instruction at all.
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CNN New Delhi bureau chief Satinder Bindra considers India's challenge in bringing information technology to its people.
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Dewang Mehta, head of an Indian software lobby group, and Stanford University economist Roger Noll discuss how information technology is changing India.
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Sugata Mitra, a researcher for the NIIT software and education company, explains his "Hole in the Wall" experiment.
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