|
Brief
Qualcomm’s wireless dream
Paul E Jacobs |
Qualcomm recently announced the names of the developers who
will participate in its Wireless Reach BREW Application Funding Program. Paul
E Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm made the announcement at the BREW 2006 Conference
in San Diego. The company has established a fund of $1 million to encourage
the creation of BREW-based wireless applications for segments such as education,
government, healthcare, public safety and environment.
The initiative empowers underserved communities through the use of third generation
(3G) wireless technologies. This initiative is already empowering communities
in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and
Vietnam.
In India, Qualcomm has formed an alliance with the Nasscom Foundation to enable
connectivity and provide content based solutions to village resource centres
across nine states. As part of the Nasscom Foundation’s Rural Knowledge
Network Program, CDMA2000 based wireless Internet connectivity solutions will
be deployed in 65 village resource centres.
The program supports India’s larger national initiative,
Mission 2007, that has been created to establish 100,000 village resource centres
and 600,000 information kiosks to cover every village in the country by August
15, 2007 to coincide with India’s celebration of 60 years of independence.
Vishal Gupta |
“The program is relevant to India as CDMA2000 networks
are already estabished amongst the rural populace,” says Vishal Gupta,
Senior Director, Sales and Business Development, Qualcomm India.
This program has energised several developers in India to leverage BREW solutions
to make a difference.
Communicating in the hinterland
According to a Yankee Report on 3G that came out in 2006, the growth of India’s
Information and Communication Technology industry has been primarily focused
in urban areas. This is demonstrated by the fact that average urban teledensity
is over 31 percent as compared to rural teledensity of less than two percent.
This has resulted in widening the urban-rural disparity with 70 percent of the
population deprived of the benefits of mobile telephony and services. Broadband
is yet to take off with only one million broadband users and hardly any in rural
areas.
The program will play an important role in empowering content developers to
make a difference in these rural communities.
For example, a mobile phone application will provide fishermen with weather
forecasts.
Furthermore, farmers can use their mobile phones to enquire
about market prices of crops or fertilisers in their own dialect,
enabling them to make relevant and informed decisions.
| Qualcomm will leverage technologies such
as CDMA2000 1X and WCDMA to provide connectivity and applications
to rural India. CDMA2000 1X has already been deployed in India
and the enhanced version i.e. CDMA2000 1xEV-DO as well as the
enhanced version of WCDMA i.e. HSDPA are expected to be deployed
in India soon. Qualcomm will continue to leverage the power
of these technologies for its Wireless Reach initiative. |
Where the BREW goes
The program has the potential to affect many regions in India. Qualcomm expects
that proposals from the developer community will help determine regions that
need to be targeted.
“Qualcomm is proud to recognise these finalists. We are committed to help
in increasing the availability of useful BREW applications worldwide,”
says Jacobs.
As a part of the program, Qualcomm will award five grants totting up to $500,000
globally for the most innovative BREW applications that can have a positive
impact in emerging markets.
The remainder will be used to put one or more of the winning proposals into
action through a new or existing Wireless Reach project.
The finalists were selected based on a careful review of all applications.
21 developers from 19 organisations in six countries have been felicitated
and contacted individually to submit an in depth proposal by Dec. 31,
2006. Qualcomm will pick and choose the recipients of the five individual
grants from these and announce the same in February 2007.
- Agrocom Software Technologies Pvt Ltd, IIT Bombay – Krithi
Ramamritham, dean of research and development, IIT-B and director, Agrocom
and Anil Bahuman, Managing Director, Agrocom, IIT-B (Mumbai, India)
- Astute Systems Technology Pvt Ltd – Vijay Kumar Jain,
Founder and CEO (Indore, India)
- BookBox India Pvt. Ltd. – Brij Kothari, Founder and CEO
(Pondicherry, India)
- Tata Consultancy Services – Arun Pande, Head of Advanced
Technology and Applications (Thane, India)
- Tata Consultancy Services – Gian Sunder Singh, Head,
BREW Center of Excellence (Mumbai, India)
- ZMQ Software Systems – Subhi Quraishi, CEO (New Delhi)
|
|
