500 public locations provide free WiFi in Tamil Stalin starts a project in Chennai

Launching the first phase of the state government’s free Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas program in Chennai on Friday, Chief Minister M K Stalin expressed his vision of Tamil Nadu being a global hub for human resources and a trillion-dollar economy.

throughout the budget, the DMK administration said that 1,000 locations throughout Tamil Nadu’s main city corporations—including Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, and Salem—will provide free Wi-Fi. There will be free Wi-Fi hotspots in 500 public locations around Chennai, including parks, bus stops, and beaches.

Speaking at the opening of the two-day IT summit, UmagineTN 2024, Stalin reminisced about the part that former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi played in revolutionizing the IT industry, particularly his vision in announcing the nation’s first IT policy and creating a distinct IT department in 1997. The state IT and digital services department is organizing the IT summit, which is being hosted in Chennai’s Nandambakkam Trade Center.

This year, imagine concentrating on deep tech and AI.

Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, the minister of IT and digital services, emphasized the state’s goal of using Tamil Nadu FibreNet Corporation to provide free Wi-Fi to 12,600 villages. The state’s 12,525 village panchayats are to be connected to a 1 Gbps bandwidth via TANFINET.

IIT-Madras Research Park President Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala said in a separate Umagine session that if the state establishes three innovation centers in the three corridors of Tiruchy-Madurai, Coimbatore, and Hosur-Krishnagiri, it might become a leader in innovation. IIT-M Research Park, according to Jhunjhunwala, has spawned 351 businesses valued at Rs 45,000 crore. According to Jhunjhunwala, some of them, having begun with a meager budget of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000, have now been valued between Rs 10 crore and Rs 12 crore.

Additionally, he emphasized the need of supporting ten to twelve private engineering schools. He said that they need to be managed as independent organizations and not be subject to governmental interference.

Umagine’s six main areas of concentration this year are: Global Innovation Centers; Artificial Intelligence and Deep Tech; Cyber Security; Connected Intelligence; Sustainability; and Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics, and Extended Reality. The minister also said that there would be more than 150 exhibitors and over 25 seminars throughout the two days of the event.

PTR made IT the reform sector’s minimum: CM

In order to reorganize the industry, PTR was transferred out of finance and appointed IT minister, the CM announced on Friday, ending rumors about the motives for the portfolio swap.