India's Mobile Revolution and the Unfinished Tasks: Invited Lecture

India has made great strides in use of Mobile telephones in recent years. Adding over 10 million phones a month, it is the fastest growing market today. The cell-phones are quickly reaching the deepest parts of the nation and serving the poorest people. The talk will examine what made this possible. It will also focus on what the unfinished telecom tasks for India are. It will examine what India is doing in terms of providing Broadband wireless connectivity to its people; what it is doing towards R&D and technology development in the county; and how it aims at building global telecom manufacturing and telecom operation companies in India. Speaker Biography Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala is Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India and was department Chair till recently. He received his B.Tech. degree from IIT, Kanpur, and his MS and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Maine. From 1979 to 1981, he was with Washington State University as Assistant Professor. Since 1981, he has been teaching at IIT Madras. Dr.Jhunjhunwala leads the Telecommunications and Computer Networks group (TeNeT) at IIT Madras. This group is closely working with industry in the development of a number of Telecommunications and Computer Network Systems. TeNeT group has incubated a number of technology companies which work in partnership with TeNeT group to develop world class Telecom and Banking products for Rural Markets. Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala has been awarded Padma Shri in the year 2002. He has been awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 1998, Dr.Vikram Sarabhai Research Award for the year 1997, Millennium Medal at Indian Science Congress in the year 2000 and H. K. Firodia for "Excellence in Science & Technology" for the year 2002, Shri Om Prakash Bhasin Foundation Award for Science & Technology for the year 2004, Awarded Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Lecture Award by INSA for the year 2006 and IBM Innovation and Leadership Forum Award by IBM for the year 2006. He is a Fellow of INAE, IAS, INSA and NAS. Dr. Jhunjhunwala is a Director in the Board of SBI. He is also a Board member of several companies in India, including TTML, BEL, Polaris, 3i Infotech, Sasken, Tejas, NRDC, and IDRBT. He is member of Prime Minister's Setup Scientific Advisory Committee.