Co-founder Hotmail has plans to develop Guj as silicon valley

AHMEDABAD: Hotmail Co-founder Sabeer Bhatia on Monday said he looks toward cultural innovation in Gujarat and has plans to develop the state as the next Silicon Valley.

"We have got Letter of Intent (LoI) from Carneige Mellon University for setting up a Nano city that will have software development facility for niche sectors such as nano technology, bio-sciences and material sciences," Bhatia said, during the inauguration of Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit which began here today.

"With world class infrastructure here and support of the Gujarat government, we can make the state as next Silicon Valley of India by setting up a Nano city here," Bhatia said.

Sharing his experiences on emergence of silicon valley decades ago, Bhatia said the innovation at that time had led to phenomenal creation of value, and the model could be replicated here.

"Five decades ago Hewlett Packard created a small hub outside Standford that led to the birth of Silicon Valley, and in the last 10 years I have seen 1 trillion dollar of value being created because of cultural innovation," he added.

"India has huge potential for it, with a population of 1.2 billion people we create around half-a-million engineers annually, but somehow they are not able to make to make it to top echelons in key innovative hubs, therefore we need a nano city," Bhatia said.

The innovation can come through education and the Nano city will play a key role in software development for niche segments.