India fastest growing startup nation: Google’s Sunder Pichai

Pichai notes, “This will rank it as the largest public Wi-Fi project in India, and among the largest in the world, by number of potential users”.

And Google claims this is not your usual internet connection, it is said to be “high-speed” broadband, which will be “many times faster than what most people in India have access to today”. The project is initially free on the onset, but there will be a long-term goal to make it self-sustainable to make room for future expansions to more stations and places. According to a recent announcement by Google, they have revealed that they have entered into a partnership with Indian Railways in which the former will be installing WiFi across 400 train stations in India. The service, which will be free for the first 30 minutes, would be available to passengers on all 16 platforms at the railway station.

The project is being implemented by RailTel, a railway Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) that has also been assigned to provide the service at other “A1′ and ‘A” category stations in India.

Hosted by the Indian IT industry trade body, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), along with a clutch of start-ups in India and the U.S., the hackathon is having a simultaneous session at Tech Mahindra’s Noida facility.

Stressing on the point that technology must be accessible, affordable and adds value, Modi said “We want our 1.25 billion citizens to be digitally connected”.

Driving technology forward would really improve people’s lives in India and all around the world, Pichai said.

Just like I did years ago, thousands of young Indians walk through Chennai Central every day, eager to learn, to explore and to seek opportunity.

He (PM Modi) has accelerated India’s efforts in becoming the hotbed of innovation. “More importantly, he knows that technology is the enabler that drives massive change, the kind that India need”. “It is not just about being online, but what you do online”, he said, citing the case of Nisha Madhulika who creates YouTube videos of vegetarian recipes. PM Modi will end his tour with an event at the San Jose Convention Center that more than 18,000 people are expected to attend.