Develop app for automatic translation into English: Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru, Jan 29: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday exhorted the Indian IT industry to develop a software application that would automatically translate into English words spoken in their mother tongue by those who had no formal education in the English language. "Could we think of innovative approaches or disruptive technologies that can automatically translate what people speak in mother tongue into English and vice-versa," he asked doyens of IT industry at conclave 'Vision 2020', organised by Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) here. Observing that there was some kind of elitism in the information technology (IT), the chief minister admitted that knowledge of English was an advantage to understand hardware and software and to communicate with overseas clients in the US and Europe. "Yet, we have a large number of people in India, who, owing to historical reasons, are not exposed to English education the way affluent children from metros and cities are," Siddaramaiah pointed out. Assuring the industry that such customised applications would enhance outsourcing from India, he said an automatic translation software or app would also help artisans, traditional designers and others hamstrung by language barriers to market their skills and products. Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy was among those present at the day-long event on increasing Indo-US trade to $500 billion over the next decade from $100 billion currently.