Company also announces Strategic Digitization Initiatives to Accelerate Digital Maharashtra Vision in its commitment to enabling the Smart Cities & Digital India vision
Cisco announced the launch of its India manufacturing operations. At the event, Cisco and the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) also announced new local strategic initiatives to help the digital transformation of the state, which includes the citywide deployment of a smart city framework to roll out Smart City solutions in the city of Nagpur, digital learning for students and skills development for local entrepreneurs in Dharavi to create an eCommerce hub, expansion of the Cisco Networking Academy program, and digital education and healthcare initiatives in Fetri village.
The launch of the manufacturing operations took place in the presence of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Shri Devendra Fadnavis; the CEO of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, Shri Amitabh Kant; Smt. Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India; Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins; Irving Tan, Senior Vice President, Cisco Asia Pacific and Japan; Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India & SAARC; and Jun Kim, Vice President, Cisco Supply Chain Operations.
Cisco will manufacture and roll out a diverse product portfolio in India to support the government’s Make in India initiative. Cisco will use its India manufacturing operations to produce and ship orders for customers in India, as well as for testing, development, logistics, and in-house repair capabilities.
As part of Cisco’s commitment to accelerating Digital Maharashtra and supporting the Maharashtra State Education Digitization agenda, the company announced plans to establish up to 25 Cisco Networking Academies to train approximately 10,000 students in Maharashtra by 2020. The Cisco Networking Academy program in India has one of the largest programs for Cisco worldwide. Across 186 academies, nationwide, more than 122,000 students have been trained since its inception. The skills-development program is a cloud-delivered, scalable, high-quality program that helps students learn how to design, build, secure and maintain computer networks and prepare for jobs in the digital economy.
Devendra Fadnavis, Honourable Chief Minister of Maharashtra, said, “Digital transformation has emerged as the most transformative means to ignite sustainable growth and improve society. Digitization creates economic competitiveness, enables ease of doing business, improves public services, increases GDP, creates employment, and enhances the quality of life of citizens. My vision for digital Maharashtra is to digitally empower every citizen, increase the state’s global competitiveness by creating a highly skilled workforce ready for the jobs of the future, build an environment that stimulates exceptional companies, and enable outstanding public services for citizens. We are happy to partner with Cisco in the Digital Maharashtra initiative and we believe Cisco’s global experience and expertise in digitization will benefit Maharashtra immensely and accelerate the digitization of the state.”
Amitabh Kant, CEO, National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, said “Digitization is not just connectivity. Digitization is the catalyst for industrial growth which has the potential to transform economies. The manufacturing sector is imperative to national development and raising incomes, and India will become a digital disruptor if it embeds, converges and integrates manufacturing and digitization. The government recognizes that Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) can play a seminal role in enabling India’s journey towards becoming a global manufacturing destination. I congratulate Cisco on the inauguration of its manufacturing facility, and I believe this is yet another milestone in strengthening India’s position as a manufacturing hub and accelerating the economic prosperity of the country.”
Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco, said, “Digitization opens up unprecedented opportunities for every country, state and city. High technology manufacturing is convergence of engineering and science. India offers a huge talent pool of highly qualified scientists, engineers and designers along with ease of doing business, geographic location, and proximity to suppliers and customers.Today’s announcement reaffirms Cisco’s long-term commitment to India, a strategic center of country digitization and innovation. We are honored to work with the people of India to accelerate their digital economy, and help further the government’s vision to create sustainable competitiveness and prosperity.”
Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India & SAARC, said, “Today’s announcement underscores India’s strategic importance to Cisco’s global operations. We have made significant investments in India since we established operations in the country in 1995, and today’s announcement is another milestone in deepening our commitment to India. Today we lay the foundation for the next chapter in Cisco’s development in India, and help strengthen India’s global leadership position in digital transformation.’’
