Shillong October 20: The Two Day North Eastern Regional National Knowledge Network (NKN) Workshop carrying the theme “Awareness and Knowledge Sharing” got underway at the NEHU Convention Hall in the City today. Organised by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in collaboration with the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), the workshop brings together academicians, researchers, students and IT experts from all the Eight North Eastern States; providing them with a platform for mutual sharing and learning through experiences of latest technologies and applications which would pave way for upgradation of their knowledge and skills.
Addressing the inaugural programme as Chief Guest, Meghalaya Governor, V. Shanmuganathan lauded the efforts of the National Knowledge Network (NKN) for providing a digital bedrock to member institutes of the region, further adding that NKN initiatives help provide an enabling environment for students, researchers and scientists in the region to make a foray into the arena of vast multimedia resources .
The Governor took the occasion to call upon all attendees to look beyond operational issues during their deliberations and discussions at the workshop but to also think of means and ways to address the myriad of issues afflicting the North Eastern region considering the fact that the region is critical to the propagation of the Act East Policy of the country. “There is a growing disparity in North East India where the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider leading to restlessness among the people especially the youths who may be influenced by negative things”, he said while urging upon all to try and understand the pain of the poor and deprived sections of the society further calling on them to use their mind and heart in order to help fellowmen.
Guest of Honour, Dr. Ampareen Lyngdoh, Minister in charge IT etc meanwhile lauded the National Knowledge Network (NKN) for extending its services of providing high speed internet in the state of Meghalaya, whereby institutes like NEHU, NEIGRIHMS, RGIIM,NIFT and others have benefited immensely.
She also expressed hope that more institutes in the state would be covered by NKN for the benefit of students, further appealing NKN to reach to the interiors of the state so as to propel forward the Digital India initiative in order to make it a grand success.
Other speakers at the programme included NEHU Vice-Chancellor, Prof. S.K Srivastava, Director General NIC, Neeta Verma, and State Informatics Officer, NIC Meghalaya,T. Dkhar.
It may be mentioned that the National Knowledge Network (NKN), a state of the art pan-India network, helps to facilitate the development of India’s information infrastructure, to simulate research and to also create next generation applications and services. NKN is designed to provide high availability of service, security and reliability. It has steadily evolved as the National Research and Education Network (NREN) of India with the project having made significant progress by connecting over 1500 institutes in the country, of which 119 belong to North East India, with a high bandwith internet speed. National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been designated as the implementing agency for NKN.
