NASSCOM Partners With China’s Dalian Municipal To Launch A Collaborative Platform

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has signed an MoU with Dalian Municipal People’s government in China to launch a collaborative platform. Dubbed as the Sino-Indian Digital Collaboration Plaza (SIDCOP), the platform will be powered by AI and IoT, so as to enable technology exchange between the startup ecosystems of both the countries.

The dedicated IT Plaza will serve as an exclusive place for interested IT providers of all sizes to begin operations and avail benefits provided by Dalian BEST City administration. The platform will work on online as well as offline modes.

Apart from that, the platform will minimise the Request For Proposal (RFP) process at the customer-end by a significant margin. The SIDCOP platform’s services will also include a B2B intelligent marketplace, rule-based e-procurement and shared services command center.

This development comes a few months after an MoU was signed by the two organisations to promote IoT collaboration between the Indian and Chinese IT companies.

Gagan Sabharwal, Senior Director, NASSCOM said, “This cooperative partnership that we have formed with the Government of Dalian will help us create a platform where companies from India and China can come forward to co-develop for global markets by leveraging their respective strengths in hardware and software. The arrangement that we have carved out with BEST city will serve as a launchpad for the Indian companies to partner with Chinese enterprises and gain access to the ever-growing Chinese market.”

An official from the Dalian Best City Administrative Committee added, “We, at Dalian BEST City are delighted to reach this understanding with India’s NASSCOM for developing the NASSCOM IT Corridor. We strongly believe this is the innovative step in enhancing and mutually benefiting Chinese and Indian companies in software and services sector. The SIDCOP platform developed by Zeta-V is an extremely innovative use of digital technologies and shall pave the way for greater and wider cooperation amongst our countries.”

As his statement explains, Zeta-V Technology Solutions Ltd, a startup with a local presence in Dalian will be deployed as the operator of the SIDCOP platform.

“This is an extremely proud and heartening moment for Zeta-V in being chosen as the principal enabler of this pioneering initiative from NASSCOM and Dalian BEST City. We are delighted to play a key role in building this ecosystem of NASSCOM members and Chinese companies to help furthering the Sino- Indian collaboration in the new age technology space. We are confident that SIDCOP, our AI powered intelligent collaboration platform, complimented with offline ground support shall ensure a seamless and efficient experience for Chinese and Indian companies in synergistic and mutual growth,” said Sujit Chatterjee, co-founder and Director at Zeta-V Technology Solutions.

Recently, in November, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi announced that it was planning to invest $1 Bn in 100 Indian startups over the next five years. CEO Lei Jun, in an interview, stated that the company was looking to create an ecosystem of apps around its own smartphone brand.

Around the same time, the Karnataka government announced its partnership with the French Nodal Agency, Business France India to develop and intensify mutually beneficial cooperation for promoting startups and the ecosystems in both countries.

In June this year, the Indian government partnered with Israel to launch a five-year technology fund – The Israel India Innovation Initiative Fund, or I4F, with the aim of bolstering business relationship between both countries.

The partnership of NASSCOM and Dalian can turn out to be a big help for Indian technology startups, given the tremendous boom in investments and innovation over the last decade.