CDoT completes 25 years in the month of August 2009. Set up as a response to a Government tender for a factory with an annual production capacity of half a million lines of telephone exchanges, it developed technology for a family of switches, more than 52 million of lines which were delivered to the Department of Telecommunications alone. Much less known is the very crucial role played by TIFR in this project that gave a boost to the local electronics industry and helped create more than 100 entrepreneurs around the world.

In this talk Dr. Pitke will attempt to describe the strategy that helped CDOT to deal with several impediments and roadblocks that were natural in an atmosphere that was, and still continues to be, not very helpful to indigenous development.

About the speaker:

Prof. M.V.Pitke's career at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research includes several contributions to the development of computer electronics and communications technology for over 35 years. He pioneered the development of a switching system for mobile networks (1975-80) that was forerunner to the current ad-hoc networks. As Founder Director of the Center for Development of Telematics - CDoT (1984) he guided the development of technology for central office switching systems in the late 80s. He directed the development of a large parallel processor using a unique SAMD architecture for weather research.

He is an Adjunct Professor at the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Bangalore, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers.

Dr. Pitke is currently engaged in designing systems for new all IP mobile networks.