Jaya opens windows for Microsoft in TN

CHENNAI: Microsoft International’s president Jean Philippe Courtois on Tuesday called on Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa at the Secretariat and expressed his company’s wish to extend core progammes, including setting up of cloud computing centres in the State. Courtois also discussed about further investments in the fields of education, e-governance, etc.During the meeting with the Chief Minister, Courtois informed that Microsoft was desirous of extending their core programmes, such as faculty empowerment for non-IT faculty at higher education level, peer coaching progra­mme for select teachers to serve as peer coaches for their colleagues, nurturing innovation and entrepreneurship among students in higher education /IT departments and nurturing software start-ups and establishment of Cloud Computing Centres.Jayalalithaa promised all help in collabroation with Microsoft for the training programmes and in establishing the Cloud Computing Centres, an official release issued here said.He also  commended the steps taken by Jayalalithaa in the field of education and recalled the Memorandum of Understanding entered with Microsoft by TN government in November 2005, which was aimed at accelerating IT literacy among government school teachers and students in the State.Baskar Pramanick, chairman, Microsoft India, Ranbir Singh and Pratik Mehta, its directors, and Alan, business manager, chief secretary Debendra­nath Sarangi, Higher Education secretary TS Sridhar, School Education secretary D Sabitha and IT secretary SK Prabhakar were present.