President Kalam gets South Africa's Tobias Award

President A P J Abdul Kalam was on Thursday honoured with South Africa's prestigious Tobias Award, instituted after a renowned scientist of that country.

Addressing the award presenting ceremony via satellite, Kalam invited South Africa to participate in the creation of an Internet-based "world knowledge platform" to promote science, technology, and economic development.

The platform, based on next-generation broadband Internet connectivity, would integrate the core competencies of partner countries to build and market "knowledge products" for economic development, he said in a video address from New Delhi to the International Science Innovation and Technology Exhibition in Sandton, South Africa, on Wednesday.

The President made his proposal to further build on the e-network that India has offered to African countries.

Kalam said the platform could act as "a launch pad for many innovations waiting to be unearthed only by the combined power of partnering nations."

Under the proposal outlined by Kalam, the platform would aim to connect universities, research and development laboratories, and industries in what he termed "a knowledge grid".

The purpose, he said, was knowledge creation, dissemination, storing, and re-use which would involve, "the co-ordinated design and delivery of complex systems in the knowledge domain."

The areas to be covered are energy, enhancing agricultural productivity, water treatment, disease diagnosis and screening, drug delivery, food preservation and storage, health, pest control, hardware and software development, automotive hardware and software embedded in devices, besides genetic and stem-cell research.