India will play a major role in driving technology forward: Sundar Pichai

San Jose: India will play a big part in driving technology forward in the future, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for accelerating India's effort to become the next global hot bed of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Driving technology forward would really improve people's lives in India and all around the world, Pichai said. "I am not just excited because I grew up in India, I am excited because I deeply care about technology and know that India will play a big part in its future," he said, adding that a lot of that is becoming possible because Modi is driving it forward. "He (Modi) has accelerated India's effort to become next global hot bed of innovation and entrepreneurship," Pichai told a gathering of top Silicon Valley CEOs at a dinner hosted in honour of the Prime Minister, who is on a two-day visit to the city of San Jose.

More importantly, Modi understands that technology is an enabler to drive change at a massive scale, the kind of scale that India needs, he added. The 43-year-old IIT alumnus said it is not just being on line, it is about what you get online. "People are educating themselves, connecting with loved ones and creating and sharing videos. For example on You Tube, there are many home makers in India who make a living by posting videos on line," he said. Pichai who was in India last year, praised the presence of what he described as "hungry" entrepreneurs, the same kind one would like in the Silicon Valley.

"The presence of that, motivation and Indians coming online at an unprecedented scale, was very clear to me that this is a once in a life time opportunity," he said, adding that there is evidence of this all around. There are more than 3,000 startups in India. "By many matrices, India is the fastest growing startups in the world. Companies like Flipkart, Hike, Zomato, Snapdeal these are all evidence of these are happening all around us.