Success stories in Software changed perceptions of India across the globe ,among the governments, institutions, media and business , but ordinary man’s perception of a nation are still influenced more by branded products, physically visible and used by him. As on now, there are too few products with `made in India’ label, exciting the buyers in the tough and competitive global market. Many experts feel that in the era of consumerism ,only branded consumer products can change the perceptions of India for better. Will Simputer, the most talked about Indian innovation will be the first big ticket event?

The Simputer is positioned as Mobile computing and Info communication platform. It is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, a shared devices that permit truly simple and natural user interfaces based on sight, touch and audio.The Simputer meets these demands through a browser for the Information Markup Language (IML). The projected cost of the Simputer is about Rs 9000 at large volumes. The Smart Card feature that the Simputer provides enables the Simputer to be shared by a community. A local community such as the village panchayat, the village school, a kiosk, a village postman, or even a shopkeeper should be able to loan the device to individuals for some length of time and then pass it on to others in the community. The Simputer, through its Smart Card feature allows for personal information management at the individual level for an unlimited number of users.

The Simputer Trust is the coming together of academics and technologists from industry with a broad imperative of harnessing the potential of the Simputer for the benefit of all sections of society. The vision of this non-profit trust is to promote the Simputer, not as an end product but as an evolving platform for social change. The Trust comprises a unique combination of individuals with a diverse skills from Computer Science and Automation at the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) and from Encore Software Ltd (Bangalore). The Trustees are Vijay Chandru (IISc), Vinay Deshpande (Managing Trustee, Encore), Shashank Garg (Encore), Ramesh Hariharan (IISc), Swami Manohar (IISc), Mark Mathias (Encore), and V Vinay (IISc). Rahul Matthan (Trilegal) is the legal counsel for the Simputer Trust and has played a key role in definining the Simputer General Purpose License.