Technology Monitor

Commenting on the occasion, Koji Oda, Managing Director, NEC India said, "The public safety market in India has huge potential and the setting up of this Biometric centre, is indicative of our commitment to the India market. We foresee greater adoption of biometric solutions in India, particularly in civic amenities and various social schemes."

In February 2010, NEC Corporation announced its mid-term growth plan that targets an increase in the company's public safety business to 100 billion yen through capitalizing on group-wide resources. The establishment of N-BEC is regarded as one of the first key steps towards realizing this goal.

"The setup of this NEC Biometrics Excellence Center is to showcase NEC's capabilities in the biometrics field, and by capitalizing on all our resources and engineering, geographic and technological expertise in this area, we will be able to strengthen our core competencies and bring our biometrics technologies to greater heights," commented Takaya Kobayashi, General Manager, Government and Public Global Solutions Division, NEC Corporation.

The centre initially employs around 50 people and will ramp-up its operations to meet the market demands in future. NEC will capitalize on its central competencies in engineering, geographic and technological expertise to drive the development of N-BEC.

"We are well positioned to target this segment because of our long standing leadership in biometrics and our experience in showcasing our capabilities in this field. Karnataka state in India has been using indigenously developed NEC's biometrics enforcement system since 2003, and this is one of the most accurate forensic system in the market till date," said Kris Ranganath, Chief Technical Officer, Government and Public Global Solutions Division, NEC Corporation.

"Hence the setup of this NEC Biometrics Excellence Center enables us to play an important role in reforming identity lifecycle and bringing about reforms at every level from education, land records, hospitals to being a part of social schemes rolled out by the Government," added Ranganath.

As one of the key engineering competency center, N-BEC will support NEC's engineering operations worldwide and enable the company to quickly respond to wide variety of customer requirements – from proposal drafts and specifications, to product development, customization, deployment, and support engineering. The N-BEC that will be managed by NEC India will also develop and deploy solutions for India market and play a leading role in expanding NEC public safety market in India.