Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, former President, addressing a gathering of 750 graduating engineers of CMR Institute of Technology in Bangalore on Thursday has said, "Interdisciplinary cooperation between various scientific fields is the way of the future."

Mr. Kalam said, "For us to achieve our goals of bridging the rural urban divide and guaranteeing water and power to everyone, we must focus on our core competencies of agriculture, education, information technology and communication, surface transport and clean power."

He added that Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA) is one such method of achieving the set goals.

He suggested, "CMR can also go ahead and create a CMRPURA supporting 50 or so villages."

Giving an insight into developments in the field of nanotechnology, Kalam said that it is the "science of the future".

Nanotechnology will replace microelectronics as the science of the future.

When nanotechnology meets information and communication technology it will lead to intelligent bioscience which has the power to make mankind disease free,” he said while relating his experiences of viewing sample models of DNA-based nano robots in South Korea which can enter a human body and provide treatment to certain sections of the body before being digested.

He also said, "A research environment is very essential for good teaching.

We must bring down the ‘iron curtain’ between various technological groups."