KACHARAGADLA

C isco Systems designs, makes, and sells the routers, switches, and other networking equipment with which businesses connect their computers, manage data centers, and access the Internet. Since its founding in 1983 as a maker of multiprotocol routers, it has survived every market change through aggressive acquisition, sometimes of competing technologies. John Chambers, who led much of Cisco’s growth, retired as CEO in 2015, after 20 years, but continues to serve as executive chairman. Jason Pontin,  MIT Technology Review’ s editor in chief, spoke to Chambers in India, where he was conferring with Narendra Modi about the prime minister’s campaign to bring Internet access and services to the country’s vast population. What are the challenges in giving online access to nearly everyone in the world? The number one objective is that people who make the investment in digitization, whether they are governments or service providers, get a reasonable return. Some programs have not mov