Can India give birth to technological revolutions such as Google, twitter or facebook etc?
YES absolutely, India can. But the question is why it didn’t happen and what is stopping India from bringing a technology evolution to the world?
We have to think about this very seriously, because of adverse effects like:
- Loss of human capital: Indian technological brains are getting outsourced to western and European countries and also under utilization of other resources (natural resources like water, solar power etc).
- Inefficient Disaster Handling: India is still unable to handle any natural calamities in a very effective way mainly because of lack awareness and no appropriate communication sent in time.
- Insufficient Healthcare: Many people across the country are not receiving timely healthcare and losing their lives.
And we can list more.
Technology is directly or indirectly related with many problems India is facing and with technology we can eradicate/ subsidize some of these problems. Now the biggest question is HOW?
Following are primary bottlenecks and if we can improve the system in these areas, we can create a platform for technology innovation and there by finding solutions to many problems country is facing
• Current education system is killing creativity:
India’s current education system at under graduate/graduate levels is killing creativity. For example, do we have engineering studies syllabus in such a way that engineering student can improve his communication skills or any other area he/she is interested in? or Can an art student doesn’t want to know computer programming? Are we allowing students to pursue their dream and effectively use their creativity? Answer is: NO
This problem can be solved by carefully redesigning university curriculum based on the prominent universities within India and in the world.
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India’s education system at primary and secondary level is considered to be one of the best in the world. But that reputation is not getting carried forward with under graduate, graduate and post graduate studies.
From post secondary education onwards students are given an option to choose groups (streams) but within each stream, there is no choice. A very standard set of subjects (theory and lab) are given, and students have to compete in that subjects to be on the top line. The syllabus updates are not in par with current technology out in the world.
There is no option for students to choose subjects of their interest in undergraduate and graduate levels. There are streams like engineering, arts etc. But in each stream there are no wide varieties of options. Students have been given set of 6-8 subjects per year/semester and they have to study only those subjects. There is no option for students to see practical use of their theory in terms of projects or labs. There will be standard name sake lab subjects and projects are done only towards the end of the course.
In some programs (such as Engineering, MCA etc) they are given an option of electives to chose from, towards the end of the course. But again, in most of the places institutes decide which electives are to be taught based on the no of students enrolled or based on the instructor available. And there will be only one hands-on project work that student need to do (just to complete the course) during the last semester/year. Why students need to do a project only in his final semester/year, and as most of the time these final semester projects are sold in the market. There will be some students would like to see the working model of the theory as they study and some students would also like to have hands on experience on what they are learning. But where can they see that? How can they learn that? Even if they try to do on their own, they will not be able to do because they will have to compete for the subjects in the standard curriculum.
Why not we encourage student’s creativity instead of stigmatizing it? Why not we let students’ breath, without burdening with heavy weight of the books/ subjects? We need to make modifications to our existing education system by looking at successful universities to support creativity and innovation. There is a very urgent need to modify (at least) the undergraduate and graduate system to make sure that we create world class creative technocrats.
• Lack of Support for research & entrepreneurship
Did you ever try to do some research in India at university or in industry segment? And/or, If you are an ordinary citizen with minimal or no financial, political background how easy it is for you to pursue your entrepreneurship dreams?
Answer we mostly hear is, it is very difficult and sometimes it is almost impossible. The reason for this is: lack of moral and financial support from public and private sector, due to which young aspirers’ lose their enthusiasm or end up with their own ventures in foreign countries.
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How much research is getting carried out in India? Be it university segment or industry segment, the research has been at far low level when compare to other countries. There are numerous Indian students who have been successful in pursuing their research in foreign countries like US or UK. But within India research is not given prominence.
What is the reason for less research in India? I think it is mainly because of lack of awareness and support from Public and private sector financially and morally. There is no recognition and support for people to start or continue research in India; because of which so many scientists are migrating to foreign countries. Universities like MIT, Stanford excel in the research programs because they encourage research and provide appropriate modes of support and public and private sectors fund these universities to carry on the research there by making these universities as top institutions in the world there by becoming top contributors to the nation .
Even with entrepreneurship it is the same problem. There are so many young entrepreneurs in India who still are not recognized by Indian public and private sector but they are recognized foreign media and governments. For example business week published top 25 young entrepreneurs in Asia and out of which most of them are Indians. Most people in India don’t know these young gems. As a result most of the people are ending up starting their ventures in or for foreign countries. Ultimately this is a big loss for India in many aspects.
It is true that there are established entrepreneurs in India, but the question is how easy it is for a young aspirer to start some venture on his own? How much support would he/she be getting? Even though Indian government announced many discounts and facilities to self employment and small scale industry entrepreneurship, realization has never been easy. To start a business, you have to face so many hurdles from local public/private agencies that you may end up losing interest and not implementing your own idea at all and there by selling it to someone else.
How can we solve this? The first and foremost task is to make sure that research and entrepreneurship gets adequate support from public and private sectors. Government and venture capitalists needs to come forward in India and support young aspirers. The next topic also focuses on this.
• No Platform to showcase innovations and successes.
Other than at school level, how many times/places we have seen a technical expo has been organized. How many organizations are encouraging venues to support someone’s idea or talent? There are very few occasions’ universities/industries/government hosted events to support somebody’s new research or innovation.
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We should set up a platform to start encouraging innovation and make government and private organizations recognize these innovations and people behind it. Indian government, individuals, industries should support these kind of events.
A small innovation can bring massive change in technology, life or a nation. As an example, projects that are done at university level such as Google, face book have changed the way we find information and network with people.
• Lack of quality monitoring and control.
This is the most critical aspect which is impacting India’s development. Consider some examples, How many engineering institutions are producing effective technocrats? How good the Indian government websites performance is, compare to the state government’s websites in US. Don’t we have the technology and manpower to make things work better? Why is the work not getting done in the way it is suppose to be? I think, it’s because of lack of quality monitoring and control.
From past 10 years India’s central government and state governments are taking many initiatives towards the development of the country and to help people. But implementation has never been easy. Every work needs to be monitored for quality and needs to be reported and bring back on to the track whenever there is a deviation.
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Consider example of engineering colleges. There are hundreds of engineering colleges in each state of India. But how many of them are performing well? If it is not performing well, how can we make sure that it maintains quality? Each student is paying for his education in the college but he is not getting what he needs to get. How can we solve this? Not only engineering colleges, everywhere else, how can we achieve quality? .
Traditional quality control methods haven’t been successful to control the quality in India. But I am sure technology and internet can help us. Using blogs, websites, and forums to post problems and make sure that they are exposed to everyone so much so that it reaches to the concerned authorities. This works fine for people who has access to computers and has knowledge about computers. .
“To what extent we can use internet when there is lot computer illiteracy? Or how can people of a remote village report problems?” is the biggest question comes to our mind when we think of computer illiterates. Again technology can be our friend. Taking help of touch screen kiosks everywhere will solve the problem to greater extent. Now we have reached a point where there are ATM’s in most of the towns in India. We can deploy ‘Reporting kiosks’ right next to every ATM, or in a post office, in banks every where possible. If we are able to do it, we can have a system to monitor quality in hospitals, government offices and in every possible place. .
Another major resource to control quality is “Collaboration of Media and technology”. In developing countries like India, media can play a very significant role in quality control. Combining media with technology can produce amazing results.
It is very good news that India is making considerable progress in using technology for development and quality control. One such example is “Unique identification numbering system” and another example is online complaint lodging system through the websites.
We may not solve every problem with the help of technology but we can definitely find solutions to the problem using technology. Imagine the incredible human potential India can have even if at least 1% of more than 1 billion of Indian population gets proper technical education. This 1% can positively influence in bringing change in the lives of all Indian citizens.
Together, we all can make India better place to live.
