Can Deeptech investments benefit the masses in India ?

Can Deeptech investments benefit the masses in India ?

The debate on increasing R&D budgets and increasing support for scientific advances is a never ending one with two arguments that appear to be both logically sound?

1. With per capita GDP under $3000 India first needs to focus on other priorities such as need for increased welfare spending on basic needs like food and housing, more spending for pricing support for agriculture and spending on core infrastructure like roads and railways. As a result only a small amount is left over for HEI and even a smaller for R&D
2. Most R&D advances that happen in the rest of the world can be learnt and reverse engineered in a much more cost efficient manner. Why spend 10x the money on many “failed” innovations when the successful ones can be mastered more easily

Also in a democratic setup spending that gets votes and wins elections is preferred over spending that does not. As a result spending on research always gets pushed out to “next time”.

?However with the rapid changes in geo-political risks, climate risks and the need to improve the Human Development indicators at a much rapid rate its high time to examine these alternative arguments.?

1. India is one of the most vulnerable countries to severe climate events. With a large population and dependence on Monsoon we can ill afford to ignore this. A California type drought of 3-4 years in a row in a hostile geopolitical climate can negate years of economic growth. Despite having the highest agriculture land in the world (higher than US or China) and every election depending on the rural/farmer vote not a single Agriculture University from India features in the Top 100 Universities globally. This needs to change now. #DeeptechforAgriculture. Massive investments in Agri biotech are needed to ensure that we are able to develop drought resistant seeds and other advances to tide over the impending severe weather events?
2. Enrollment in Higher Education has a wide disparity between states. This is measured by the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER). GER for states like Tamil Nadu is closer to 50% while for Bihar it's an abysmal 17%. Which means that 83% of the youth in Bihar have no other option but to do jobs that require minimal/no education. AI in early Education with a clear focus to improve GER in these states can result in massive upskilling and only then does a young population result in a demographic dividend. Without higher GER a younger population is just masses of unemployed youth. For all those who lament on “brain drain” this should be an eyeopener. Only about 3 million Indians stay in the US (0.2% of the population) . That's hardly anything. However improving GER in Bihar alone to the level of Tamil Nadu will add another 15+ million(estimate) of educated youth to the workforce. That is 5x of all the Indians in the US. Organically improving education will take too long. Enter AI led Deeptech and investing big in that. #DeeptechforEducation
3. The pandemic presented a unique opportunity to massively increase spending for healthcare for rural India. However post pandemic the spend is back to less than 2% of GDP. Here again the doctor/patient ratio in rural India, overall healthcare facilities may take a long time to organically catch up. Rural healthtech presents a unique opportunity to rapidly invest and implement the latest advances in Telemedicine, AI assisted Healthcare, Remote Robotic surgeries. A Nasscom Health-tech community has over 500 of the best medical and tech experts in India that are pioneering solutions to these issues. #DeeptechforHealthcare can help leapfrog the years of underinvestment in this sector by having more technology led solutions.?

Elections are won or lost in India by those who are impacted by Agriculture/Rural Distress, Unemployment. Lack of healthcare and especially female healthcare contributes to lower human development of the entire family. Investments in Deeptech are no longer a luxury of the rich nations but a national imperative. Unless taken up with priority in the upcoming budget with substantial allocation of long term Patient Capital with a goal to improve this in a sustainable way .. the path to #ViksitBharat may only improve GDP but at the expense of leaving many behind. We don’t want to be the largest economy but a more equitable economy. Patient Capital investments in Deeptech with focus on improving quality of life for all Indians is the true path to “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”.?

A few of us have been volunteering to discuss, debate and propose policy and non-policy measures that call for more Patient Capital for Deeptech. We will be sharing more of these in the upcoming days. The time for investment is now. Please join the movement !!!?

Atul Batra Sandhya Vasudevan Juby Jose Anupam Saronwala Aditya Malik ? Vidya Sridharan Dr. Sarma M V K

#PatientCapitalForViksitBharat #DeeptechforAgriculture #DeeptechforEducation #DeeptechforHealthcare