Leaders must open their countries to technology

One leader who has shown he understands the importance of technology and the responsibility of governments to open their countries to it is Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India.

Since taking office, Modi has embarked on modernizing India’s institutions and its infrastructure, slashing red tape and attracting billions of dollars of investment. His recent visit to Silicon Valley effectively crowns India as the world’s most appealing destination for tech companies, over China. The main reasons? The demographic dividend, a consolidated democracy, a strong internal market, and of course, a government with a commitment to deregulation.

Modi is a prime minister willing to meet with tech company bosses, talking to them in their language, which doesn’t just mean English, although that too is important. But Modi’s approach is about creating new value proposals, as well as becoming an ally who understands what technology companies can do for his country, rather than putting himself forward as their enemy, and a man committed to defending outdated lobbies and trying to block progress at every turn.

This is a leader who understands India’s own role in driving change in Silicon Valley, and who has met with the Indian community in the US tech sector to tell them the time has come for that country to give something back to India in return for all it has done. He knows that an immense market with more than 250 million internet users not only has a lot to offer, but much to gain from the expansion and popularity of technology, both in terms of production and creating value.

Aged 65 and with no background in technology, Modi is an example of somebody who knows the value of investing in progress and of connecting with the wider population. His term in office has been characterized by the use of the social networks and the internet, making him the second-most popular world leader on Twitter, with more than 15 million followers, as well as the first leader to talk directly to his electorate, using Google hangouts back in 2012. Now Modi has managed to win the confidence of many of the leading lights of Silicon Valley, genuinely connecting with business leaders there, and who has managed to convince Google to provide free WiFi in more than 400 train stations throughout the country.

After a year in office, Modi’s popularity rating is still 87 percent, with 68 percent of voters giving him a highly favorable rating, and an impressive 93 percent approving his administration. His decision to embrace technology may not have been the only factor in keeping him so popular, but it will certainly have played a big role.

And then there is Spain, Europe’s fourth-largest economy, the 20th in the world: a very different place to India in many ways. Spain’s per capita income is much higher than India’s, it has more infrastructure, greater literacy, etc. Which is what makes the comparison between Modi and the technologically illiterate and monolingual prime minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, all the more painful.

By their fruits ye shall know them: Modi’s India is reinventing itself as an even more attractive place to set up a technology company, while Mariano Rajoy has made his hostility toward technology manifest in many ways: this is the country that imposed a tax on aggregated content, leading Google toend its Google News service, that tried to impose heavy-handed controls on the internet to protect US business interests, expelled Uber, is cracking down on Airbnb, and plans to make it impossible for households to generate their own solar-powered electricity.

Can anybody imagine a conversation between Mariano Rajoy and Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Jimmy Wales, Satya Nadella, or anybody from Silicon Valley, or even Spain’s tiny tech sector? Is it really so much to ask of a leader today that they are able to understand the importance of technology, and for them to engage with people from the tech world without making a complete ass of themselves?

It shouldn’t be.

(En espa?ol, aquí)