Predicting the future of technology

It is always challenging and fascinating to predict the future. As part of the study with Prof L Prasad, IIM Bangalore on reskilling due to ‘digital transformation’, I had the pleasure of meeting Emeritus Professor V Rajaraman, IISc. Prof Rajaraman is a doyen of computing in India and is an encyclopedia on this topic. He had setup the first formal computer science program in IIT Kanpur in the ‘60s, authored several books, taught and had been a part of several technological, policy level, educational milestones in the country.

Among the many questions we were eager to ask him, one was the history of computing in India and key milestones. The moment we brought up the question – voila! The Prof walked upto his collection of books and showed us the IEEE publication he had done titled “History of Computing in India (1955 – 2010)”. This report is publicly available. He had already published a detailed 100 page report on this topic!

I have taken the freedom of using the key milestones Prof Rajaraman had highlighted in his report to predict the twists and turns in India. These are some time periods and milestones I have picked up from the Professor’s report.

·        1955 – 70 – Exploration period with no specific government policies but educational institutions setup

·        1966 – M. Tech program in computers in Electrical Engineering Department started at IIT Kanpur

·        1970 – Department of Electronics and Electronics Commission setup by government as the policy making body for computing

·        1970 – 80 – focus on indigenous development of computers, setup of Electronics Corporation (ECIL)

·        1980s – IBM shutting shop, opening up of computer making to private sector, fall in price of computers, first computerized railway reservation system

·        1982 – Asian Games held in Delhi. Rajiv Gandhi decides to computerize the event

·        1990s – opening up of economy, setup of industry body for IT NASSCOM, Y2K, Software Tech Parks

·        1998 – IT Task force in PM Vajpayee’s government to suggest policy changes, captive R&D centers

An attempt to “extrapolate” the above sequence of events using events reported in the media resulted in the predictions below. They are futuristic with my imagination running wild:

·        India hosting Olympics in 2024 – The International Olympic Committee agreed to PM Narendra Modi’s request to let India host the event in 2024. It became a watershed moment in technology adoption in the country. A village near Varanasi was selected as a smart city for the event and built from the scratch. Robots powered by Artificial Intelligence were given complete control of the event beyond just scheduling and management to logistics and physical movement of things inside the Olympic village. If Paris and LA will host the 2024 and 2028 Olympics, then it will have to some other event like the Commonwealth Games!!

·        Driverless highways 2025 – The automotive industry lobby convinced the Transportation Ministry to make our national highways completely driverless with electric vehicles, with road safety as the key objective. All drivers who lost their job will be given an intracity job for operating cabs and smaller vehicles. It was mere coincidence that the Supreme Court revoked the ban on liquor shops near highways, due to public outcry, on the very same day the driverless highway policy was announced!

·        Make in India for computing, 2027 – Computers as we see today – desktops, laptops, smart phones etc became history. The miniaturization of computers reached such a level that any device from an automobile to a refrigerator or a light bulb had an inbuilt nano-computer with appropriate storage, near-field connectivity and computing for its proper functioning. Electronic components had been so much commoditized that their manufacture was no longer a competitive advantage. What differentiated companies was the optimal mix of hardware, software, intelligence to exactly meet a customer need and at a price point matching the consumer demand with a healthy profit margin.

·        Department of MI in 2029 – Automation and Machine Intelligence (MI) had become so pervasive and ubiquitous that a central ministry was required to take a call on the usage of humans vs machines for any new facility or large project. The ministry convinced trade union to have one human for every indigenous robot deployed, both working together in collaboration. Earlier ministries such as Information & Broadcasting, Telecom, Skills Development and Science & Technology were consolidated into this one department as a lean drive and for better focus.

·        Zero subsidies 2030 – 2030 was an important milestone in modern India when subsidies were completely done with. All goods and services from cooking gas to kerosene, gasoline, education and basic goods for a household will be sold on market value. Aadhaar card with biometric authentication will enable a unique “Universal Basic Income” for each individual to be e-transferred each month to a bank account based on his/her skill level, city of living, economic condition, family circumstances and macro-economic factors such as inflation, price of electricity (not crude oil price) and unemployment rates. The currency to GDP had fallen to below 5% levels with the digital channels.

The above are the key milestones in the next few decades. It is left to the imagination and ingenuity of the readers to fill up the gaps. Coming back to numbers, it is difficult to forecast the growth in digital spend with a time horizon in decades. In my opinion, with a country like India with low levels of maturity in digitization and the GDP expected to conservatively grow atleast by 7.5% year-over-year, the IT spend can be double the overall growth, around 15%. But all this spend will not be under the traditional CIO or IT budget. Line of business, technology and functional leaders will also spend on digital technologies and have their own budgets.

Other trends already happening are usage of 3D Printing to make spare parts and even for new products, decoupling of revenue and head count growth in the IT industry as it becomes more productized, opening up of defense sector for private player participation for better collaboration and technology innovation and gradual replacement of Internal Combustion driven engines by battery driven cars in specific areas.

As Vivek Wadhwa mentioned recently in an article, competition today is not limited to peer companies within one’s own industry. Digital technologies are enabling new age agile competitors from industries not thought of before to disrupt. In such a cut throat competitive scenario from any industry and any corner of the country or world, it makes sense for a blue ocean type of big picture scenario analysis to think out-of-the-box and stay competitive.

Image courtesy: Crystall Ball - By Flávio Britto Calil (cria??o gráfica para o Wikipedia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Note: All points of view expressed above are my personal opinions and do not represent that of any organization.