Events & Issues

New Delhi, 3 February 2009

Innovation In  IT Sector

Bring down digital divide

By Dhurjati Miukherjee

India recently launched the world’s first nation-wide information highway interlinking top educational institutions and research laboratories. Proposed by the National Knowledge Commission, the National Knowledge Network (NKN) is comparable in size with only that of the California Institute of Technology. Though the seven IITs, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the laboratories of the Centre for Scientific & Industrial Research have been connected through the NKN, the plan is to eventually link over 10,000 higher educational institutions within two years.

It may be mentioned here that the NKN allows around 2500,000,000 bits of information flow per second – 2.5 gigabits per second. Thus bandwidth is nearly a million times higher than the Garuda, the most advanced information highway available in the country at present, which links the scientific research organizations.

The growing need of information technologies have created value and are steadily making an impact on society. The persistent demand of today’s knowledge society is incremental innovation which is vital for progress. History has umpteen examples of both individuals and corporations that managed to scale great heights because they dared to be different, they dared to innovate.

Innovation is the key in today’s world as it drives integration through a number of drivers like improved infrastructure, emergence of new technologies, emergence of needs of workforce and increased awareness among consumers which push the demand for integration. After the advent of information and communication technology (ICT), the search and transaction costs to integrate with different business stakeholders were too high but this has changed with innovative technologies. One cannot deny that innovation and integration has helped everyone, ranging from the common man to businesses to governments to the bottom of the pyramid, though in varying degrees and may not be to the desired extent.

Among Third World countries, India has been moving quite fast in the realm of information technologies. Apart from rapid strides in ICT and even in the KPO (knowledge process outsourcing), the government formulated the National E-Governance Plan (NeGP) with a view of providing all services in an integrated manner at the doorsteps of the citizens at an affordable price. Though the 3-pillar “web-enabled anytime, anywhere access” of SWAN (State Wide Area Network), State Data Centres, and CSCs (Common Service Centres) have not been operational and effective as yet, it is expected that these would eventually promote rural entrepreneurship, build rural capacities and livelihoods, enable community participation and collective action for socio-economic change.   

In his address to Nyenrode Business University last year, former President, Dr. A. P. J. Kalam, proposed the creation of a World Knowledge Forum to produce world-class products by leveraging core competencies of partner countries. The aforesaid platform would enable joint design, development cost-effective production and marketing of products in various domains. Some of the missions, envisaged by Dr. Kalam, are: Energy exploration, storage, production and conversion, focusing towards energy independence; water treatment and desalination; healthcare diagnosis and drug delivery systems; knowledge products for various sectors; and media and entertainment.

How much of this technology has India been able to adopt to change the lives of the physically challenges, geographically and the digitally challenged population of the country is a debate in various forums. What emerges is what needs to be done. For one, mere computerization of existing processes cannot be considered innovation as the latter has to be related with technological change benefiting the masses as also business organizations. In reference to e-governance, the increased needs and demands of citizens have to be addressed through technological innovation. However, in reality not much progress has been achieved. There is need to thus find out whether any impact study or social audit has been carried out to find the use of Rs 88,000 crores of subsidies which are given yearly to panchayats and whether better methods of their utilization could be evolved.

On the issue of emerging technologies in web-based networking platforms, the use in sectors like medical and health care, transport and the need for personalized systems for giving more facilities to the customer should be the preference.  Besides, emphasis on ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions across organizations for reducing time and cost, bringing synergies, supporting acquisitions/mergers as well as facilitating organic growth, improving enterprise agility and financial consolidation should be under serious consideration.  There is a need for IT in the coming years to foresee and solve business problems with the help of innovative technologies for long-term growth. 

The necessity of green IT too is a concern. Companies of all sizes need to take action on energy, environment and sustainability. Moreover, there should be an eco approach for future data centre designs. Apparently, there appears to be unanimity towards the need for adopting to change through innovation of products and services as dictated in the realm of businesses by new developments. The use of bringing down requirements of power, usage of environment-friendly and sustainable IT models, cloud computing and integrated information-centric approach of organizations are thus sure to emerge in the coming years. 

The subject of mobile telephones offering more and more applications for the benefit of the people is another important aspect. Mobile internet devices (MIDs) must be superior in their offerings available in smart phones and notebooks. These should provide information on agriculture and related activities and warnings on natural disaster. Even new technologies in mobile phones can bring the cost down by using femto cells.

But the success of ICT would depend on its impact on the masses and the faster this could be accomplished, it would be beneficial for the country. Apart from this, increasing broadband penetration and expanding the huge telecom infrastructure would be imperative at this juncture for benefiting the masses and expanding effecting linkages and connectivity. With innovation, India could play a bigger role in delivering multiple facilities in rural areas at a lower cost using technological advances so as to integrate the masses and make the country economically prosperous and bring down the digital divide.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)