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Executive Summary
For India’s large and young population, a vast majority of whom are in rural areas or belong to low-income groups, DIGITAL and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are powerful tools towards a more empowering future. These tools are probably more powerful than others conceivable today, to quickly transform India and its peoples’ lives. Harvesting these tools would ensure a future very different from the recent past, with a promise of restoring India’s historical civilizational glory. It could enable its large young population to develop and utilize its capabilities to meaningfully contribute to a world which is more peaceful with itself and its surroundings. India has many a serious problems today. Water shortage is looming large. Agricultural output is low and somewhat stagnant. Housing is scarce. Sanitation is highly inadequate. Education is in pitiable state. A large percentage of population lives below poverty line. ICT promises to be a potent tool to overcome these problems.
Over the last quarter century, India has done rather well in harvesting Information and Communication Technologies. Its IT service industry is legendary. It has made a mark in the world. India is recognized at IT superpower and its industry provides all kinds of IT services to the world. Similarly Indians in USA and Europe have made a mark driving IT based transformation. Most ventures in Silicon Valley have Indians as amongst its founders. While they have generated wealth for themselves, they have left a deep impression in the minds of most in the world as intelligent and capable people. Same is the situations when one looks at the academia. There are hardly any well-known Computer Science / Electrical Engineering departments in Western Universities, where Indians migrating from India are not amongst its key faculty. But what is less well known is the role that Indians in India and abroad play today in carrying out DESIGN work for all kinds of systems. The designs are not limited to ICT domain. ICT has provided tools for collaboratively working to carry out design work for virtually any industry. Similarly ICT has provided ability to better manage pretty-much any industry. ICT and its cousin Internet have become an engine to fuel growth. Traditional industries are getting transformed. Once again, it is Indians who lead these effort world-wide.
While India and Indians have contributed significantly to the economic growth in large parts of the world leveraging ICT, less has been done within India. Even though there are sectors (for examples banking and financial sectors), where ICT rules today, there are many traditional sectors where ICT has not been sufficiently leveraged. This would be the task for India in the coming decade. India has to use ICT to make a difference to lives of its common people. Its agriculture would need transformation. It has to conserve and recycle water. Its sanitation-works should make India Clean; it is not just enough to better handle industrial wastes and clean its commercial buildings and towns but also its villages need rejuvenation. ICT has to be leveraged to provide employment to people within villages. As significant percent of its population migrate away from agriculture, it has to set a new kind of rural industry which brings in creativity of its people to the forefront. ICT has to be used to provide meaningful and quality education to its youngsters at all levels, skilling them to contribute more and more to the society. ICT has to be leveraged to bring in new kind of Governance in the nation. Its water, energy and other resources have to be managed better. There is little doubt that ICT is powerful tool towards all this and more. The challenge is to harness the tool.
While India has made itself known for its ICT and ICT based services, it has been found to be woefully deficient when it comes to building its ICT products. Hardly any important ICT product is known to be created by India. None of its ICT companies are known to have made an impact like Microsoft or Google or Apple has or even compared to Qualcomm, Ericsson, Sony, Samsung or Huawei. A country which has such large population (and therefore a large consumer of ICT products) and such large trained ICT human resources, can hardly afford to be in this situation. The interesting aspect is that Indians have contributed to (and sometimes even lead) the design of most of these powerful products. What is missing is its abilities to take products from conception to scaled market. This is one capability that India and Indians have to acquire. There are reasons to believe that India is moving in the right direction. Start-ups are now flourishing in India, academia-industry (especially with start-ups) is getting strengthened day by day, and it is only a matter of time when some of these companies would make a definitive mark.
It is in this context, this exercise towards ICT Vision-2035 had been carried out. As ICT evolves at a furious pace, any ICT Vision exercise is likely to fall too short of what is achievable. This has indeed been so in such past exercises. Yet, the vision gives some indication of the direction and pace at which one needs to move in coming years. We certainly believe that much more can be achieved in ICT domain than what is presented here.
The introductory chapter gets into the ICT evolution in the world and in India over the last twenty five years. It also outlines what is to be covered in the report. In Section 2, an insight to the basic technologies (solid state, display, photovoltaics, VLSI design, photonics, processor and computers, quantum computing, telecom, speech technologies, robotics, cloud computing, artificial Intelligence, Control Systems, security technologies and solar power) that contribute to ICT domain is provided. Section 3 examines the application areas (cyber-security, education, healthcare, banking, commerce, transport, Governance, Energy,Industry, Agriculture, disaster management, Electronics for Inclusive Society and entertainment) and details on what could be possibly done with ICT in each of these areas. Section 4 presents a survey of how young mind perceives ICT. Finally section 5 elaborates on the Recommendations in this domain for India, before concluding the Vision document.
There is a lot to do in the coming decade and in the coming 20 years. The report is just a beginning....
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