What India’s Technologists Should Train Their Sights On

India is at an awesome turning point in history. Projections show that the global population will reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022, just a few weeks from now. A few months later, India's population is projected to surpass that of China, says the UN's World Population Prospects 2022. India will become the world's most populous country in 2023. 

That places a proportionately larger responsibility on us to lead with solutions to some of the biggest problems: climate change, the hunger crisis, water scarcity, unemployment, terrorism, gender inequality, affordable health services, literacy gaps, and reducing war. IT will play a role in the solutions to each of these herculean challenges. 

This raises the question: what role must technologists in the country play in the immediate future? It is a question worth pondering, especially as we enter our 75th year of Independence. As a mature, rapidly advancing nation with the largest demographic dividend that any country can hope to tap into, every one of our technologists should be concerned about this question.

Two decades ago, Professor CK Prahalad, one of the leading management thinkers of our time, spoke about the Indian concept of jugaad, innovation's Holy Grail. Over the years, jugaad's philosophy of frugal and flexible approaches to problem-solving formed the basis of many advances in developing nations. 

South India's Aravind Eye Hospital is a classic textbook example. About a decade ago, the hospital became a flag bearer for jugaad-combined-with-technology. The hospital performed a near-miracle: Its doctors used unthinkable (in the medical industry) process management, capacity utilization, and technology to limit the cost of cataract surgery and lenses to USD 41.82 (USD 125.02 depending on the choice of lenses). 

This was in striking contrast to the cost (at the time) of between USD 2653 and USD 3392 for the same procedure in the US. 

 In 2013, the hospital worked with Google to develop Machine Learning-driven Artificial Intelligence for the early detection of glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration and cataract. The resulting tool, a portable device called 3Netra, can detect the conditions with 98.6 per cent accuracy, on par with highly trained ophthalmologists and retinal specialists.

The device uses Microsoft Azure IoT Suite and Azure IoT Edge to deliver analytics and intelligence to the device. As a result, minimally trained technicians—not ophthalmologists and retinal specialists who are in short supply—can take a picture of the patient's eyes and the tool detects vision impairment. 

Let's set aside the whiz-bang of technology. Instead, let's look at the size of the problem the hospital solved. In India, blindness affects 1.5 crore people. To attend to these patients, many living in remote villages, we have only 15,000 ophthalmologists (registered with the All India Ophthalmic Society). 

It is almost impossible to visualize how 15,000 specialists can attend to everyone who needs their expertise. Besides, many patients cannot afford medical costs. 

But 3Netra met the challenge of providing accurate diagnosis at scale while reducing the cost: Using 3Netra, diagnosis costs one-sixth of other devices. Imagine the difference technology has made in quickly, cheaply, and conveniently identifying visual impairment and preventing blindness. 3Netra is today available in more than 25 countries. Within the space of a decade, it has made a global impact. 

We need similar approaches to solving the hunger crisis, and who better than India to lead the way with AgriTech? As we know, arable land in India is shrinking. 

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization defines land degradation as "the temporary or permanent lowering of the productive capacity of the land." The Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India shows that 30 per cent of the land, or 97 million hectares, is degraded. To put that in perspective, 97 million hectares is about the size of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, and all their dependent areas. 

About 25% of the total global land has been degraded. The degradation affects about 3.2 billion people worldwide. If this trend continues, 95 per cent of the planet's land is forecasted to become degraded by 2050. This is why technologists in India should think about solving the problem using jugaad with a healthy dose of the latest tech. 

Why do I think India can solve such planet-scale problems? Because we have, in the last few years, created 105 unicorns (valuation: over USD 1B) and four decacorns (valuation: over $10B). An AgriTech start-up with the nerve to take on world hunger has the potential to be a decacorn. Today, India has become the third largest ecosystem for start-ups. Clearly, we have the talent, the willpower, and the momentum. 

According to the latest figures, we already have 1,495 Agritech startups. Most are in the distribution and retail space. We will almost certainly see an explosion of start-ups in agri financing, logistics, storage, uberized farm equipment, agri information, and agri trading platforms. 

What we need is a start-up that combines things like phytology, hydrology, epigenetics, hyperspectral imaging, etc., with data, ML, and AI to manage agriculture production with greater efficiency and with an eye on sustainability. 

Each one of us will have a different idea about what India's technologists should turn their attention to. For example, some may want India to become the open source software hub of the world—an idea totally worth thinking about as proprietary software is steadily being replaced by enterprise open source and community-based open source. Others may dream about India striving to establish itself as a powerhouse of sustainable ConstructionTech. 

This, too, is a reasonable thought. The construction industry is highly inefficient and needs a massive injection of technology. India is ramping up its investments in public infrastructure with things like the bullet train, a motorable road through a glacier in eastern Ladakh, and the Sagarmala project aimed at better using the wealth which is our coastline, etc. These projects may provide opportunities for start-ups to contribute cutting-edge ideas that can be adopted worldwide. 

However, solving planet-scale problems that threaten humanity's very existence capture my imagination. So, where would you want to place your bets?