BRIDGITAL NATION: SOLVING TECHNOLOGY’S
PEOPLE PROBLEM – By N. Chandrasekaran and Roopa Purushothaman
The authors of this book are as
illustrious as they come. While Mr. N. Chandrasekaran is the Chairman of the
Board, Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd., Ms Roopa Purushothaman is Chief Economist and Head
of Policy Advocacy at the Tata Group.
Its theme is India @ 2030 and the
probable situation is best described as follows: India is among the top three
economies of the world. All Indians use advanced technology to do their work,
or to get their job done. All Indians have access to quality jobs, better
healthcare and skill-based education. Technology and human beings co-exist in a
mutually-beneficial ecosystem.
This reality is possible. It is within
reach. With Bridgital.
The book provides an interesting
perspective on what might be an effective means of tapping India’s vast
underutilised human resource base. It advocates three transformational
requirements, Technology, Talent and Vision as important
foundations to help solve people’s problems with major technological
transformation.
It is also an attempt to understand how
technology could help India navigate this crucial transition period. It is
apparent that there are two primary challenges that need urgent attention: Jobs
and access to vital services. Whether in education, healthcare, the
judiciary or any other field, the problems remain the same – both resources and
skilled people are scarce. And this is what holds India back from reaching its
full potential. The authors say these issues can be labelled India’s Twin
Challenges: Jobs and Access.
JOBS
India has a massive jobs challenge on
its hands. It is expected that 90 million people will come of working age
between 2020 and 2030. In other words, the number of Indians reaching working
age will be four times that of the US, Brazil and Indonesia combined. India’s
particular challenge is the existing levels of skill and education. For
example, only one in around 50 workers has any kind of formal vocational
training.
ACCESS
But jobs are only one half of the
problem. The other is a critical shortage of access to vital services. We may
not know it by name, but we are living witnesses to the access challenge – the
overcrowded classrooms and doctors’ waiting rooms; the legal cases that go on
for decades; and countless middlemen and agencies that help make sense of it
all.
The access challenge puts services such
as quality healthcare and education out of the reach of millions, a situation
that has arisen in large part because there aren’t enough qualified people.
Addressing this challenge will bear
fruit almost immediately. It will mean shorter wait times. It will mean faster
justice. It will mean better quality healthcare and education. It will make
people feel less like a crowd, more like they matter. It will improve the
quality of life.
According to the authors, the twin
challenges can be addressed with the help of two strategies to be
complemented with a Bridgital approach:
(1) Bringing women to the workforce
(the ‘XX’ factor)
The authors observe that in India a
woman’s path from education to work is often permanently interrupted – by
marriage, family wishes, children, societal pressures. According to the data,
nearly 120 million women in India have at least a secondary education but do
not participate in the workforce.
Women will form an important part of
the pool of Bridgital workers. What will it take to bring them to work?
Smart policies focused on childcare provision and parental leave, and promoting
attitudinal shifts in society around working women are good places to begin.
The last decade of experience and research has brought this opportunity to the
fore. India now needs to shift gears and understand better how to make paid
work available to and worthwhile for women. With a more balanced educational
profile, the country can address a key part of the skills gap it faces. For
this to happen, the access barriers to women’s employment need a serious
overhaul.
(2) Entrepreneurs everywhere:
Preparing the ground for thriving entrepreneurship throughout the country
Capturing India’s entrepreneurial
spirit means a transformation of vision away from the culture of
micro-management. The fact is that the country must embrace SME growth. Growth
will come not from pushing hard, but from removing the obstacles that confront
SMEs.
A certain level of judicious
risk-taking accompanies this growth mindset. SMEs require supervision, not
suspicion. Smart risk management doesn’t force more control, more rules and
more policies, but improves oversight of existing rules while simplifying them.
Entrepreneurship can flourish
everywhere through the development of Bridgital clusters that integrate
and extend a range of digital business services to which many SMEs lack access.
Bridgital clusters, coupled with greater use of digital governance to
transform the relationship between SMEs and the bureaucracy can positively
channel the entrepreneurial spirit inherent throughout the nation.
‘BRIDGITAL’
NATION
India needs a new approach that views Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and automation as a human aid, not a replacement for human
intervention. If this is done, automation in India will look nothing like
it does anywhere else and it is this approach that is called ‘Bridgital’.
By turning a challenge into an opportunity, by seeing India’s access
challenge as the engine of employment generation, it builds a
technology-based bridge between the dual parts of the Indian economy.
The authors very aptly suggest that
technology alone isn’t the answer; it has to be configured and adapted to the
demands of the situation. Bridgital works best when roles and services
are deconstructed and re-imagined and when the delivery of the tasks they
contain is redesigned.
In the Bridgital world,
technology does not disrupt an existing market as much as it creates an
entirely new one. When services are re-imagined through twenty first century
technological advances, an additional layer of workers emerges who can
intermediate both technology and existing resources for larger numbers of
people.
The authors again and again reiterate
that the future will be one of humans and technology working together. It’s
this future India will have to anticipate, design and prepare for, keeping its
young workforce, limited infrastructure and linguistic and cultural differences
in mind.
Bridgital provides the unprecedented ‘bridge’
between jobs and access, while the ‘XX’ factor and ‘Everywhere
Entrepreneurship’ bolster both sides of the scale, thus multiplying the impact
on jobs and access. India needs to solve the twin challenges for hundreds of
millions, but the beauty of a technology-driven approach is that scale can take
hold.
Bridgital will provide new opportunities to meet
the needs of small and medium businesses.
ROLE OF
EDUCATION
A combination of education and exposure
can improve awareness and acceptance of entrepreneurship as a viable career
path. The goal of entrepreneurship education isn’t simply to make it more
appealing, but to change the way the students think. The right curriculum can
improve non-academic skills such as creativity, persistence and teamwork and
can encourage comfort with risk-taking. These skills are crucial to success in
a future of work that is likely to be deeply entrepreneurial in spirit.
Entrepreneurship education is different
from core school subjects which are traditionally teacher-led and tested with
exams. With entrepreneurship education, the focus is not as much on learning
concepts as it is about building skills such as the ability to collaborate and
communicate. These skills cannot be taught and tested like core subjects but
can be developed through a learning-by-doing approach.
DATA PRIVACY
The authors recognise that data
privacy, the foundation of any Bridgital approach, is a necessity.
India is in the process of recognising individuals’ rights over their personal
data. As it does so, it needs to ensure that data can be accessed only by
people who are authorised to do so, but without stifling researchers who need
it. At the same time, India requires an authority that can provide redress for
unauthorised access to data.
To summarise, this book is a perfect
combination of an expert in technology sitting with an economist to write
digital solutions to India’s economic problems.
One felt, while
hearing the 2020 Budget speech of the Finance Minister, that she was deeply
impressed by the book, especially the boost to the concept of ‘entrepreneurs
everywhere’.
The book has narrated real-life
situations (with names changed) to show how digital solutions have successfully
tackled several challenges, such as the transformations at AIIMS and Kolar
which prove that the principles that underpin Bridgital can be applied
anywhere and by anyone, whether in the fields of agriculture, logistics, judiciary,
education or financial services.
Finally, let’s recall the Prime Minister’s statement while releasing the
book: ‘Technology is the bridge between aspiration and achievement. When
technology becomes a bridge, it leads to transparency and targeted delivery’.
