V K Mathews,founder and executive chairman of the IBS Group and a key member of the Kerala Government’s High Power IT Committee (HPIC), spoke to Express on the new IT wave and how the state is best poised to ride this fourth revolution. Excerpts
Q: There is a fear new disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and 3D printing will take away a lot of jobs. What’s your take?
A: If we look at various sectors such as flight transportation,financial services, or any other business where trust is involved, a substantial effort is now spent on maintaining trust across people and entities. It is reckoned over 50 per cent of the world’s firms are involved in the proper maintenance of the records of people -- their ownership titles, rights, obligations, responsibilities. The job of all the audit firms, registries, registrar offices, law firms, law enforcement agencies, police etc. are to maintain the people’s ownership and their title deeds.
Q: Can you elaborate a bit more?
A: New technologies such as 3D Printing, autonomous vehicles, mobile banking, artificial intelligence and machine learning will replace a lot of people doing work which is very predictable, routine and repetitive. We are talking about a large number of jobs getting displaced. What does this ultimately mean? It means that some of the jobs that we have today will go. For example, the stenographer, the typist, the lift operator. All these kinds of jobs will not be there. In the final playout, there will be a significant change in the future of jobs. So, we will find a lot of demand for data and cybersecurity. Millions of new jobs will come in this area. When we become increasingly dependent on digital technology and data for our day-to-day life, we have to ensure it is safe and protected. Otherwise, future wars will be fought not by machines; it will be digital wars, cyber wars.
Q: So, how will we deal with it and take advantage from the new development?
A: Many politicians don’t know what a digital society means. So, we need to tread carefully and go gradually. We have to first create a blueprint for the future digital society. We can now learn better through e-education with the help of audio-visual systems than how we learn by sitting in a classroom. In a nutshell, instead of a healthcare policy what we need is a digital healthcare policy. Similarly, we require a digital education policy. And for this, politicians have to be sensitised to this scenario so that they don’t oppose this. If politicians oppose this, we will go back in time.
Q: What are the kinds of skills that people need to keep up with the new technologies?
A: Going forward, it is very clear that there are three-four kinds of skills that we need to develop. We need more people who can work with data and produce meaningful information which can be used for decision-making. People should have more user-interface development capabilities, on how to interact with machines. Then, we need to have a lot of people on information and data security, and plenty of people working to bring everything into your mobile. The world is going to consume more and more services through their mobile devices.
Q: Kerala missed out on the first wave of IT revolution. Is the state ready for a change, and embrace the new wave?
A: We missed out on the first IT boom because of our initial aversion to computers, and we thought it would take away our jobs and lead to poverty. Nobody can come to Kerala and exploit our workers as we are more aware of our rights. This is the reason why the state has far superior human development indices than other parts of the country. At the expense of probable industrial growth, we created a social set up which is more legitimate. That’s what is needed to ride this ‘fourth revolution’. We have a digitally consumption-ready people, which is the biggest factor that will help Kerala ride the second wave of the IT boom. We (IT sector) cannot take advantage of the new wave of IT revolution, say in Bihar, Orissa or in Bengal, but Kerala can take full advantage of it. Kerala has a huge opportunity for sure.
Q: But are our politicians and people ready to accept this fact?
A: To capture this new wave, we need to sensitise people about it. We have to make people understand what’s going on. The #Future summit is a platform where the who’s who of the industry - not just IT but various verticals - are coming and discussing on what will be the future of travel, healthcare, education, retail, banking. This is to energise, motivate people towards a knowledge-driven digital future. This is expected to remain a biennial event, where all the stakeholders will discuss the benefits. We are also creating a network of digital achievers of Kerala outside the country, and use the network to further the state’s digital ambitions.