Tech us to the future

New technologies throw opportunity-driven threats and threat-driven opportunities at us, we may be well poised to help both low-tech users and high-tech job aspirants
The Drone Didi initiative can transform Indian agriculture and train a new generation of grassroots entrepreneurs.
The Drone Didi initiative can transform Indian agriculture and train a new generation of grassroots entrepreneurs.Photo | PTI
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4 min read

Pongal in Tamil Nadu is the time during which people in several other parts of India serenade the late winter winds by flying kites and celebrate the Sun’s movement northwards. But this season, we saw flights of a different kind in Tamil Nadu—of drones.

Tamil Nadu’s first batch of women trained under prime minister’s Drone Didi scheme are much in demand to help farmers spray fertilisers and pesticides. They even water fields by remotely navigating the heavy machines. So much is the promise of the scheme that a Drone Didi from Punjab has been invited to attend President Draupadi Murmu’s Republic Day party in acknowledgment of a new league of entrepreneurs.

From robotics to genomics and 3D printing to artificial intelligence, emerging technologies require a new kind of imagination, skill sets, institutional behaviour and policy measures. Unsurprisingly, both excitement and disorientation over these new technologies are high at present. The good news is that grassroots measures like Drone Didi signal a heightened sensitivity and sensibility around them in our policy circles. Drone education, in particular, is mushrooming across India.

That’s not all. Last week, advertisements for robotic surgery from a local hospital stared at me in newspapers, while a small industrial shed in my neighbourhood started offering 3D printing services.

At about the same time, from the other side of the world, we saw images of four tech titans—Sundar Pichai of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Elon Musk of Tesla and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta—photographed together as Donald Trump took office for his second term at the White House. These four gents are today among the planet’s richest and the most influential, with age still on their side, thanks to their ability to spot and ride new technological waves.

The next such wave may well wash ashore an entirely new bunch. And for all we know, the global high table may shift to another country by then as technology alters the geopolitical landscape. And all waves start with a ripple.

The Drone Didis can be part of one start ripple being set off. The drone schools of today can learn from the air hostess academies that had sprung up two decades ago, when the now-defunct Air Sahara, Kingfisher Air, Air Deccan and Jet Airways had boosted demand for in-flight crews. These airlines may have shuttered, but the business of flying has expanded. That’s precisely the lesson for the drone schools—new technologies can create new winners in a manner that’s not easy to envisage and a little faith in the underlying business proposition goes far.

Technology dominated the headlines in other ways, too. Trump’s announcement of a $500-billion plan for investments in AI infrastructure found an echo in the Swiss Alps, where global leaders discussed AI at the World Economic Forum. At Davos, Tata Consultancy Services chief K Krithivasan saw a clear possibility that his company would need to hire much more for AI work. Mohit Joshi of Tech Mahindra talked about explosive AI-led growth this year. Cognizant’s Ravi Kumar S said nearly a third of software code—the bread-and-butter for Indian IT service companies till a few years ago—is now written by machines. But the overall tech spend is such that it has started spelling more opportunities than threats.

Inspired by the tech talk, I asked an AI engine to help me chapterise a book on new technologies and their practical applications. Its themes included ‘interdisciplinary connections in technology’ (picture a drone aided by AI to chase a fleeing criminal after spotting him in a crowd), ‘prosthetic development’ using 3D printing, and ‘ethical considerations’. From medicine to public policy and art installations, the new possibilities seem endless.

As I see it, each of these fields can do with its equivalents of Drone Didis, if only the education system and entrepreneurial flourish are matched by government push. Some of that seems to be happening. We need to augment that with a paradigm shift in the way education is delivered. Some of the new technologies are both users and enablers of new ways of learning. Imagine 3D-printed lab models that make learning easier, with remote teachers using interactive videos.

Earlier this month, India volunteered to fund a study on mapping skills gaps—something G20 leaders had agreed on during India’s presidency of the group in 2023. At home, the National Skill Development Corporation has partnered with a research firm for data-driven insights to map the gaps across industries, so that new policies can be precisely targeted. Andhra Pradesh is carrying out a ‘skill census’, assisted by IT leader Infosys.

It is not for nothing that ‘ecosystem’ continues to be a favourite term in Silicon Valley. That’s because each new technology needs an ecosystem—involving everything from education to execution and ethics—to thrive.

So the new technologies involve both opportunity-driven threats and threat-driven opportunities. To make the vision more palatable, we can imagibe a latter-day James Bond who has to tackle new-age villains without having to stir from his seat—assisted by Drone Didis or AI Annas. Such a reverse swing might leave Bond shaken and stirred, but the match-up would be worth a watch.

(Views are personal)

Madhavan Narayanan

Senior journalist

(On X @madversity)

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