IoT will accelerate and have far reaching impact

At the 28th Dataquest Digital Leadership Conclave 2021, there was a session on the dynamics of the new world order.

Opening the conversation, Rajen Vagadia, VP and President, Qualcomm India & SAARC said we are able to connect wirelessly today. The networks and devices have become so common that we take them for granted. We will now look at tech trends that will shape digital enterprises of the future. There will be more opportunities for the enterprises. There is a way ahead to deal with the various challenges.

Rajan Vagadia

Most of the technologies will have 5G as a foundation, be it healthcare, education, robotics, virtual classrooms and tech-assisted learning. There will be smart cars, smarter appliances, and even smart industries. Right from robotics and automation, to AGVs. In smart cities, monitoring of civic infrastructure will be required. Analysis will drive so much more innovation. Reliance on cloud computing will increase. 5G is also part of this. It is essential to cut down the data being sent to the cloud. Processing huge data is more secure when it is done close to the cloud. Here. edge computing will play a role. Indian SMEs will become more agile and resilient by going digital.

However, digital enterprises also need to hire people with the right set of digital skills. Areas include big data, AI/ML, cyber security, IoT, etc. There is lot of work yet to be done to help India realize its dreams. Private networks will provide easy to manage cellular-grade security. You can deploy private network on LTE today. 5G rel 15 and 16 will also allow that. You can roam between a private and public network. This will provide lot of benefit to factories, etc. The goalposts are continuously shifting. These changes will bring lot of growth in every aspect of our life. We are a part of this digital transformation.

Samar Mittal, Head of Cloud & Network Services, India Market, Nokia said digitization is happening all around us. There has been growth in e-learning. The penetration of mobile broadband has transformed a lot in the marketplace. 5G will generate $8 trillion by 2030. Mobile broadband in India is more than 70 percent. Digital society is becoming the new normal across key sectors. We will be able to do remote operations 24x7.

Samar Mittal

With 5G, growth of robotics, on-demand entertainment, etc., will increase. Multiplexes are now coming to your home today. There are services for the masses. Societies get transformed when they are involved. There are various techs - cloud, 5G, security, IoT, home experience, and automation. Imagine using digital wallets! All are becoming more secure. Security in such use cases will become more dominant. We will see IoT accelerate in the years ahead. It will have far reaching impact, even more than mobile.

With automation, people will be able to understand and get more informed. They will be less exploited. There will be a different society around us. Nokia has been creating use cases in the country. We started with Industry 4.0 in our Chennai factory. We started use case for farmers in the country. All these use cases will generate more value.

The digitization era is here to stay, and will accelerate further. Penetration of mobile is now increasing. Economies will grow, and societies will adjust. People will be able to learn new skills remotely. Pace and scope of digital transformation will accelerate. ICT demand will surge further. Even a villager can now take a picture and share with the world! Digitization will change our society. We look forward to continue to contribute, for the industry and the masses.

Innovation the way forward

Ms. Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, said Covid-19 has demonstrated the need for innovation as the way forward. Given the challenges we are facing, we need to put serious thought into innovation. We need to figure how to vaccinate everyone on this planet. We need to provide access to healthcare, education, clean water, etc. AI, robotics, are emerging technologies, and work is going on in quantum. This crisis has made us realize we are capable of doing much more. We have the technology that can solve mega challenges. We need to organize innovation in crisis, to solve the huge concerns. It definitely helps to look back at history and see what lessons we can learn.

Ms. Debjani Ghosh

History does have some fascinating lessons for us. There is the set up of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in the USA. They needed to fight in a variety of ways. How do they survive across different environments? They needed to win the WW II. They set up the OSRD to raise the innovation bar and help meet the crisis head on. By the end of the war, OSRD had led to creation of many breakthroughs. They even developed an early influenza vaccine. While OSRD was wrapped up in 1947, they left an example for the world to follow.

We were able to find a vaccine in record time when companies and academia came together. There are bigger wars in the future. We have to cross all the differences and come together to find solutions that will be crucial for humanity. We have to know how to nurture the changing models of innovation. Solutions are getting co-created. It is impossible to have all the skills under one roof. Indian tech startups are coming up with new models, and even delivery models. There are hospitals, education institutes, manufacturing companies, etc., collaborating with the startups. We have Yellow.AI working with the Income Tax department. Breast cancer screening and rapid Covid-19 tests are also being developed. Co-creation is the new norm.

We also need to use the existing body of knowledge to find solutions. We also need to invest in science, the need for R&D, especially for India. We have to significantly invest in R&D. Innovation of the future does not look very different from the innovation of the past. We are once more engaged in a battle with an enemy that is far more dangerous. The pandemic has demonstrated the criticality of innovation. We should not ignore the lessons of the past. It is important to ensure we invest in building the foundation, and in the future. We also need to establish India in the field of innovation. We are one of the most fertile grounds. We have to up the innovation game in India. The human race depends on it.

Speed with digital transformation

Palash Nandy, CEO, Numeric, said that we need to focus on what we need to do. This lockdown presented us lot of opportunities. It also gave us an opportunity to become stronger as an organization. How can we use digital to give a numeric experience? Digital transformation gave us a speed. We decided to focus on three pillars: what can we do about customer experience? We looked at operational excellence. We also looked at the employee experience. How can we manage the whole life journey of an employee?

Palash Nandy

Numeric has been able to build a strong service infrastructure. We do around 600,000 services in a year. If we do not keep on improving ourselves, we cannot survive. The first step was giving all the possible information to a customer. We gave all the necessary information in real time. Next, we looked at digitalize the whole service infrastructure. Even for Salesforce, this was a big program in India. We had to go through 33,000 man hours of training. All of this was done during the lockdown. Difficulties throws challenges, and also some opportunities. We were able to train people. We went online in September 2020.

The benefits were internal and external. There was more business continuity. From September 2020 till now, it has been a massive success. We are looking at going ahead. You can monitor all your assets across the country in real time. We are also working on developing a visual remote app. We are making some self diagnostics tools. It helps people to take care of themselves. There will be minimum downtime. Even if some problem happens, we can solve the problem with self diagnostics tools. We are going to make a radical approach to service. Customers will be greatly benefitted. Covid-19 opened the door for many opportunities. We ensured that we utilized the opportunity!

Digitization

Anil Jain, CEO, NIXI, said this event speaks about digitization and the way the country is moving forward. There used to piles of files across various offices. Digitization has changed and impacted the whole world. It has impacted people, businesses, international relations, and boundaries. We are seeing things are getting miniaturized. Less number of machines are doing many things. We can book food and vaccination via a mobile app. We can get taxis inside five minutes. The new generation may not understand the era we have gone through.

Anil Jain

Today, we have 11 billion mobile connections across the world, and 1.2 billion across India, behind China. We have 790 million broadband connections. Data consumption is critical. We are around 15GB per month, and here, India is number one. The digital financial transaction has increased manifold. We are seeing huge progress. Broadband is growing in urban areas, and in rural areas with BharatNet. Young people are getting digital education. We have the most technical startups. IPv6 adoption is now 74 percent in India. We are doing bus, rail and airline reservations online. Grocery stores are now using e-commerce. We are saying Wi-Fi is the most essential part today. People are getting replaced by robots. Social media is the consumption of content. Covid-19 has brought lot of distress. But, it has led to digitization. Things today are moving very fast.

We have had to reduce the social interaction. Mental illness is also increasing. Digital war and cyber crime is looming across all the countries. We have to be very careful when we go to digitization. There are four important acts. Data protection law, work on AI to take India to leadership position, blockchain act, and national language transmission mission.

NIXI is providing the basic infrastructure for the Internet. It is also managing the CCTLD (country-code top level domain). India is the only country providing IDN CCTLD in 22 languages. We have done lot of activities in promoting all the products. We aim to provide digital identity for every Indian citizen. We also want IPv6 adoption to reach 100 percent. We will work to provide broadband to every citizen.

In the future, there will be borderless business transactions. We are also working at driverless cars. There will be factories, colleges, etc., without manpower. With the help of national language transmission mission, we will make languages exchange happen. We are looking at digital economy and digital security. We can reach $1 trillion by 2024. We need to work for our dreams to come true.