Geeks and Gizmos :By - Asoke K. Laha President & MD Interra IT

Gazing at the future is always my pastime. That gives me the kick and a sense of solitude. That connects me with the generation next, though I do not like to get myself distanced from the generation I belong to. Yes, I have a passion for geeks and gizmos, I believe, more than a person of my generation. Of late, a national daily has put my private passion into the public domain. It was just a coincidence. I did get calls from my friends, close and distant, inquiring what I contemplate to acquire in the future. Some even prodded me to know what are the other acquisitions that I have, which are not catalogued in the article that had appeared in the national daily. 

 

While I acknowledge my techie credentials and the ever-expanding passion for that, I have to put on record that I am not a man from the Moon, nor do I believe that during my life time, I would be able to connect with aliens from the Mars (if any such thing exists), whatever the developments in the technology – nano or beyond. Yet, I strongly believe that the coming decade will unfold many fascinating concepts and technologies, that may make the latest vista, vision or blackberry, primitive. If you ask me whether I would acquire all these pulsating devices and miniaturized digital delights, my answer is in the affirmative, with a conditionality–– to the extent possible.

 

I should not allow my mind to wander unrestrained, though that is one of my favourite mental pursuits. Let me focus on what I feel about the future of ICT. I am not using vectors, which is the normal practice with the consulting firms and others to quantify the future business prospects. By prognosticating that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) may perk up to trillions of dollars by the end of the decade, I may be able to vet the appetite of many, including myself. We always relate such figures to our future business, however unrealistic those figures could be. That is human nature or you can better denote as the quest of the entrepreneurs to look beyond times. A management consultant may like to use such figures dished out in the public domain, through research or otherwise by the established organizations and consultancies, to drive home the future prospects and challenges of the industry. I am not doing any such things since my purpose of treating this subject for the column is different.

 

I used to ask myself what would be the ICT landscape a decade from now, say by 2017. Let me tread on some unconventional horizons. The other day, I tried to know whether the school I studied at Kolkata, or the village in West Bengal, where some of my relatives originally belonged to, is listed in the Google’s Wikipedia, with descriptions and mapping. Yes, it was there. Perhaps, it must have been there for the last few years. So, if I make a sweeping statement that in the coming decade our planet will be more wired, is an understatement. But what more you need, when a person can surf through the terrains of Bihar or West Bengal sitting at the remotest corner of Africa or Latin America. One need not be there at the Pentagon to ascertain such facts. That is how we are wired now. How do we take it forward? I may be a bit philosophical while pouring my imagination out.

 

I believe that people may become less selfish in the next decade. Let me surprise you with my reasoning, though it may border on Utopia. First, I vouch that there is a limit to material growth. Ironically, that is the byproduct of the ICT, the same instrument, which created the digital divide and made the wealth creation skewed. Microsoft or Dell can continue to grow focussing only on the US, Europe, Japan, China, or India. In five years’ time, some of these emerging economies are going to rewrite their development paradigms. More and more people are going to be lifted much beyond their present level of material well-being. There will be a sort of saturation in the growth process of these countries. That would force large corporations, including from India to focus on the least- developed economies. I foresee many Indian ICT firms setting up shops in Africa, Latin America, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the like not in the distant future, maybe three or four years from now. That will at least help in creating gainful employment and enriching the quality of life of the people. What we should not lose sight of is the fact that China and India account for a lion’s share of the world population. Assuming that these two countries will nudge towards their entry into the developed world by the end of the decade, counted from now, we have hardly one-fifth, or even less, of the population across the world to be cared for. With the type of funding towards social developments coming from major corporations and the governments, the task of catering to the development needs of these countries will become less difficult.

 

The dictum “survival of the fittest” echoes a conundrum that the world we live in is bad and brutish, a state which Rousseau, the French political writer, perceived. Once the realization comes that one man’s development depends on the other’s well-being, much of the capitalistic trappings and instincts let loose now’– to win at any case – will vanish. Ethical and moral considerations for doing business will be more respected. Sovereign states will come out with regulatory mechanisms that can spur sustained growth and at the same time make things more transparent. There will be a strong global movement towards eliminating corruption and to protect the environment. Businesses will be more corporatized so that the benefits flow to a large number of stakeholders rather to a few who manipulate the system.

 

Not very distant in the future, I believe that habitat concepts will undergo a change. Efforts are afoot to find out whether other planets are livable. This will receive more attention. That will be a civilizational change, but will come within the comprehension of the common man. That will engage a lot of time of the IT segment in creating software and other accessories for the man’s pursuit to outer space’– a broad banding of what is happening in the aerospace and the related fields. Maybe, such software will be in the exclusive realm of Indian entrepreneurs. Equally engaging segments will be the life style, genome inquests and (who knows) the mapping of aliens. Yes, there is no limit to growth and the human mind.