DailyPost 1794
DIGITAL OUTSIDERS
With every person on WhatsApp and varieties of acrobatics being performed on pics / videos, you would get a feeling that the Digital Age has come of age. The feeling is that we are moving at super speed on the Information highway. COVID-19 brought payment and classes also on the online mode. You would get a feeling that everyone has gone digital and the tech enabled level playing field has become a reality. It also makes you believe that the powers that be, are very well conversant with digital technology and they would silently usher in the digital revolution, we have been waiting for many years.* Nothing can farther form reality. The shock treatments of COVID-19 bed management and recent escapades of IT Returns keep taking us back to reality.
The digital quick fix is the biggest challenge the country is facing today and is coming in the way of nearly everything. The supply chain of a few thousand cryogenic containers, which had nearly choked India, became an unachievable challenge only recently. When we want the technology to deliver the best, is the time when it delivers the worst. In the second wave the US created and globally operated social media came to our rescue. Seamless supply of data to Parliament during sessions can on its own answer a large number of questions. Is it so difficult? Can we not make happen small technology interventions, which can make a monumental difference to lives of crores of people?
The whole mess around, public, private and otherwise, seems to be the handiwork of Digital Outsiders. People who feel they are into it, but they are actually out of it. People who feel technology can be delivered and sustained by digital cronies. They also feel that technology can be delivered without knowing about it, it can be delivered as a Mall or PWD type building. It is an irony that leaders of technology, neck deep into it, who feel technology can be created, delivered, sustained and scaled with research and innovation. They have surged ahead in the technology field without product creation and that they continue to keep doing so.
Digital Outsiders are the decision makers in areas impacting human life, education, research and business, who for lack of their vision, foresight, knowledge and practice of technology, cannot envision the changes commensurate to the digital revolution globally, and move in that direction with a blueprint to execute. The first real learning is that this technology will come by only when one or two iconic digital executions are done. There are digital outsiders in all rungs of organizations too and also public domain, but they inconsequential, because they don’t have the capability to change the face of India by their decisions and action. At the very best they can make some incremental changes. Nonetheless, let those small streams flow as symbols of better things to come.
THE PERCENTAGE OF DIGITAL OUTSIDERS IS INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO INNOVATION, GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT OF A NATION.
Sanjay Sahay