DailyPost 2349
TECH/DIGITAL GESTATION PERIODS
The world has been made to believe that digital technologies happen on their own and can delivered in a jiffy. The evolution of technologies, products and ecosystems have always remained out of discussion in the country and does not interest anyone, more so the powers that be. The story of the startups, their valuation and their unicorn stories are made of tech magical stories which either don’t happen or does not stick around. The strength of technology or the use case for an impending business / societal problem, can expedite it, but that is nearly all. The app formula does work, provided if it is just an user interface.
If we don’t understand the story of the digital gestation periods, we will never be able to understand the penance of focus, ultimate faith, resources, research, product development and making it commercially happen development life cycle. It is ditto same to take a nation on the route or a sector as the case may be. The most talked about story of the day, taking us to the verge of a new search /AI revolution is the ChatGPT. The AI story starts with 1950s and gone through endless winters and inflection points. Even the current inflection point story starts with the creation of OpenAI in 2015.
Moving a stage further even GPT3 is of 2020 vintage, the conversational intelligence did the magic on in ChapGPT. How many countries, companies and organizations are ready for such long hauls and spend endless productive years in search of a mirage. e-Estonia is one of such legendary products or country which got completely transformed through this project. A digital nation coming out of nowhere, in twenty years’ time is what digital folklore is made of. It beats the world hollow and the mightiest and most resourced cannot match up on any parameter. It is the same unflinching faith in the digital mission. The New York Times says,The role model for governments should be Estonia, country where every bureaucratic task can be done online.
From a general usage high end service ChatGPT to changing the face of governance and the nation e-Estonia, we can have another example in the same genre. It is proven that momentous digital creations, executions and transformations happen only in this manner. This is the journey of the now famous leader of world semiconductor industry, TSMC, a product and a company the world can rely on. Of all places it was founded in Taiwan in 1987. What would be the gestation period to reach a stage to lead the world can be anybody’s guess. It could bring the world on its knees during the COVID times. Gestation period less tech marvels / projects and digital transformations can be only imagined and planned in India.
INDIA’S DIGITAL MISSES CAN BE ASCRIBED TO THE THOUGHT OF GESTATION PERIOD LESS CREATION.
Sanjay Sahay