Bridgital Nation Read online

  N. CHANDRASEKARAN AND ROOPA PURUSHOTHAMAN

  Bridgital Nation

  Solving technology’s people problem

  Foreword by RATAN N. TATA

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  THE BRIDGITAL TRANSFORMATION

  1. Flashing Lights

  2. Playing Roles

  3. Wrapping Technology around People

  THE ACCESS CHALLENGE

  4. Calculations

  5. The Great Medical Migration

  6. Twice Exceptional

  7. The Big Disease

  8. Out of Reach

  9. Imbalances

  10. Outreach

  11. Bridging Access

  XX FACTOR—THE TALENT DIVIDEND

  12. An Unlikely Officer

  13. The Talent Dividend

  14. The Spark

  15. Twice-Hit Economy

  16. Waiting for a Role Model

  17. Releasing the Talent Gridlock

  18. The Easiest Fix

  THE JOBS CHALLENGE

  19. Puzzles

  20. Jobs Count

  21. Waterproof

  22. A Two-Track Economy

  23. Twice Exposed

  24. Escalator Sectors

  25. The Saju Mini Supermarket

  26. Investing in Fundamentals

  EVERYWHERE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

  27. The Entrepreneur’s Tale

  28. The End of the Shift

  29. The Great Skew

  30. Goldilocks Entrepreneurs

  31. A Solitary Enterprise

  32. Embracing Everywhere Entrepreneurship

  33. Small Business, Large Impact

  BRIDGITAL IN ACTION

  34. New Aims

  35. ASHAs

  36. The Clinicograph

  37. Ubayakushalaopari

  38. Recovery

  39. The Bridgital Model

  40. Bridgital More Broadly

  Conclusion

  Notes

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  Advance Praise for the Book

  ‘Bridgital Nation offers a penetrating look at today’s India, and suggests a novel approach for reimagining automation as a human aid, not a replacement’—Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

  ‘Bridgital Nation is a beautifully written book, with its authentic view of India from the trenches coupled with an ambitious vision for the country. It brings to life the challenges of jobs and access to basic services like health and education through real-life narratives of people across India. This book shows how the deliberate use of AI and machine learning, coupled with human skills, can solve these issues and place India on an accelerated path to growth and prosperity. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand today’s India and how it could be a force to be reckoned with in the coming decade’—Indra Nooyi, former CEO, PepsiCo

  ‘The economic challenges facing the world require us to bring people and technology together. Bridgital shows that with creative new approaches, success is possible’—Michael Bloomberg, CEO, Bloomberg L.P.

  ‘An absolutely brilliant book, based on deep analysis and rooted in practical insights. N. Chandra and Roopa Purushothaman combine decades of experience of applying technology to problems at scale and macroeconomic development, respectively. Bridgital is an original idea, to simultaneously find a way for India to create jobs and also improve access to services, using the latest technology. This book is a must-read for those aspiring to solve India’s seemingly intractable challenges, at speed and population scale’—Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and chairman, Infosys, and founding chairman, UIDAI (Aadhaar)

  ‘Innovation focused on creating access and building markets has been the core of economic development for countries throughout the world, and India is no different. Chandra helped build one of India’s most innovative and successful companies, and so knows first-hand what creating this growth requires. What Chandra and Roopa propose in Bridgital Nation is an extremely insightful look at how India can harness technological innovation to transform its economy’—Clayton Christensen, professor of business administration, Harvard Business School

  ‘Bridgital Nation is a brilliant book that should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in charting a new path forward for India in the twenty-first century. Through gripping ethnographic depictions and examples, N. Chandrasekaran and Roopa Purushothaman identify the unique circumstances of India’s contemporary challenges in areas ranging from health care to job creation, and from education to entrepreneurship. But this book does not simply analyse problems: rather, it provides carefully considered proposals for moving forward with the urgency India requires. India’s growing and young population—with all its problems of inadequate human capital, weak infrastructure and cultural conservatism—is seen as a tremendous resource: so long as new technological solutions are adapted to these conditions. Thus “digital” becomes “bridgital”—a precisely rendered set of accommodations and adaptations that use technology to supplement rather than substitute for human labour, extending both human capacity and the capacity of the nation to offer far more robust opportunities in education, healthcare, employment and social development’—Nicholas B. Dirks, former chancellor, University of California, Berkeley

  ‘This is a fascinating and important book. The authors intelligently describe the pressing challenges that India faces but also the opportunities to overcome them provided by technology and smart policy. Bridgital Nation brings a scholarly attention to data and analysis as well as street smarts and common sense—a rare combination! I read it and found myself nodding in agreement and just hoping that India’s leaders read it carefully’—Fareed Zakaria, journalist and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS

  For a country that cannot wait

  Foreword

  Ratan N. Tata

  Technology is driving change around us at a terrific pace. The transformation to a digital world has had and will continue to have a profound impact on the way we live, work and learn. However, this global transformation is not always smooth and predictable, as it may not adequately allow for social factors or recognize the importance of a human interface.

  Bridgital Nation addresses these issues in the context of India and emphasizes the need to build human bridges which recognize the diversity of the human interface with its varied educational base, skill sets and access to infrastructure. In the book, the authors demonstrate, through anecdotal examples, how such bridges can improve digital transformation by extending technology-aided capabilities and goals. The authors make a case for deconstructing and reimagining projects to more effectively enhance outputs and set goals, while conserving resources and harnessing available human capacity.

  The book provides an interesting perspective on what might be an effective means of tapping the vast underutilized human resource base which exists in India. It advocates three transformational requirements—Technology, Talent and Vision—as important foundations to help solve people’s problems with major technological transformation.

  Bridgital Nation tackles the strategic options available for a country to truly develop in a world driven and shaped by technological change. It shows how technology can create a pathway for government, businesses, regulators, NGOs and everyday people to close the gaps that matter most. It provides a thoughtful balance using available technology and available human resources to make a success of the transformation into the digital world of tomorrow.

  19 September 2019

  Mumbai

  Introduction

  During the first days of India’s smart city initiative in 2015, M
yGov.in, a government website, asked Indians to imagine what a smart city transformation would look like. The response was enthusiastic. There were hundreds of suggestions to use technology in ingenious ways, of course. Still, scrolling down the pages, it was clear that a much larger number were interested in getting what they already had to work properly. They suggested that smart cities should have running water, uninterrupted power, and trucks that picked up garbage twice a day. A truly smart city, they said, would have streetlights that worked at night.

  The city they described—the city of their imagination—was nothing more than a functional city.

  Picture, for a moment, the same survey on a larger scale: If citizens had to imagine not a smart city but a smart nation, the range of their concerns would significantly expand. They would desire better healthcare and jobs. Mobility. Security. Quicker justice. Fewer regulations. The concerns of life. Yet India, which has known of these challenges for decades, has struggled to provide its people what they need. And now time, which once seemed an infinite resource, has begun to grow scarce. There are more Indians jostling for the same resources with every passing month, and at the other end, technology’s transformations are on the horizon. There is a narrow window to realize the potential of India’s demographic endowments.

  This book started out as an attempt to understand how technology could help India navigate this crucial transition period. It soon became apparent that there were two primary challenges that needed urgent attention: Jobs, and access to vital services. Whether in education, healthcare, the judiciary, or any other field, the problems remain the same—both resources and skilled people are scarce.

  India will have to think about its problems in new ways, because the old ideas have proven unsuccessful time and again. In the twenty-first century, these new ways need to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI), the cloud, machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT), considering the rate at which they are expanding what is possible on a daily basis. The combination of these technologies can provide answers to problems that just a few years ago may have been considered intractable. However, the approach to technology requires careful consideration. It means not being distracted by the array of possibilities, or simply mimicking the innovations of others, but being razor-focused on what is needed. Not technology for technology’s sake, but technology in context—applied in ways that make sense to people, and that can help increase the yield of India’s existing human and physical resources.

  This lies at the heart of our book’s argument: The future, if India is to harness it, has to come from a mutually beneficial relationship between its citizens and new applications of technology. Neither human nor machine alone can help India prepare for the great changes at its doorstep.

  This contrasts the dominant portrayal of the future that, in economic and imaginative terms, is typically seen through the lens of developed economies. For decades, we have heard in general terms that robots are coming for jobs, for the future, and for all of us. As early as in 1964, a memo sent to the president of the United States envisioned a ‘cybernation revolution’ which would result in ‘a system of almost unlimited productive capacity’ that would replace human labour. 1

  Since then, the questions and concerns have become more specific. How will the advent of machines affect jobs? What jobs will be the first to go? What will it mean for the way we work, live and play? The conversation is accompanied by video footage that seems to confirm our worst fears: We see machines in a sterile warehouse sort packages before they are sent; we see the skeletal frame of a headless metal bot run, leap over obstacles, jog on snow, stagger but not fall after being pushed, and right itself if it falls over. We see more reliable models of ourselves.

  The other view is more pragmatic. When new orders emerge, there are societal leaps in productivity, jobs, and living standards. Jobs will be lost, but others will be created. Over 120 years ago, even before the start of Ford’s automobile assembly line, it was evident that horse carriages were on their way out. ‘[The] time is coming when the vehicle drawn by horses will be the one to excite remark, and the present novelty will be a thing of ordinary use,’ a reader wrote to the New York Times in 1899. 2 When costs fell and the market for ‘horseless carriages’ grew, new technologies and jobs emerged at fuel stations, repair shops, and automobile dealerships. History shows us that these economic and technology-led transitions inspire feelings of discomfort and uncertainty. Now, as then, these views often look at a future without automation and a future with automation, not an in-between future where both coexist.

  Imagining where AI and automation, the main drivers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 3 will end up is certainly an enticing and terrifying exercise. But what keeps governments and leaders awake at night is not its final form. It is what will come before that—the inevitable social, political and business costs that will only gradually become clear. They understand, deep in their bones, that this time truly is different. Automation in the past focused on repetitive tasks, done by hand and on foot. Now, tasks of cognition—thinking itself—are the objects of automation.

  But, as the physicist Michio Kaku says about general cognitive ability—common sense, by another name—even the most advanced robots and algorithms today have the intelligence of a cockroach. 4 We have time.

  What we need is a new approach that views AI and automation as a human aid, not a replacement for human intervention. If we do this, automation in India will look nothing like it does anywhere else. We call this approach ‘Bridgital’.

  First, though, we have to understand India.

  A Reluctant Subject

  A book about India is a book about an inscrutable place. There is the everyday country of the senses, and then the country made of numbers—the analyst’s country. One is overwhelming, the other is confounding. It’s a rare day when their stories line up.

  The India of the senses tells us about the challenges its citizens witness every day. Indians see them in moments—the crowded clinics, the bustling courts—without recognizing that disparate issues are closely connected. These moments can stretch into years—the desire to work but not the opportunity, the absence of professional care for children and elders. The influences these issues bear are subtle. In quiet ways, they affect how Indians seek health and employment, and affect how their children think.

  But numbers are what anchor our understanding of a country’s trajectory, and the first numbers we see tell us that progress and prosperity are imminent.

  In a few grains of sand, India’s ranks will swell to 1.5 billion. Over 700 million Indians are below the age of thirty—more than twice the size of the entire population of the United States. Every month, on average, a million more Indians become of working age. 5 The country’s GDP per capita is ₹140,000 ($2,000) right now, but will more than double to around ₹300,000 ($4,300) in a decade. By 2030, India will become the world’s third-largest economy. This period will be marked by rising household aspirations, increased formalization of the economy, and widespread digital maturity. By 2050, India’s GDP per capita could rise to ₹1.1 million ($15,000). 6

  While the glide-path to greater prosperity sounds smooth and inevitable, India rarely lives in its averages. A far more complex and fascinating story is playing out on the ground.

  India’s distinct cultural histories, languages, and governance mean that individual states operate like thirty or more discrete entities that rarely reflect the national average. 7 So while the nation’s income per capita is ₹140,000 ($2,000), annual income in Delhi and Goa is around ₹350,000 ($5,000)—similar to the global median. Meanwhile, at less than ₹42,000 ($600), Bihar’s income per capita is in the bottom decile globally. 8

  The state of Uttar Pradesh alone has more people than Brazil. Maharashtra’s population is larger than Germany’s. Ten states account for most of the value of the country’s goods and services. Two-thirds of all manufacturing occurs in seven states. Just five states are responsible for over
half of all postgraduates. 9 India’s rural and urban markets often pull in different directions at the same time, with one growing while the other slows.

  These differences magnify the perils of a broad brush.

  Partly, India is hard to pin down because of its idiosyncrasies. The country’s wide and complex spectrum of realities has been historically micromanaged by a sweeping, risk-averse bureaucracy (for instance, until recently, there used to be rules limiting what products enterprises of a certain size could manufacture). Even as GDP growth has averaged over 7 per cent a year for the past decade, a surprisingly large number of women have left the workforce. For all the excitement around India’s start-up culture, the country’s average firm employs just over two people. 10 Domestic markets dominate India’s economy, in contrast to China, South Korea and Thailand.

  The other part is down to timing. India’s development has come in an era of globalization and technology-driven change, processes that the country has at times embraced, and at times turned away from. Economic growth is driven by the services sector—information technology, finance, telecommunications—rather than the manufacturing-led progress seen historically across the rest of Asia. There are other incongruities. Households purchase televisions and mobile phones before they reach basic nutrition levels. The country has successfully attempted some of the world’s most ambitious technological programmes (Aadhaar, 11 for example), yet its levels of child malnutrition are still daunting. 12

  Why does this matter? By 2050, as the world’s third-largest economy, India will have a per capita income of ₹1.1 million ($15,000). Meanwhile, as the second-largest, the US will have an income per capita of roughly ₹7 million ($100,000). Behind India will be Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy, with a per capita income of ₹5.3 million ($76,000). 13 What will it mean for India to carry the mantle of a global economic powerhouse while its citizens struggle with the bare essentials of a middle-class lifestyle? How will this dynamic affect the compromises India will have to make when it comes to questions of, say, trade or pollution? India’s rise on the global stage means that the largest economies in the world (in terms of GDP) will no longer be the richest. 14 This sounds simple, but its implications for geopolitical alignment and strategic priorities among the world’s major economies will be significant—and may already be influencing the backlash to globalization we see across the world today.