iSPIRT works to transform India into a hub for new generation software products, by addressing crucial government policy, creating market catalysts and grow the maturity of product entrepreneurs. Welcome to the Official Insights!
At the Fourth National Startup Advisory Council Meet held on 17.05.2022 under Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, and Textiles Shri Piyush Goyal, the NavIC Grand Challenge (GC) was launched. The GC seeks to mainstream the use of NavIC and establish it as a domestic mapping solution.
iSPIRT has contributed to the development of this Grand Challenge. During the Third NSAC Meet, Sharad Sharma, Co-founder of iSPIRT and a member of the National Startup Advisory Council (NSAC), proposed the concept of prominence to NavIC as a domestic mapping solution.
Later, the iSPIRT Team, led by Captain Amit Garg and our volunteers Sayandeep Purkayastha, Captain George Thomas, and Tanuvi Thakur, presented the concept note and working paper on the GC to DPIIT (Dept for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade).
Multiple rounds of discussion among the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and iSPIRT Foundation brought the final shape to the working paper. All of this culminated in the launch of GC-NavIC on the 17th of May.
What is NavIC?
NavIC or Navigation of Indian Constellation is India’s independent regional satellite navigation system created by DOS/ISRO. Its signals are inter-operable with the civilian signals of the other navigation satellite systems namely GPS, Galileo, Glonass, and BeiDou. NavIC has made in-roads into civilian applications in India like vehicle tracking, power grid synchronization, location-based services (using mobile phones), disaster alert dissemination, etc. Efforts are being made to enable the incorporation of NavlC into drones, the maritime sector, wearable devices, time dissemination, geodesy, etc. The applications are being promoted by the availability of NavlC-enabled off-the-shelf chipsets & devices at competitive rates and by the adoption of NavlC in national and international industry standards.
The GC is a step towards taking NavIC adoption further into the future, i.e. the future of AtmaNirbhar Mapping Solution. The GC brings together the triumvirate of NavIC, Agriculture, and Drones by becoming a big-bang thrust for the Kisan Drones Project as well.
The GC-NavIC
The GC-NavIC has an intersection with GOI’s Project Drone Shakti. It seeks to promote:
The use of drones to solve the problem of agriculture insurance, i.e., the integration of the product to solve cases under the Pradhan Mantri Fassal Bima Yojana, is in line with the Government’s steps to harness technology for agricultural growth;
Building a digital database of agricultural data that will supplement the digitization of land records and crop assessment measures of Drone Shakti;
The use of ISRO’s homegrown NavIC technology in developing drones under the GC will promote the use of NavIC in the commercial drone landscape for remote sensing, imagery, mapping, etc.
The GC has invited innovative solutions that will utilize NavIC-enabled drones to capture data related to farm field topography, process this data, and make it available for use for commercial purposes. Ideas should be such that the product can be deployed across all terrain types in the country. Further, the captured and processed data should be viable and efficient for use within the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) framework.
A detailed application process (here) calls for a detailed proposal of the tech specs of the participants’ product solution. This will be the basis for 25 participants selected for a presentation of their product before the Experts Panel. 7 selected participants on the basis of an objective and transparent selection criteria will compete in Phase 1 of the GC – the prototype deployment stage. In phase 2, the top 3 participants will compete towards fulfilling the problem statement by deploying their fully functioning product.
Transformative Powers of Challenge Grants
Challenge Grants have transformative powers and scalability opportunities that can serve as an impetus to quality innovation. Treatment Adherence for TB was the first challenge launched under the Grand Challenges in TB Control program. The aim was to devise solutions for improving tuberculosis screening, detection, and treatment outcomes. One of the participants, 99Dots, came up with a novel solution for low-cost monitoring and medication adherence program by using a combination of basic mobile phones and augmented blister packaging to provide real-time medication monitoring at a drastically reduced cost. By 2017-18, 99Dots was used across all districts in India and is now listed as a treatment program on the Government’s Nikshay portal.
The GC-NavIC through its intersection with Project Drone Shakti and the revamped operational guidelines of the PMFBY that emphasize tech-based solutions will help harness technology for agriculture and create opportunities for commercial utilization of NavIC. The recent ban on foreign drones by the Government will move the focus to domestic manufacturing. Encouraging local drones with local technology will increase the AtmaNirbhar potential in the drone and navigation ecosystem and enable Indian Startups to unlock the $5 billion drone market.
Conclusion
The GC-NavIC is touted to deliver three essential outcomes – better regulations in the drone and mapping space, ecosystem development, and channel of public money for private innovation. All three will lead to transformative innovations that will push India into modern agricultural practices and domestic mapping-navigation solutions.
The post is authored by our volunteer fellow, Tanuvi Thakur. She can be reached at [email protected].
This is our response to the Draft Drone Rules 2021 published by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 14 July 2021.
Introduction
The potential commercial benefits that unmanned aviation can bring to an economy has been well established in several countries. A primary and immediate use-case for drones is in Geospatial data acquisition for various applications such as infrastructure planning, disaster management, resource mapping etc. In fact, as argued in the recently announced guidelines for Geospatial data, the availability of data and modern mapping technologies to Indian companies is crucial for achieving India’s policy aim of Atmanirbhar Bharat and the vision for a five trillion-dollar economy.
The current situation in India, however, is that the drone ecosystem is at a point of crisis where civilian operations are possible in theory, but extremely difficult in practice. Because the regulations in place are not possible to comply with, they have led to the creation of a black market. Illegally imported drones are not only significantly faster, cheaper and easier to fly but also far more easily acquired than attempting to go through the red tape of the previous regulations to acquire approved drones. Thus, rather than creating a system that incentivises legal use of drones, albeit imported, we’ve created a system that makes it near impossible for law-abiding citizens to follow the law of the land and discourages them from participating in the formal system. This not only compromises on the economic freedom of individuals and businesses but it also poses a great national security risk as evidenced in the recent spate of drone attacks. If we do not co-opt the good actors at the earliest, we are leaving our airspaces even more vulnerable to bad actors. This will also result in a failure to develop a world-class indigenous drone & counter-drone industry, thus not achieving our goals of an Atmanirbhar Bharat.
The Draft Drone Rules (henceforth the draft) have addressed some of these problems by radically simplifying and liberalising the administrative process but haven’t liberalised the flight operations. Unfortunately, closing only some of the gaps will not change the outcome. The draft rules leave open the same gaps that cause the black market to be preferred over the legal route.
With the three tenets of Ease-of-Business, Safety and Security in mind, it is our view that while the intention behind the draft rules is laudable, we feel that the following areas must be addressed to enable easy & safe drone operations in India:
Remove Requirement of Certificate of Airworthiness: The draft mandates airworthiness certification for drones whereas, no appropriate standards have been developed, thus, making the mandate effectively impossible to comply with.
Lack of Airspace segregation, zoning and altitude restrictions: The draft doesn’t mention any progressive action for permitting drone operations in controlled airspaces.
Business confidentiality must be preserved: The prescribed rules for access to data is not in consonance with the Supreme Court Right to Privacy Judgement
Lack of transparent Import Policy: This results in severe restrictions on the import of critical components thus disincentivizing indigenous development of drones in India
Insurance & Training must be market-driven and not mandated: We must let market forces drive the setting up of specialised training schools & insurance products & once mature they may be mandated & accredited. This will result in the creation of higher quality services & a safer ecosystem.
Fostering innovation and becoming Atmanirbhar: A. Encouraging R&D: by earmarking airspace for testing for future drones B. Encouraging the domestic drone manufacturing industry: through a system of incentives and disincentivizing imports should be inherent in the Drone Rules. C. Recognition of Hobby flying: Hobbyists are a vital part of the innovation ecosystem; however, they are not adequately recognised and legitimized
Encouraging A Just Culture: Effective root cause analysis would encourage a safety-oriented approach to drone operations. Penal actions should be the last resort and dispute resolution should be the focus.
Enabling Increased Safety & Security: NPNT and altitude restrictions would enhance safety and security manifold.
No Clear Institutional Architecture: Like GSTN, NPCI, NHA, ISRO, and others a special purpose vehicle must be created to anchor the long-term success of Digital Sky in India based on an established concept of operations
Lack of a Concept of Operations: Although drone categories have been defined, they have not been used adequately for incremental permissions, as in other countries; rather the draft appears to prefer a blank slate approach. The failure to adopt an incremental approach can arguably be considered as one of the root causes of the drone policy failures till date in India as regulations are being framed for too many varied considerations without adequate experience in any.
1. Airworthiness
In the long term, it is strategically crucial to India’s national interest to develop, own and promulgate standards, to serve as a vehicle for technology transfer and export. The mandatory requirement for certification of drone categories micro and up is the key to understanding why the draft does not really liberalise the drone industry. It would not be too out of place to state that the draft only creates the facade of liberalising drone operations – it is actually as much of a non-starter as the previous versions of regulations.
The standards for issuance of airworthiness certificates have not been specified yet the requirement has been stipulated as mandatory for all operations above nano category in the draft (pts 4-6). However, most of the current commercial operations are likely to happen in the micro and small categories. And for these categories, no standards have been specified by either EASA or FAA. EASA’s approach has been to let the manufacturer certify the drone-based on minimum equipment requirements. On the other hand, It is only fairly recently that the FAA has specified airworthiness criteria for BVLOS operations for a particular drone type of 40kg, and which it expanded to 10 drone types in November. Building standards is an onerous activity that necessitates a sizable number of drones having been tested and criteria derived therefrom. The only other recourse would be adopting standards published elsewhere, and as of date these are either absent (not being mandated in other countries) or actively being developed (cases noted earlier). Given the lack of international precedent, the stipulation for certificate of airworthiness in the draft needs to be eliminated, at least for micro and small category drones.
2. Airspace
One of the major concerns since the early days of policy formulation in India has been the definition of airspace and its control zones. All regulations till date, including the draft, require prior air traffic control approvals for drone operations in controlled zones. However, given that controlled airspace in India starts from the ground level for the controlled zones upto 30 nm around most airports (unlike many other countries where it starts at higher levels), it effectively means no drone operations are possible in the urban centres in the vicinity of airports in India. While the Green/Yellow/Red classification system is a starting point for Very Low-Level airspace classification, the draft does not move to enable the essential segregated airspace for drone operations up to an altitude limit of 500ft above ground level.
3. Business Confidentiality
In the domain of Privacy Law, India has taken significant strides to ensure protection of individual and commercial rights over data. The draft (pt 23.) in its current form seems to be out of alignment with this, allowing government and administrations access to potentially private and commercially sensitive information with carte blanche. The models of privacy adopted in other countries in unmanned aviation are often techno-legal in nature. It is recommended that DigitalSky/UTM-SP network data access be technically restricted to certain Stakeholder-Intent mappings: executing searches for Law Enforcement, audit for the DGCA, aviation safety investigations and for Air Traffic Control/ Management. This would need due elaboration in the detailed UTM policy complemented with a legal framework to penalise illegitimate data access.
4. Insurance
One constant hindrance to compliance is the requirement of liability transfer. While the principle of mitigating pilot and operator liability in this fashion is sound, the ground reality is that as of date, very few insurance products are available at reasonable prices. The reason behind it is that insurance companies have not been able to assess the risks of this nascent industry. Assuming the regulation is notified in its current form (pt 28), arguably affording a clean start at scaling up drone operations, we will continue in this vicious dependency loop in the absence of incentives to either end. Again, market forces will drive the development of this industry with customers driving the need for drone operators to obtain insurance for the respective operations. Therefore it is recommended that initially, insurance should not be mandated for any category or type of drone operations, and instead be driven by market or commercial necessity. Over a period of time, insurance may be mandated within the ecosystem.
Similar feedback has been shared by Insurers: “Though the regulator (aviation regulator) has made mandatory the third party insurance, the compensation to be on the lines of the Motor Vehicles Act is somewhat not in line with international practices,” the working group set up by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) said.”
5. Training
Currently, there’s a requirement of training with an authorized remote pilot training organization (RPTO) (pt 25), applicable for micro-commercial purposes and above (pt 24). While the intent is right, it should not be mandated at the initial stage. The reality is that there are very few RPTO’s that offer training and the cost of such training is often higher than the cost of the drones themselves, while quality is inconsistent. While the current draft rules try to address this problem, they do this with the assumption that liberalizing the requirements for establishing RPTO’s will solve this problem. While this incentivizes more RPTO’s to be established, it still does not incentivize quality and leaves in place the same bureaucratic process for registration. This has been the experience of the ecosystem so far. While it is certainly reasonable to expect that remote pilots should receive training, the goal of better informed and equipped pilotry is better achieved, at this time, if left to manufacturers and market participants to drive it.
There are currently two types of training – Type training and Airspace training. Type training can be driven by manufacturers in the early days, as is the current practice, and Airspace training can be achieved through an online quiz, based on a Concept of Operations. It is our view that customers of drones will have a natural incentive to seek training for their pilots, thereby creating the market need for better quality training schools. Furthermore, as manufacturers establish higher levels of standardization and commoditization, they will partner with training schools directly to ensure consistent quality. In the upcoming years, as the drone ecosystem grows more mature, it will become reasonable to revisit the need for mandating pilot training at approved training schools, and DGCA may create a program that accredits the various RPTOs.
6. Fostering innovation and becoming Atmanirbhar
6A. R&D
To encourage institutional research and development further, we recommend authorised R&D zones be designated, particularly where low population and large areas (like deserts, etc) are available, some key areas of experimentation being long range and logistics operations which might require exemptions from certain compliance requirements.
6B. Import policy
Rather than simply delegating the entire import policy to DGFT (pt 8), there needs to be a clear statement of the import guidelines in the rules based on the following principles in the current draft:
No barriers for the importation of components and intermediary goods for local assembly, value addition and R&D activities
Disincentivising import of finished drone products, both pre-assembled and Completely Knocked Down. Possible avenues could be imposition of special import duty as part of well-considered policy of “infant industry protection”, a policy used successfully in the recent past in South Korea and is considered a part of the policy of Atmanirbhar Bharat by the Principal Economic Advisor to the PM, Sanjeev Sanyal.
Incentivising investments in the indigenous manufacturing industry by aligning public drone procurement with the Defence Acquisition Procedure (2020) and supplemented by targeted government programs such as PLI schemes and local component requirements, which will help realise the PM’s vision of ‘Make in India’ and “Atmanirbhar Bharat’.
In the long term, developing incentives for assemblers to embed themselves into global value chains and start moving up the value chain by transitioning to local manufacturing and higher value addition in India, to be in line with the PM’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. Some suggestions here would be prioritisation for locally manufactured drones for government contracts, shorter registration validity for non-locally manufactured drones etc.
6C. Hobby Fliers
While research and development within the confines of institutions is often encumbered by processes and resource availability, hobby and model flying has enjoyed a long history in manned aviation as a key type of activity where a large amount of innovation happens. Hobby clubs such as The Homebrew Computer Club, of which Steve Jobs and Wozniak were members, and NavLab at Carnegie Mellon University are instances out of which successful industries have taken off. Far from enabling hobby or recreational fliers, they are not even addressed in the draft, which would only limit indigenous technology development. Legally speaking, it would be bad in law to ban hobby flying activities considering hobby fliers enjoy privilege under the grandfathering rights. A solution could lie in recognising hobbyists & establishing hobby flying green zones which may be located particularly where low population and large areas are available. Alternatively, institution-based hobby flying clubs could be authorised with the mandate to regulate the drone use of members while ensuring compliance with national regulations. The responsibility of ensuring safe flying would rest with these registered hobby clubs as is the case in Europe and USA.
7. Encouraging A Just Culture
Implementation is the key to the success of any policy. One of the key factors in encouraging voluntary compliance is an effective means of rewarding the compliant actors while suitably penalising any intentional or harmful violations. Therefore, arguably, an important step could be to build such rewards and punishments. In the context of aviation safety and security, the key lies in effective investigation of any violation while fostering a non-punitive culture. Effective investigations enable suitable corrective actions whilst minimal penal actions encourage voluntary reporting of infringements and potential safety concerns. ICAO encourages a just and non-punitive culture to enhance safety. Penal actions, if considered essential, should be initiated only after due opportunity and should have no criminal penalties except for deliberate acts of violence or acts harming India’s national security. However, considering the fallout from any unintentional accident as well, there should be adequate means for dispute resolution including adjudication.
8. Enabling Increased Safety & Security
The draft while taking a blank slate approach clearly aims to reduce hurdles in getting drones flying. However, we argue that lack of clarity on several issues or not recognising certain ground realities actually reduces the chance of achieving this. We list the details of these issues in the subsections below.
Points 13-14 acknowledge the existence of non-NPNT (No Permission No Takeoff) compliant drones and makes airworthiness the sole criteria for legally flying, provided such drone models are certified by QCI and are imported before the end of this year and registered with DigitalSky. This is a great step forward, however, keeping in mind the win-for-security that NPNT provides through trusted permissioning and logs, it is recommended that NPNT be phased back in with an adoption period of 6 months from the date of notification.
To bring back a semblance of safety to the thought process and keeping in mind that manned aviation would be operating above 500 ft except for takeoff, landing and emergencies, it would be pragmatic to enforce altitude fencing in addition to two-dimensional fencing going forward. Permissive regulation has the effect of encouraging good and bad actors alike, and this measure ensures the correct footing for the looming problem of interaction between manned and unmanned traffic management systems, where risk of mid-air collisions may be brought back within acceptable limits.
9. Institutional Architecture
The draft indicates that institutions such as QCI and Drone Promotion Council (DPC), along with the Central Government, would be authorised to specify various standards and requirements. However, no details have been specified on the means for notification of such standards as in the case of the Director-General (Civil Aviation) having the powers to specify standards in the case of manned aircraft. Such enabling provisions are essential to be factored in the policy so as to minimise constraints in the operationalisation of regulations e.g. as was observed in the initial operationalisation of CAR Section 3 Series X Part I which did not have a suitable enabling provision in the Aircraft Rules.
Further, effective implementation demands that responsibility for implementation be accompanied by the authority to lay down regulations which is sadly missed out in the draft. In the instant draft, the authority to lay down standards rests with QCI/ DPC but the responsibility for implementation rests with DGCA which creates a very likely situation wherein the DGCA may not find adequate motivation or clarity for the implementation of policy/ rules stipulated by QCI/ DPC.
It is not clear that setting up a DPC would advance policy-making and be able to effect the changes needed in the coming years to accelerate unmanned aviation without compromising safety and security. We argue that for effective policy and making a thriving drone ecosystem, Digital Sky is a unique and vital piece of digital infrastructure that needs to be developed and nurtured. In the domain of tech-driven industries, the track record of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) is encouraging in India, the NSDL, NPCI and GSTN being shining examples.
The field of unmanned aviation has its own technical barriers to policy making. Its fast-evolving nature makes it extremely difficult for regulators who might not have enough domain knowledge to balance the risks and benefits to a pro-startup economy such as that of India. With the context formed through the course of this paper, it is our view that an SPV with a charter that would encompass development of a concept of operations, future standards, policy, promotion and industry feedback, would be the best step forward. A key example of success to model on would be that of ISRO, which is overseen by the Prime Minister. This would remove inter-ministerial dependencies by overburdening the existing entrenched institutions.
10. Lack of a Concept of Operations
The difference in thought processes behind this draft and the rules notified on 12th March 2021 is significant and is indicative of the large gap between security-first and an efficiency-first mindsets; keeping in mind that mature policymaking would balance the three tenets. It also points to the lack of a common picture of how a drone ecosystem could realistically evolve in terms of technology capability and market capacity while keeping balance with safety and security. The evolving nature of unmanned aviation requires an incremental risk-based roadmap; the varied interests of its many stakeholders makes reaching consensus on key issues a multi-year effort. To this end, taking inspiration from various sources and focusing on the harsh realities peculiar to India, we are in the process of drafting a Concept of Operations for India.
Concluding remarks
With the goal of raising a vibrant Indian drone ecosystem, we recommend the following actionable steps be taken by policy makers:
Immediate Term – Enabling The Ecosystem
Changes to the draft
Airworthiness Compliance requirements for all drone categories be removed till such standards are published
Hobby flying and R&D Green zones be designated in low risk areas
Guiding principles for Import policy formulation be laid out to incentivise import drone parts and de-incentivise drone models
A privacy model be applied to DigitalSky ecosystem data access that technically restricts abuse while laying a foundation for a legal framework for penalties
Insurance be not mandated for any drone categories
The provision for setting up the Drone Promotion Council be subsumed by a SPV as discussed below
Next six months – Setting the ecosystem up for long-term success
A) NPNT be re-notified as a bedrock requirement for security
B) An SPV outside of entrenched institutions be set up with a charter to
1. Envision India’s concept of aviation operations for the next few decades
2. Formulate Future Policy and institutionalize some aspects of key enablers of operations currently missing in India:
Development / update of ConOps
Monitor / develop / customize International standards
Establish Standards for Airworthiness and Flight Training
3. Develop and operationalise DigitalSky in an open, collaborative fashion with oversight and technical governance mechanisms
4. Redefine control zones and segregate airspace for drone operations
5. Establish an advisory committee with equitable membership of stakeholders
6. Address all charter items of the Drone Promotion Council
iSPIRT (Indian Software Product Industry Round Table) is a technology think tank run by passionate volunteers for the Indian Software Product Industry. Our mission is to build a healthy, globally competitive and sustainable product industry in India.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAV’s)/ Drones have been making a buzz all over the world. Drones in the past have been looked at as a threat in various countries. The public perception towards drones has been very different in the past and has been changing over the past few years when people have been able to see the real benefits that this technology can offer. However, there is a need for a regulatory body to avoid the misuse of drones.
India is one of the key markets where the future growth of drone technologies is likely to emerge. India’s drone market expected to grow $885.7 mn and drones market in the world will reach $16.1 billion by 2021. Thus this market will create lots of employment opportunities and help our nation’s economy grow. Just like how the Information technology sector flourished in India increasing its contribution to the Indian GDP from 1.2% in 1998 to 7.7% in 2017, the Indian drone industry shows a similar promise.
How can drones contribute to the public good in India?
Previously, drones were an area of interest for defense sector only, but in past decade drones have been able to come into the public and commercial space where they have been able to take high definition photos, map a large area in a short time, calculate crop health, spray pesticides, inspect man-made structure which would be difficult or unsafe while doing it traditionally, play a crucial role during natural calamities to save lives, deliver goods and medicines.
Countries like Rwanda have allowed a full network of drones in their airspace which has helped save lives with the delivery of medical supplies. The company operating there initially had a huge challenge to convince people that the drones were meant for good and the company did not have the intention to spy on them. Once the people of Rwanda saw that these drones could save lives, a whole network of drones emerged across the country. Imagine the impact it would create across different industries in India if we accept and embrace this technology and have regulations in place for its safe usage. The upsurge of new drone-based innovative companies is a positive sign of India heading towards becoming a global leader in this field.
India is a high potential market, still entrepreneurs and businessman in this sector experience oblivion. This is because a few years back drones were completely banned in India as a perceived threat and now steps have been taken in Drone regulation 1.0 to get the industry moving forward. Though there are many roadblocks for the regulations to be in full force as it tries to bring together multiple agencies, the good part of it is that government understands that they lack the necessary skills set to create regulation and is willing to take help from the existing players to contribute in making the regulation more robust and user friendly.
What can be the public goods in the drone industry and why do we need them?
Paul A Samuelson is usually credited as the first economist to develop the theory of public goods. But what exactly is public goods?
A good which is:
Non-excludable – it is costly or impossible for one user to exclude others from using a good.
Non-rivalrous – when one person uses a good, it does not prevent others from using it.
Indivisible – one cannot divide public goods for personal use only.
Traffic lights, roads, street lights, etc. are examples of public goods. With the seamless possibilities that drones can offer, it makes sense to have public goods defined for this sector.
Imagine a future where airspace is accessible to everyone, where we have defined drone ports and air corridors which will allow smooth and safe operation of the drones. A lot of industries can benefit from it. Creating public goods will also allow more people to participate in the system thus increasing the size of the pie. If everybody in the system starts feeling comfortable with the operation of drones in the open skies then we could fundamentally transform the way we do things.
Who should be responsible for creating public goods?
Although classical economic theory suggests public goods will not be provided by a free market. But in a market like India, where the market is neither free nor regulatory, groups of individuals or organization can come together to voluntarily help government bodies to provide public goods in this market. For example, DigitalSky platform is a software initiative developed by the joint effort of iSPIRT and the government, working towards creating an online platform for registration of drones and obtaining permission for its operation, with a vision of making it paperless and presence-less.
There is tremendous scope for innovation and improvement in this sector. In the case of public goods, no firms will find it profitable to produce these goods because they can be enjoyed for free once they are provided and they cannot prevent this from happening. To provide these goods then, we either rely on governments or private organizations which volunteer to work on these issues.
The growth in India’s drone market would be primarily driven by the proactive initiative of existing players who will lay the foundation of this market in India. Thus DICE and iSPIRT have taken an initiative and are spreading awareness through round table sessions.
Round table sessions organized by DICE and iSPIRT serve as a platform where drone based entrepreneurs come together and think towards growing this industry by creating a model that benefits everyone in the system. The aim is to create a win-win situation in B2B and B2G.
The round table primarily serves two purposes:
To enable strategic partnerships between companies and encouraging companies to contribute to public goods.
Bridging the gap between the companies and the government.
Behavioral economics suggests that individuals can have motivations other than just money.
For example, People may volunteer to contribute to local flood defenses out of a sense of civic pride, peer pressure or genuine altruism.
Even if we have a narrow self-interest point of view we have to understand that voluntarily helping government bodies in tackling and solving the issues in drone rules and regulation will in turn help this market to flourish. And companies or individual contributors will have an underlying first mover advantage. So it’s important to act proactively to help the government to create regulation on your futuristic business model. It’s our job to demonstrate government that business can be done safely with a minimum amount of agreeable risk. Working together will not only accelerate the pace at which the regulations are implemented but also ensure that India takes away a big slice of the $100bn drone market. [5]
How does the future look like?
If you have ever seen the cartoon “The Jetsons” from the 1990’s you can already imagine what the future could look like. We are in an era where we can clearly automation and AI takes over mundane and laborious tasks at an exponential rate. The computers around us today are becoming powerful with each day. It can be witnessed that today it has become much easier to survive and it isn’t hard to survive as it used to be back in the days. We are not too far from the singularity where machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence. Thus we should have an environment where we can ensure that the technology is exploratory and exploitation is avoided.
Technology doesn’t happen on its own, people work together to make those imaginations/dreams a reality. We can already see Proof of concept (POC) of drone deliveries, drone taxis, and other futuristic applications. Who knows what else could we have with us in the next decade. Imagine a future where you would own your own personalised autonomous flying vehicle which takes you to your desired place with just the press of a button. You would have mid-air fueling stations which would enable you to drive without having ever to touch the land. Millions of smaller sized drones would be able to deliver products within minutes just like the internet today delivers information. Drones would become smaller and smaller and nanotechnology will enable us to overcome the limitations we see in drones today. Many other applications will rise up as we start working towards.
If you have any suggestions/solutions/ideas on how the system can be made better you can definitely become a part of iSPIRT / DICE India and write to us on [email protected] or [email protected] and also become a part of the round table.
The govt recently launched Digital Sky – an enabling platform for Drones. With the new regulations, who will be the winners and who will lose? What is the best long-term winning play for your startup? Join other companies and the iSPIRT team behind Digital Sky in our playbook roundtable to know more.
This is a product startup founder/CXO (+1) invite-only events. Venue details will be sent along with the confirmation of your registration.
RoundTables are facilitated by an iSPIRT maven who is an accomplished practitioner of that Round-Table theme. All iSPIRT playbooks are Pro-bono, Closed room, Founder(+1), invite-only sessions. The only thing we require is a strong commitment to attend the sessions completely and to come prepared, to be open to learning & unlearning, and to share your context within a trusted environment. All key learnings are public goods & the sessions are governed by the Chatham House Rule.
The govt is soon to launch Digital Sky – an enabling platform for Drones. With the new regulations, who will be the winners and who will lose? What is the best long-term winning play for your startup? Join other companies and the iSPIRT team behind Digital Sky in our playbook roundtable to know more.
This is a product startup founder/CXO (+1) invite-only events. Venue details will be sent along with the confirmation of your registration.
RoundTables are facilitated by an iSPIRT maven who is an accomplished practitioner of that Round-Table theme. All iSPIRT playbooks are Pro-bono, Closed room, Founder(+1), invite-only sessions. The only thing we require is a strong commitment to attend the sessions completely and to come prepared, to be open to learning & unlearning, and to share your context within a trusted environment. All key learnings are public goods & the sessions are governed by the Chatham House Rule.
On August 27, 2018, India announced its much-awaited Civil Aviation Regulations (CAR) for drones. The new CAR had many improvements on the original draft published last year, but most important was the introduction of Digital Sky, a technology platform that would handle the entire process of regulating the registration and permissions for all Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems above the nano category, i.e. any remote controlled or automated flying object – multi-rotor or fixed-wing, electric or IC-engine. These set of regulations along with the announcement of Digital Sky drone policy represent the government’s “Drone Policy 1.0”.
What this policy isn’t?
From the outset, one of the largest criticisms of the draft was its seeming omission of beyond visual line of sight flights, as well as those of fully-autonomous operations. Combined with a ban on delivery of items, it would seem like the government is pre-emptively clamping down on some of the most promises of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles before they even begin.
But on close inspection, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has made an interesting & what looks to be a promising decision in naming this policy as “1.0”. Through the various public comments made by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, it can be gathered that there is a phased-approach being adopted for the planning and implementation of the government’s strategy for unmanned aerial vehicles.
The more complex commercial operations will be rolled out atop the digital platform, allowing the government to test the waters before allowing potentially risky operations.
At iSPIRT, we appreciate this data-driven, innovation-friendly yet safety-first approach that has been inherent to all of civil aviation.
What does the policy say?
The policy lays out a general procedure for registering, and taking permissions to fly for every type of remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS). A good summary of the regulations themselves, what you need to fly, what you can and cannot do is given here. We will be focussing this blog post on demystifying Digital Sky and the surrounding technology – How it works, what it does and what should private players be doing about it.
What is Digital Sky?
Digital Sky is essentially a barebones Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management system. An Unmanned Traffic Management is to drones what ATC is to aircraft. Most countries are looking to external UTM providers to build and run this digital enabling infrastructure. The government of India, in continuing its digital infrastructure as public goods tradition, has decided to build and run its own UTM to ensure that this critical infrastructure system remains committed to interoperability and is free from the risks of vendor capture in the long run. Digital Sky is the first version of such a UTM for managing drone flights in both controlled as well as uncontrolled airspaces.
For consumers, Digital Sky essentially constructed of three layers. The three layers are Online Registrations, Automated Permissions and Analytics, Tracking and Configurable Policies.
Online Registrations are the layers that onboard operators, pilots, RPAS and manufacturers on to the Digital Sky Platform. It will be a fully digital process, and applicants can track their applications online. All registered users will have an identity number, including the RPAS, which will get a Unique Identification Number (UIN). There is a private key attached to the UIN allowing the drone to prove it is who it claims to be through digital signatures.
Automated Permissions is the transaction layer that digitizes the process of seeking airspace clearance. Using Open APIs or a portal provided by the government, drones can directly seek permissions by specifying the geographic area, time of operations & pilot registration id, signed with the UIN of drone. In response to the API call or portal request, an XML file digitally signed by the DGCA is generated. This XML response is called the Permission Artefact.
All RPAS sold in India under the new policy must carry firmware that can authenticate such a Permission Artefact. Further, they must confirm that the flight parameters of the current mission match those given in the authenticated Permission Artefact. If these parameters do not match, the RPAS must not arm. This condition is referred to simply as No Permission, No Takeoff or NPNT. Thus, the requirement is that any RPAS (except nano) operated in India should be NPNT compliant. We will cover what it means to be NPNT compliant in part two of this series.
To deal with areas of low connectivity, this authenticated request can be carried prior to the flight itself, when connectivity is available. The Permission Artefact can be stored, carried and read offline by an NPNT-compliant RPAS with a registered UIN. Thus flight operations in remote or low-connectivity areas will not be severely impacted. While this seems tedious, it promises to be a lot easier than the draft regulations, which required the filing of flight plans 60 days in advance.
Digital Sky will classify all existing airspace into three colour-coded zones: Green Zones are where drones are pre-authorized to fly, but must still obtain a permission artefact to notify the local authorities of their intent to fly. On applying for permission, a permission artefact is returned instantly. Red Zones are where drone operations are forbidden from taking place. This includes areas such as airports, borders and other sensitive areas. Amber Zones are areas restricted by appropriate reasons as mentioned in the CAR where additional permissions are required. These requests are also initiated and managed through the Digital Sky Platform
Analytics, Tracking & Configurable (ATC) Policies is a shorthand for the regulatory functions that the DGCA will carry out to regulate the use of airspace by unmanned aircraft. It involves functions such as the classification of Red, Amber & Green zones, deconfliction of overlapping flights, incident response, etc.
The MoCA has articulated its desire for an ecosystem-driven approach to building out the drone industry. From an earlier draft of the No Permission No Takeoff technical document shared with manufacturers, it is expected that this layer of Digital Sky will be opened up to private players labelled as Digital Sky Service Providers (DSPs). We will cover more about Digital Sky Service Providers in part three of this series.
Conclusion
Digital Sky appears to be a move towards a more data-driven, phased-approach to policy and regulation for emerging technology. It is a global first and offers a truly forward-looking approach compared to most other nations.
For operators, in the long term, a formal system leads to an eco-system of authorised players, increase in trust, and rise of a legitimate industry.
Note: We have been actively following the Digital Sky policy development, Intend to bring in Part two of this blog after an active role out and implementation starts.
Bharat Inclusion Initiative seeks to equip entrepreneurs with the right knowledge, skills and tools they need to solve some of the toughest problems of India in a scalable manner using technology. While Bharat Inclusion Research Fellows are working on some of the most interesting studies, another important source of knowledge is thought leaders and domain experts who have been there and done that. In this three-part video series, we have Dr Pramod Varma, the Chief Architect of Aadhaar, providing his perspective on how entrepreneurs can go about building solutions for Bharat.
Part 1: The Key Construct
What are Bharat’s unique attributes? Its needs and aspirations? With data becoming one of Bharat’s key assets, how can entrepreneurs leverage it to provide solutions that matter? Watch the video to know some answers to these questions and much more.
Part 2: The Journey So Far
How to leverage the opportunity made available through Data empowerment? Know how Aadhaar, India’s biometric ID, has fundamentally changed the economics of reaching the poor. Understand how the Aadhaar platform has aided in building further platforms of IndiaStack such as eSign and Digilocker which have further reduced cost and increased trust at scale. The video rounds off with another uniquely Indian platform — Unified Payment Interface (UPI).
Part 3: Exciting Times Ahead
Reimagine solutions. With the newer domain, specific stacks being built, learn how even seemingly unrelated domains can use these platforms to offer innovative solutions. With GST and BBPS already in place, and more being built around transport (ETC), National Health Stack, Diksha and Drone Stack it has been never this good for entrepreneurs crafting solutions for Bharat. Watch the video to understand how.
____________________
What is Bharat Inclusion Initiative?
Bharat Inclusion Initiative (BII) is an incubator platform atCIIE that provides entrepreneurs with the domain knowledge, training, financial support, mentorship, and market access they need to bring inclusive, for-profit-business to life. BII’s core design is to promote technology-driven entrepreneurship towards the delivery of affordable services to the Bharat Segment- the poorest 200 million households in India who survive on less than $5 per person a day through programs, fellowships, and funding where possible.
The program focuses on solutions leveraging technology, especially the India Stack. It integrates financial inclusion research with entrepreneurship and training to transform these solutions into scalable, viable and high impact businesses. Keen on partnering with entrepreneurs who are driven by building next-generation digital services for India. Reach out to us at [email protected] or ask your questions in the comments section below.
Please note: The above information was first published by Bharat Inclusion Fellows here: https://medium.com/bharatinclusion/building-for-bharat-df8b12867271
There is confusion about how iSPIRT engages with entrepreneurs. This post explains to our engagement model so that the expectations are clear. iSPIRT’s mission is to make India into a Product Nation. iSPIRT believes that startups are a critical catalyst in this mission. In-line with the mission, we help entrepreneurs navigate market and mindset shifts so that some of them can become trailblazers and category leaders.
Market Shifts
Some years back global mid-market business applications, delivered as SaaS, had to deal with the ubiquity of mobile. This shift upended the SaaS industry. Now, another such market shift is underway in global SaaS – with AI/ML being one factor in this evolution.
Similar shifts are happening in the India market too. UPI is shaking up the old payments market. JIO’s cheap bandwidth is shifting the digital entertainment landscape. And, India Stack is opening up Bharat (India-2) to digital financial products.
At iSPIRT, we try to help market players navigate these shifts through Bootcamps, Teardowns, Roundtables, and Cohorts (BTRC).
We know that reading market shifts isn’t easy. Like stock market bubbles, market shifts are fully clear only in hindsight. In the middle, there is an open question whether this is a valid market shift or not (similar to whether the stock market is in a bubble or not). There are strong opinions on both sides till the singularity moment happens. The singularity moment is usually someone going bust by failing to see the shift (e.g. Chillr going bust due to UPI) or becoming a trailblazer by leveraging the shift (e.g. PhonePe’s meteoric rise).
Startups are made or unmade on their bets on market shifts. Bill Gates’ epiphany that browser was a big market shift saved Microsoft. Netflix is what it is today on account of its proactive shift from ground to cloud. Closer home, Zoho has constantly reinvented itself.
Founders have a responsibility to catch the shifts. At iSPIRT, we have a strong opinion on some market shifts and work with the founders who embrace these shifts.
Creating Trailblazers through Winning Implementations
We are now tieing our BTRC work to specific market-shifts and mindset-shifts. We will only work with those startups that have a conviction about these market/mindset-shifts (i.e., they are not on the fence), are hungry (and are willing to exploit the shift to get ahead) and can apply what they have learned from iSPIRT Mavens to make better products.
Another change is that we will work with young or old, big or small startups. In the past, we worked with only startups in the “happy-confused” stage.
We are making these changes to improve outcomes. Over the last four years, our BTRC engagements have generated very high NPS (Net Promoter Scores) but many of our startups continue to struggle with their growth ceilings, be it an ARR threshold of $1M, $5M, $10M… or whether it is a scalable yet repeatable product-market fit.
What hasn’t changed is our bias for working with a few startups instead of many. Right from the beginning, iSPIRT’s Playbooks Pillar has been about making a deep impact on a few startups rather than a shallow impact on many. For instance, our first PNGrowth had 186 startups. They had been selected from 600+ that applied. In the end, we concluded that we needed even better curation. So, our PNGrowth#2 had only 50 startups.
The other thing that hasn’t changed is we remain blind to whether the startup is VC funded or bootstrapped. All we are looking for are startups that have the conviction about the market/mindset-shift, the hunger to make a difference and the inner capacity to apply what you learn. We want them to be trailblazers in the ecosystem.
Supported Market/Mindset Shifts
Presently we support 10 market/mindset-shifts. These are:
AI/ML Shift in SaaS – Adapt AI into your SaaS products and business models to create meaningful differentiation and compete on a global level playing field.
Shift to Platform Products – Develop and leverage internal platforms to power a product bouquet. Building enterprise-grade products on a common base at fractional cost allows for a defensible strategy against market shifts or expanding market segments.
Engaging Potential Strategic Partners(PSP) – PSPs are critical for scale and pitching to them is very different from pitching to customers and investors. Additionally, PSPs also offer an opportunity to co-create a growth path to future products & investments.
Flow-based lending – Going after the untapped “largest lending opportunity in the world”.
Bill payments – What credit and corporate cards were to West, bill payments will be to India due to Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS).
UPI 2.0 – Mass-market payments and new-age collections.
Mutual Fund democratization – Build products and platforms that bring informal savings into the formal sector.
From License Raj to Permissions Artefact for Drones – Platform approach to provisioning airspace from the government.
Microinsurance for Bharat – Build products and platforms that reimagine Agri insurance on the back of India Stack and upcoming Digital Sky drone policy.
Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) – with usage in financial, healthcare and telecom sectors.
This is a fluid list. There will be additions and deletions over time.
Keep in mind that we are trying to replicate for all these market/mindset-shifts what we managed to do for Desk Marketing and Selling (DMS). We focussed on DMS in early 2014 thanks to Mavens like Suresh Sambandam (KissFlow), Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks), and Krish Subramaniam (Chargebee). Now DMS has gone mainstream and many sources of help are available to the founders.
Seeking Wave#2 Partners
The DMS success has been important for iSPIRT. It has given us the confidence that our BTRC work can meaningfully help startups navigate the market/mindset-shifts. We have also learned that the market/mindset-shift happens in two waves. Wave#1 touches a few early adopters. If one or more of them create winning implementations to become trailblazers, then the rest of the ecosystem jumps in. This is Wave#2. Majority of our startups embrace the market-shift in Wave#2.
iSPIRT’s model is geared to help only Wave#1 players. We falter when it comes to supporting Wave#2 folks. Our volunteer model works best with cutting-edge stuff and small cohorts.
Accelerators and commercial players are better positioned to serve the hundreds of startups embracing the market/mindset-shift in Wave#2. Together, Wave#1 and Wave#2, can produce great outcomes like the thriving AI ecosystem in Toronto.
To ensure that Wave#2 goes well, we have decided to include potential Wave#2 helpers (e.g., Accelerators, VCs, boutique advisory firms and other ecosystem builders) in our Wave#1 work (on a, needless to say, free basis). Some of these BTRC Scale Partners have been identified. If you see yourself as a Wave#2 helper who would like to get involved in our Wave#1 work, please reach out to us.
Best Adopters
As many of you know, iSPIRT isn’t an accelerator (like TLabs), a community (like Headstart), a coworking space (like THub) or a trade body. We are a think-and-do-tank that builds playbooks, societal platforms, policies, and markets. Market players like startups use these public goods to offer best solutions to the market.
If we are missing out on helping you, please let us know by filling out this form. You can also reach out to one of our volunteers here:
Chintan Mehta: AI shift in SaaS, Shift to Platform Products, Engaging PSPs
Praveen Hari: Flow-based lending
Jaishankar AL: Bill payments
Tanuj Bhojwani: Permissions Artefact for Drones
Nikhil Kumar: UPI2.0, MF democratization, Microinsurance for Bharat
Siddharth Shetty: Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA)
Meghana Reddyreddy: Wave#2 Partners
We are always looking for high-quality volunteers. In case you’re interested in volunteering, please reach out to one of the existing volunteers or write to us at [email protected]
