The history of technology is about to change radically. India must seize the moment

There are no atheists in foxholes, and there appear to be no capitalists in a global pandemic either. The head of Honeywell’s billion-dollar GoDirect Trade platform, which uses a permission-based blockchain to buy and sell aviation parts, declared on March 20 that American corporations had a “walled-garden” approach to data. “They need to start sharing data, a huge paradigm shift”, said Lisa Butters. Only a couple of weeks ago, Honeywell had been defending the virtues of a permission-based system, saying enterprises “needed some constraints to operate in”. 

What a difference a few days can make. 

Historically, the aviation industry has been one of the most secretive among ‘Big Tech’ sectors, with its evolution tied intimately to the Second World War, and the US-Soviet Cold War rivalry that followed soon after. Concerns around China’s theft of aerospace IP was among the foremost drivers behind the Obama administration’s negotiation of the 2015 agreement with China to prohibit “economic espionage”. It is the ultimate “winner-takes-all” market — but Boeing, its lynchpin, has now approached the US government for an existential bailout. Honeywell’s call for a “paradigm shift” is proof that the sector is not thinking just in hand-to-mouth terms. The aviation sector may get a lifeline for now, but as an industry forged by a global war, it knows more than most that a transformational moment for technology is upon it, which needs to be seized. 

As the economist Branko Milanović has highlighted, the correct metaphor for the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing crisis is not the Great Recession of 2008, but the Second World War. To win WWII, and retain its military superiority, the United States pioneered technology complexes that placed innovation at the trifecta of a university lab, government, and market. (The blueprint for this model was drawn up in 1945 by Vannevar Bush, founder of Raytheon and director of the Office for Scientific Research and Development, and presented to the US government. The document was titled, “Science: The Endless Frontier”.) This was by no means a Western endeavour alone. Several countries, including India, followed suit, trying to perfect a model of “organised science”. In India, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research was the totem for this effort and created a centralised network of national labs. The primary difference between Western models and ones in developing countries like India was the role of the state. In the US, the state retained regulatory agency over the process of technological innovation, but gradually ceded into the background as the Boeings, Westinghouses, GEs, Lockheed Martins, and IBMs took over. In India, the state became both the regulator and purveyor of technology. 

India’s attempts to create “national champions” in frontier technologies (think Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd, Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, Defence Research and Development Organisation, etc) failed because the state could not nimbly manufacture them at scale. Even as India pursued “moonshots”, those businesses in the United States that were incubated or came of age during the Second World War began to occupy pole positions in their respective technology markets. Once those markets matured, it made little sense for America to continue creating “organized” technology complexes, although research collaborations between universities and the federal government continued through the National Science Foundation. The banyan-ization of the internet and Silicon Valley — both seeded by generous assistance from the US Department of Defence — into a market dominated by the FAANG companies affirms this shift.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the tables are turning. The United States is not only shifting away from “moonshots” but also pivoting towards “playgrounds”, settling on a model that India has perfected in the last decade or so.

The United States has often sought to repurpose private technologies as public utilities at key moments in its history. Communications technology was built and moulded into a public good by the American state. It was US law that enabled patent pooling by Bell Labs in the 19th century, leading to the creation of a “great new corporate power” in telephony. A few decades into the 20th century, American laws decreed telephone companies would be “common carriers”, to prevent price and service discrimination by AT&T. Meanwhile, both railroads and telecommunications providers were recognised as “interstate” services, subject to federal regulation. This classification allowed the US government to shape the terms under which these technologies grew. IT is precisely this template that Trump has now applied to telehealth technology in the US. Tele-medicine services could not previously be offered across state lines in the US, but the US government used its emergency powers last week to dissolve those boundaries. And on March 18, President Trump invoked the Defence Production Act, legislation adopted during the Korean War and occasionally invoked by American presidents, that would help him commandeer private production of nearly everything, from essential commodities to cutting-edge technologies. 

Invoking the law is one thing, executing it is another. Rather than strong-arming businesses, the Trump administration is now trying to bring together private actors to create multiple “playgrounds” with an underlying public interest. The Coronavirus Task Force was the first of its kind. The Task Force brought together Walmart, Google, CVS, Target, Walgreens, LabCorp and Roche, among others to perform singular responsibilities aimed at tackling the coronavirus pandemic. Walmart would open its parking lots for testing, Google would create a self-testing platform online, Roche would develop kits, LabCorp would perform high-throughput testing, and so on. The COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium, created on March 23, is another such playground. It includes traditional, 20th-century actors such as the national laboratories but is doubtless front-ended by Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and Google Cloud. The Consortium aims to use its high computational capacity to create rapid breakthroughs in vaccine development. Proposals have been given an outer limit of three months to deliver. 

In some respects, the United States is turning to an approach that India has advanced. To be sure, we may not currently be in a position to develop such a playground for vaccine R&D and testing at scale. But India is well-positioned to create the “digital playgrounds” that can help manage the devastating economic consequences of the Covid-19 epidemic. There is a universal acknowledgement that India’s social safety nets need to be strengthened to mitigate the fallout. One analyst recommends “a direct cash transfer of ₹3,000 a month, for six months, to the 12 crores, bottom half of all Indian households. This will cost nearly ₹2.2-lakh crore and reach 60 crore beneficiaries, covering agricultural labourers, farmers, daily wage earners, informal sector workers and others.” The same estimate suggests “a budget of ₹1.5- lakh crore for testing and treating at least 20 crore Indians through the private sector.” 

The digital public goods India has created — Aadhaar, UPI and eKYC — offer the public infrastructure upon which these targeted transfers can be made. However, cash transfers alone will not be enough: lending has to be amplified in the months to come to kickstart small and medium businesses that would have been ravaged after weeks of lockdown. India’s enervated banking sector will have meagre resources, and neither enthusiasm or infrastructure to offer unsecured loans at scale. “Playgrounds” offers private actors the opportunity to re-align their businesses towards a public goal, and for other, new businesses to come up. Take the example of Target, which is an unusual addition to the Coronavirus Task Force, but one whose infrastructure and network makes it a valuable societal player. Or Amazon Web Services in the High-Performance Computing Consortium, which has been roped in for a task that is seemingly unrelated to the overall goal of vaccine development. 

If digital playgrounds are so obvious a solution, why has India not embraced it sooner? None of this is to discount the deficit of trust between startup founders and the public sector in India. Founders are reluctant to use public infrastructure. It is the proverbial Damocles’ sword: a platform or business’ association with the public sector brings it instant legitimacy before consumers who still place a great deal of trust in the state. On the other hand, reliance on, or utilisation of public infrastructure brings with it added responsibilities that are unpredictable and politically volatile. To illustrate, one need only look at the eleventh-hour crisis of migrating UPI handles from YES Bank in the light of a moratorium imposed on the latter earlier this month. On the other hand, the government retains a strong belief that the private sector is simply incapable of providing scalable solutions. In most markets where the India government is both player and regulator, this may seem a chicken-and-egg problem, but c’est la vie.

Nevertheless, there are milestones in history where seemingly insurmountable differences dissolve to reveal a convergence of goals. India is at one such milestone. A leading American scientist and university administrator have called the pandemic a “Dunkirk moment” for his country, requiring civic action to “step up and help”. By sheer chance and fortitude, India’s digital platforms are poised to play exactly the role that small British fishing boats played in rescuing stranded countrymen on the frontline of a great war: they must re-imagine their roles as digital platforms, and align themselves to strengthen the Indian economy in the weeks to come. 

Arun Mohan Sukumar is a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and a volunteer with the non-profit think-tank, iSPIRT. His book, Midnight’s Machines: A Political History of Technology in India, was recently published by Penguin RandomHouse.

Tech Startup Awards launched by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge launched the Tech Rocketship Awards 2016-17, held in Mumbai.

With the intent to identify and support some of India’s best and brightest start-ups, the initiative will assist them to scale globally.

techieThe Tech Rocketship Awards – an initiative by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) in India – provides top Indian startups with expert business advice and support from leading professional services companies in the UK. This year the competition gets bigger and better: the ten most promising start-ups from the competition will win a week-long business trip to the UK; where they will get access to venture capitalists, experienced industry leaders and entrepreneurs that can help and guide them to set a firm business footing in the UK.

Kumar Iyer, British Deputy High Commissioner Mumbai and Director General of UK Trade and Investment in India said:

“We are delighted to have The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge launch the Tech Rocketship Awards today. We’re looking for the next batch of leading Indian entrepreneurs that will probably change the world through their technology. Some of the young entrepreneurs Their Royal Highnesses met today already have some truly amazing innovations.”

Four innovative and young entrepreneurs showcased their products to a panel of business leaders and iconic figures in the entrepreneurial world – Anand Mahindra; T.V. Mohandas Pai, of Aarin Capital; Saurabh Srivastava of the Indian Angel Network and young entrepreneur Shradha Sharma of YourStory a leading tech media platform.

Mr. Anand Mahindra said: “The UK is a hotbed of technology and we need to deploy that know-how in India. The Tech Rocketship Awards is exactly the platform that can give young Indian entrepreneurs access to the UK’s prowess in this sphere. Mahindra group drives various initiatives to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship both within and outside Mahindra and we are creating a start-up ecosystem that allows it to leverage its strengths and create value for entrepreneurs. I am looking forward to judging the entries for the competition this year”.

Applications are open to entrepreneurs under 40 in India who have been operating a company created from the year 2000 onwards. One winner will be selected from each of five categories – Cleantech, EdTech, Fintech, Medtech and smart manufacturing – and a further five winners will be selected in the ‘Judges Awards’ section, from any sector. The winners will be announced at the UK-India Technology Summit in New Delhi, in November 2016.

The UK provides an excellent platform for Indian companies to grow their businesses overseas, with world leading financial and professional services and a burgeoning technology sector.

Further information

  • Tech Rocketships website
  • GREAT for Collaboration: Launched by Prime Ministers Modi and Cameron, the campaign celebrates and drives trade and investment partnerships between India and the UK, and showcase the great things the UK and India can do together. The two PMs and ten of the countries’ most senior business leaders appeared on a video to launch the campaign.
  • UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) is the government department that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy and offers professional, authoritative and personalised assistance to help companies in India locate and expand in the UK.
    • the UK has been a popular destination for Indian investments for over 100 years.
    • with low tax and a talented workforce, Britain is one of the easiest places to grow your business.
    • it takes only 13 days to set up a business in the UK, compared with the world average of 35 days.
    • the UK is ranked 6th globally for Ease of Doing Business. According to World Bank’s report (Oct 2015), the UK has become an easier place to do business in the past year after reforms to red tape and corporate tax
    • in 2014-15, the UK won a record number of inward investment projects and maintains position as top investment destination in Europe.
    • India emerged as Britain’s third biggest job creator in 2014 as the country saw a 65% increase in foreign direct investments (FDI) from India. In 2014-2015 Indian investments in 122 FDI projects created 7,730 new jobs and safeguarded 1,620 jobs in the UK. (Source UKTI)
    • the total number of people in the UK employed by Indian companies has increased by 10%: from 1,00,000 in 2014 to nearly 1,10,000. (Grant Thornton)
    • ICT, advanced engineering and life sciences are among key sectors for investment from India.
    • the UK offers the lowest corporation tax rate in G20, and is a gateway to Europe and the world

 

Tech Startups: Here Is A Chance To Take Your Rocketships To The UK

The Great Tech Rocketships Initiative (GTRS) 2016 is back again – only bigger and better. It is all set to introduce high-potential tech companies from India to the best in the UK.

The initiative was started last year with the intent to provide a platform to startups with innovative and disruptive ideas that have the potential to scale up globally.

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If you think you have the potential to grow overseas, or are looking to expand globally, the GTRS initiative may just be the platform to help you explore global markets.

RocketShips to the UK – an initiative by UK-India Tech Bridge, with UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), and iSPIRT – is tailor made for startups with impressive and unique ideas that can be transformed into fast-moving and hyper-growth ‘rocketships’ globally.

UK is an excellent platform for Indian companies to get access to the right exposure and a wide gamut of resources that can assist them to go global. It is the number one destination for FDI in Europe, having attracted a record number of FDI projects, bringing in the largest financial value and associated jobs over the past year. It has a vast pool of experienced industry leaders, veterans, venture capitalists and mentors that can provide the right direction to startups to establish a firm footing abroad.

Networking plays a pivotal role in fast-tracking the growth of a startup. Platforms like GTRS can provide startups global connections that are otherwise not easy to develop. Good mentoring and access to vital resources can be a great help for early-growth stage companies, and this is exactly what the GTRS initiative aims to help accomplish.

The winners of this program will get a fully paid (flights + accommodation) week-long trip to UK where they will get a chance to interact with world class investors, local entrepreneurs, policy makers, accelerators and incubators. There will be a guided tour of Tech City, Europe’s most vibrant innovation hub and science tech-park, where they can network with like-minded entrepreneurs, start-ups, research scholars and pioneering companies, explore the local entrepreneurship eco-system in the country and identify opportunities to scale up their business in the global level.

All participants shortlisted in round two will get a detailed feedback and assessment report from Applyifi. Moreover, the Top 10 finalists will be invited to join a mentoring program, where they will get advice and inputs from experienced entrepreneurs and investors.

Last year, close to 300 startups had sent their nominations for this coveted Program, of which 61 ideas were shortlisted after thorough screening by our prestigious jury, and 5 of them were declared the winners after a round of presentations at Demo Nights held across 5 Indian cities, viz., Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. The winners (Agrima Infotech, Congruent, Frilp, ToneTag and Talview) spanned diverse sectors and got a chance to visit UK to explore expansion opportunities.

If you think you have it in you to make it to the coveted list of startups that’ll head to UK, fill up our application form and explain why you think your company is ready for the UK global adventure. The shortlisted applicants will be invited to pitch to a panel of experts at various locations – Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, and Gurgaon.

The last date for applications is JANUARY 31st 2016.

For more follow us on UKTI_India on twitter and Linked In; #GREAT4Collaboration; #ifnotnowthenwhen

 

 

 

Are you a Tech Startup? You are part of a Fraction

Fraction

I remember this TED talk by Hans Rosling as he echoed the sentiments that I’ve heard working closely with Market Research firms:

Even with quantitative data, you have to be careful because as much as they are hard numbers, they usually are averages of two extremes – and the markets are full of extremities.

Truth is, if you follow (just) the numbers and build a product, you might end up with something that half convinces one group and slightly lures the other but never raging fans – in short, you build a product that is average.

Which means, that in order to improve a system, its not necessarily the most effective way to measure the system has a whole, you have to look at the individual parts of it and see which part of it is inefficient and work on that as a unit, rather than the whole system.

Organizations, love to club “Entrepreneurship” as one big whole chunk of gooey and that is very misleading.

I came to realize this working for a few years with IIT Madras, and interacting with the government and realized two things – their priorities were on cutting edge technology (patentable, and hence hard core sciences – some of which were a few layers away from direct commercialization) and the other was employment. If you think about it, it fundamentally comes down to the two priorities any government would have – security (economic and physical) and job creation, which are the key elements to a society, everything else is incidental.

How does technology entrepreneurship play into all this? If you are not building patentable technology (but an application – Yo! to the dudes and dudettes building Twitter 2.0) and if you do not have an intent to hire the masses to come work for you, you really don’t factor in anywhere at all.

That’s why when I read articles and the entire social media sphere going abuzz about the government plans t0 create 10,000 startups, and trying to force fit technology startups into that equation, I cringe, because thats like tryin to get a rhino into a bride’s wedding dress.

“According to a recent planning commission study, India needs to support nearly 10,000 scalable start-ups by 2022 to provide some level of sustainable job creation to the 140 million potential job seekers entering the workforce over the same period”

Some rough estimates say that there are close to 24 – 32 million (I know its vague but vague is all we have, because nobody has actual data) small and medium enterprises. Most of them are spread in the 1200+ Industrial clusters in India. When the government says “Startups” that is the ideal target they have in mind. It is none of the 350 odd brilliant, fraction of the whole equation demographic at all. The image in the mind of the government and policy makers when they say “startups” is someone who can be part of that 140 million job creation scheme of things – which means its the labour industries first, followed by manufacturing, followed by vocational skillset based organizations, followed by service companies (IT and Hospitality), followed by Research and development. You and I, don’t factor in at all.

The Key is to recognize that, before writing a post saying that things are sweet and sour. Truth is that the Tech Startup Ecosystem is on its own. And it survives on its own. It is nascent, very nascent and things are as crazy as the wild wild west. Not all entrepreneurs know what it takes to be in India and be building a business here, most of them complain that they are born in the wrong country, and most others just whine that this is not the valley. Some others are fooling themselves into believing that we are somehow there.

So steps to take:

1. Organizations like TiE have seriously lost their focus, gearing further and further into general entrepreneurship (so is CII, and FICCI and etc), rather than having a focus – when they are positioned best to help, but are just wiling away.

2. Understand that there is no such thing as an ecosystem yet, there is a landscape and like cattle there are some startups and enablers around. When my CA knows why a tech startup which has no “machinery” is valued at a crore, and all he sees is four guys and their laptops, then we have made the first step in building an “ecosystem”, not yet.

3. Building the Tech Startup Ecosystem, will take a concerted effort, by not the govt, or by one or two people, but by many who share this vision and are willing to play a non-zero sum game. Think beyond what you get (right now).

4. Our early successes will come from companies that will move out of India, go to the valley and succeed. Hopefully some of them will find a reason to come back and become that corridor. So don’t grumble when some of them leave, if they come back we should involve them. Israel’s ecosystem was built that way. There are ways to accelerate it, but that goes back to point (3) about a concerted effort. Investors will have to think beyond just deal flows, technology companies have to think beyond getting startups on their platform, and entrepreneurs have to think beyond just getting funded as their agenda.

5. Stop thinking small, and incorporating in India because of Patriotic reasons. Be global, incorporate where needed and keep your options open. Leverage all the exposure you can get. You are not competing with that startup down the road, you are competing with your counterpart globally.

6. If you are a startup, stop wasting your time in ecosystem stuff, there are enough of us around who have made it our mandate, if you really really really want to help, succeed amazingly well. There is very little replacement for what a success like FlipkartMobmeWebengageFreshdeskFusionChartsVisual Website OptimizerTenmilesOrangescape or a like can do.

Suceess breeds inspiration, while all the enablers can lay the roads, its entrepreneurs succeeding that really lights up the runway.

So don’t crib. Leverage India for what its worth. You can build amazing businesses here, but it will require getting your hands dirty. In short, be resourceful and make the most out of it. We are on our own.

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