STITCHING TECHNOLOGY FOR INDIA

While the technology buzz has been around since the days of Sam Pitroda and the STD booths mushrooming all across the Indian geography. We have also heard of the War Room of the 2004 election fame and more recently the escapades with technology of Prashant Kishore in changing the election landscape. Digital India added a totally new dimension, intensity, pace and push to the Technology mission. From railways to income tax there has been a huge infusion of technology. Lots of citizen centric services started being offered to the masses. To top it all, the current COVID-19 situation finally ushered in a level of digital revolution, which non one could have even imagined.

Today, digital has become the default mode. We will never go back to the pre-COVID-19 days. While it looks hunky-dory of the face of it, the operations and usage shows the chinks in the armour, the issues are visible everywhere and still correctional solutions, if it happens, take a long time. The cost, consultancy, creation and operations are huge and generally handed over to a large number of non-serious partners. From the judicial proceedings of the Supreme Court to that of the Judicial Magistrate First Class should run seamlessly and so should online classes of very every class, complexity, geography and course. There are umpteen examples all around but suffice to say that solutions have to be provided, products and services strewn around the place will not suffice.

Needless to say that technology has to be stitched around the requirements and not the vice versa. The technology and requirements both keep changing is another problem, we are perforce to find its solution besides whatever we are asked to deliver. Stitching Technology solutions is the capability to bring products, services, requirements, funding, timelines, quality together with seamless integration of one’s expertise, skills, intuition, courage, grit, perseverance and project management capabilities to make it happen. But for specific human traits and precise expertise everything is available on the fly. But that has not yielded results so far and it is not likely to do so. We all need the solutions but solutions have to worked upon, created, tested, tried, validated and scaled. Solutions have life in the same way as requirements and problem statements have.

A proctoring solution for example is a must for the educational system. It is being managed by Google forms to what not? The ritual has to be gone through. If large number of exams could not be held, if was because we were incapable to do so. Nobody even attempted to find a solution. This is only one element of the educational system moving online, each element is equally important, so is the pedagogy and its efficient and effective roll out. Come to think of doing government work from home in areas where there no physical presence required? Do we have the capability? Requisite ERP with secure access from wherever accessed can be a beginning, but before that it has to be a purely digital system. It cannot be a half baked digital replication. What about the utility of the huge CCTV networks which can barely throw up results with masks on. Time to dive deep and stitch solutions, create projects, execute and make it deliver.

STITCHING THOUSANDS OF TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CAN ONLY BRING US ANYWHERE NEAR TO A SEAMLESS DIGITAL LIVING EXPERIENCE.
Sanjay Sahay

Enjoy the weekend nostalgia!