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Business Insider India2020 to 2030, the "Techade"Unsplash
The next ten years will be the decade technology — or ‘techade’ — according to experts.
NASSCOM president Debjani Ghosh said that it's imperative to ensure that it’s India’s decade.
Infosys COO Pravin Rao feels the world is going to change drastically over the next ten years — from self-driving cars becoming the new normal to clothes connected to the internet.
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Self driving cars on every road, clothes connected to the internet, medical chip implants and India at the center of the tech world — this how experts see the next decade playing out.
The next ten years — the “techade” — will define the role technology plays in India’s economy.
“We have to ensure that this is India's decade,” NASSCOM president Debjani Ghosh said at the event in Mumbai.
The power dynamic is already shifting towards Asia with countries like China and India taking the lead, according to her. And, India will finally have a chance to transform manufacturing with technology— the sector that was skipped over between the shift from agriculture to services.
“India has all the potential to become a software product nation. We have already laid down the policies for that,” said India’s IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad at the India Digital Summit last week.
According to the chief operating officer at Infosys, Pravin Rao, right now we only buy our clothes online. In another couple of years, clothes will be online — as in connected to the internet.
“Autonomous cars will be the norm and the way we commute will change forever,” said Pravin Rao.
Bosch, Audi, Toyota, Nissan and even Google are working on making autonomous cars a reality. However, it’s not without its speed bumps. Ride-sharing companies like Uber are betting their future on self-driving cars but investors feel that there’s a lot that can go wrong.
The automotive industry in India is one of the biggest in the world. While it holds a lot of potential, the success of automotive cars in India hinges on better infrastructure, roads, and internet connectivity.
Smart devices will take over homes
“Devices in our homes will be smart and autonomous,” said Rao pointing out that it’s already started to happen. Most urban homes in India have at least one smart device indoors — anything from a Google or Amazon-enabled smart speaker to smart lights they can control using their phone.
According to a PwC study, the smart home market in India is expected to expand at a compounded annual growth rate of 9% till 2022. However, like with autonomous cars, the success of smart devices depends largely on uninterrupted connectivity.
Smart devices at the workplace — bots in boardrooms
“Our homes will be more than homes, and the definition of work-life balance will be very different,” explained Rao.
Companies like Microsoft, Google and ZOHO are already peddling smart solutions for the workplace — big and small. But smart devices at the workplace and about more than just streamlining process.
“Perhaps a bot will be sitting in corporate boardrooms,” he added.
Smart technology can hone in ambient temperatures to boost productivity, bring about better air quality and even use the power of virtual reality for more impactful presentations.
Health will monitored with the help of microchips
Solutions like pacemakers and smart insulin pumps are already changing the way people address diseases. “Implanted microchips will monitor our health,” said Rao painting a picture of the future.
Apple’s smart watches have reportedly been a boon for health research. Researchers have already come up with smart tattoos and smart ink to monitor health. The next step is to take microchip impact from a tech-geek novelty to a genuine health tool.
“People will look at history and judge the industry and how it stood up to these challenges,” said Ghosh.
The death of cash
India has been pushing hard for a cashless economy since demonetisation. “India is becoming the most powerful center of digital payment. We have developed BHIM UPI a home grown technology,” said Prasad.
While there was a temporary surge in cashless transactions when the supply of cash was scarce, things have more-or-less returned to normal and cash came back into the economy.
However, Pravin Rao believes that the end of cash is only a matter of time. “We will probably see the death of cash [by 2030],” he said.
3D printing reduces dependency on imports
3D printing, across all sectors, has the potential to revolutionise supply chains. This is especially true for a country like India that went from being an agrarian economy to jumping head first into the services sector — skipping over the development of manufacturing entirely.
“3D printing will revolutionise manufacturing. It may even bring down global trade by 20-30%,” said Rao.
The government’s push to ‘Make in India’ is already trying to boost indegenous innovation. However, 3D printing could open up a entirely new vista of possibilities.
“At NASSCOM, we believe it is a tremendous opportunity for India to become the world's largest playground to implement technology like AI in areas like farming that are important to us,” said Ghosh.
India will be the hub of data processing
“I am very keen that India should become a center for data processing,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, at the IAMAI event last week
India’s homegrown tech companies like Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HCL Technologies and Wipro started global — but now they’re concentrating their efforts on the domestic market. Large government institutions like SEBI, India’s securities watchdog, have enlisted their help to track possible market manipulation.