National Technology Day: What Experts Are Saying
The day, which aims to commemorate the scientific and technological achievements of Indian scientists and technocrats.
Technology is considered as a key factor for economic development. For the economy to grow at a sustainable rate, adopting the latest technologies that augment the business performance is essential along with upgrading the skills of existing workforce. Like every year, since 1999, India observes May 11 as the National Technology Day – that aims to commemorate the scientific and technological achievements of Indian scientists and technocrats. This year, as the world is scrambling to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, tech experts speak about how technology is helping their businesses to function during the Corona Crisis.
“As National Technology Day is being observed today, it serves as an important reminder of the difference that technology has made in our lives and how with its help society is becoming more resilient and is able to tide over such crisis’ faster. Today, we are going through uncertain times with the outbreak of COVID-19, and everything about our personal and work lives have changed dramatically. Thanks to the development of new technologies, a large proportion of the workforce in India and globally were able to shift to remote working with the help of collaboration and communication platforms, video conferencing and more. Also, with the extended lockdown, people are able to connect with their near and dear ones through similar apps / platforms. At Flock, we are constantly updating our platform with the latest features and technologies, to provide our customers an all-in-one solution that takes care of an organisation’s messaging, email, calendar, screen and file sharing, and productivity needs.”
– Devashish Sharma, CTO at Flock
“During these COVID-19 times, technological innovations in various fields are helping us function smoothly in every aspect of our life. Right from being able to work remotely to connecting with loved ones over video chats, etc., technology is playing a central role. We at Goldmedal Electricals are focused on developing technology-led products and solutions for all our stakeholders including consumers, electricians, and retailers with an aim to empower them. We have developed technology-led home automation products that can be accessed using our mobile app and through voice-commands thus enabling consumers to control their electrical devices easily and efficiently. We are also focused on incorporating new technologies in manufacturing, inventory management, sales, and accounting which helps us seamlessly link production with inventory, sale, dispatch and even payments. This allows us to efficiently manage our production and inventory levels and track dispatch and payments. Our channel partners can use mobile and web-based platforms to order, check delivery status, and even make payments and receive credits – all in real-time. We have also used technology to connect with our retailers and electricians using the Paytm-developed Dhan Barse platform. This helps us to communicate directly with them without any lag. As we observe National Technology Day on 11th May 2020, I would like to say that technological innovations are helping MSMEs like Goldmedal to up their business game and are really making a positive difference to our lives.”
– Bishan Jain, Director at Goldmedal Electricals
“As we observe National Technology Day on 11th May, it is important for us to take a step back and evaluate how technology has been playing a critical role in keeping everyone connected in the current COVID-19 lockdown times. As a country, each citizen has been making use of innovative technology-driven solutions to make it through this social distancing phase. Right from watching movies via OTT platforms to Virtual meetings, trainings and education delivered online, literally every industry sector is moving digitally. We are constantly working towards creating innovative solutions in the space of 5G, IoT, satellite communications, 5G broadcast etc. During the times of the COVID-19 outbreak, we believe that changing the way the current networks are deployed and adopting to a whole new set of technologies such as 5G Broadcast, AI based traffic steering, WiFAR etc are crucial to improve user experience; provide a smart data pipe for content; monetize the underutilized spectrum and to provide connectivity to the unconnected.”
– Parag Naik, Co-founder and CEO, Saankhya Labs
“National Technology Day is celebrated on 11th of May every year to recognize the innovations in technology that is creating a better India. This year, it is more contextual considering the challenges we are navigating due to COVID-19. From enabling remote working and collaboration to empowering banking, healthcare, education to function digitally, the developments have been a strong testimony to India’s Digital Prowess and Capabilities. Post COVID-19, India will be strongly positioned to leverage its IT infrastructure, human capital and internet penetration to create enterprises that will address the most pressing issues using new-age digital technologies.”
– Neelesh Kripalani, Senior Vice President and Head, Center of Excellence (CoE) at Clover Infotech
“The current pandemic has offered a testing ground if India is poised to take the “only digital” mode. We also have the pronounced need to create awareness through reliable resources in a language that citizens can understand. Almost all the government portals are available only in the English Language and to some extent in Hindi. Localizing all government to citizen portals in Indian languages is the need of the hour. Not only this, but the nuances of localization are also still an overlooked aspect that most firms fail to consider – for example a shopping cart button as a checkout option which does not make instinctive sense to Indian internet users who are not used to shopping at a supermarket. Wherever there is a digital end-user touch point, it has to be in local languages. If we re-define – “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” for the 21st century, language localization to enable a Digital India would fall under the basic physiological needs, just like internet connectivity to connect the next 500 million.
– Vivekanand Pani, Co-Founder and CTO Reverie Language Technologies
“When pandemics such as the recent COVID 19 strike, human life, global economy and the business world are all under serious threat and is not a new phenomenon. The difference today is with the new technologies, such as Cloud Security, AI, IoT, Big data, and others, the process of finding a cure is faster, much to the delight of scientists.
While this will take a while to materialize, more importantly we have to acknowledge, technology is also ensuring continuity of businesses. Virtual meetings, cloud conferencing, remote access to data among others, ensure work is not impacted while social distancing is being maintained. The new work culture is also in a way preparing for the next outbreak and leveraging technology for better functioning will certainly become the ‘new normal’. Work-from- home option will increasingly be considered more than before in the coming years. With technologies such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), work collaboration tools, cloud technology and others, remote working will ensure work will not be impacted across many industries. This will also provide the much needed flexibility while saving commuting time. Some associated challenges with isolation will be addressed too in the long run.
Cloud adoption is becoming more crucial too with an increase in remote working. Cloud management provides easy access of data for employees to work and share at the same time data is protected too. According to Gartner, by 2022, upto 60% of the organizations will leverage cloud-managed service offering by an external service provider.
Related services such as online delivery and digital payments are increasingly leveraged leading to the retail sector to establish a robust logistics system. Yes, supply chain 4.0, will leverage its core technologies such as Big Data, Cloud Computing and Blockchain to enable better customer service with timely delivery of both essentials and non-essentials to the end customer.”
– Amit Gupta, Co founder & CEO at Rapyder Cloud Solutions
“For over four decades, successful Silicon Valley companies have been banking upon OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) a deceptively simple goal setting and management system to fulfill their company objectives. Google, Apple, Amazon, Linkedin, Microsoft , Netflix and Square are some examples of disruptors who have reinvented their industries. There is one common theme that is pervasive across these companies – All of them have adopted the OKR business execution methodology.
In the current uncertain economic environment businesses need to use their resources in a prudent manner, ensuring that the entire company executes the company’s mission, in tandem through a highly collaborative working environment. OKRs also ensure that everyone is aligned at all levels and “out execute” their industry peers.
In India, business verticals like Banking and Financial services, Healthcare, Manufacturing and logistics and Technology services are adopting OKRs to dramatically improve their execution . They started by distilling their aspirations into about 5 Objectives and Key Results for the quarter. Their teams were then engaged in the “bottom up exercise” of converting these corporate OKRs into departmental and individual OKRs. An OKR platform like Profit.co makes OKR adoption a smooth process by easy integration with existing systems.
Within a period of few quarters these companies have reduced their cost base, increased their market share, created great new products while improving employee and customer engagement. It is clear that with these great initial results OKRs in India are here to stay!”
– Senthil Rajagopalan, President & COO at Profit
“India is experiencing a digital revolution that is triggering transformative developments in areas like e-payments, digital literacy, financial inclusion, geographic mapping, rural development, much more. Digital economy is the new platform to transform India into an empowered society. Especially, the current pandemic has offered a testing ground if India is poised to take the “only digital mode” along with creating the awareness on certain security precautions is the need of the hour. I really appreciate that the government is taking all measures to encourage people to go fully digital and I am certain that India will reach the target to create over $1 trillion of economic value from digital economy before 2025.”
Ramki Gaddipati- CTO & Co-Founder, Zeta
