The fourth industrial
revolution is here to stay for a while! This comes with its own set of
constraints, opportunities and challenges. How can we, in India, rise to these
challenges? We have a fairly participative democracy. Of course, we still need
to go a long way. But the digital equality, amongst the citizens, is on the
rise. Given this, how we, as citizens, including organizations, Labour unions
and other development units, use emerging technologies in order to make a more
meaningful impact matters a lot.
To see how
well India is prepared, we need to look at it from two aspects.
1 The use of emerging technologies in day-to-day space and the digital equality
There are
various aspects of emerging trends in technologies that matter in our context. Some of them are:
- Data (Public
/ Private)
- AI and machine learning
- Drones
- Blockchain / distributed ledger technologies
- Augmented / Virtual reality
2 Our response to these challenges and considerations
We have seen
various scandals in the usage of these technologies by governments and other
organizations. Cambridge Analytica used more than 50 million facebook profiles
in the US election; UK government deported thousands of students based on a
flawed algorithm to identify fake results in tests. What these mean to us is
how we respond in terms of fairness, ethics, transparency and accountability.
The on-going elections continue to pose many challenges including digital
misinformation.
Do we know
that the international committee of the red cross published a book on data
protection in humanitarian action? This gives guidelines on how to apply data
protection standards for collecting and safe-keeping of data. All the digital
data generating entities as well as consuming ones need to be aware of this.
The more AI and other technologies spreads into every aspects, the more
likelihood of widening digital inequality and rising non-transparency!
In order to
rise to the challenges, we need to strengthen digital literacy, reduce digital
inequality in terms of access and usage and start building standards and
guidelines borrowing from other international organizations.
We should be
prepared to play the role of a watchdog that holds all the players in the
digital data from creation to consumption to accountability.
We should be
advocates of openness and awareness.
We should be
able to define standards.
We should be
able to exhibit various characteristics like independence (especially when
using public and private data), motivation, passion for learning etc. that
underpin the readiness to make use of the fourth industrial revolution.
Government
will be an important catalyst. So are the private and non-profit o
rganizations.
They must come together, look at the best practices of international organizations
as well as governance (for e.g. Scandinavian way of delivering goods and
services to end consumers, public-private participation in Netherlands etc.) and
build ourselves a resilient and equitable society.
References (These are worth having a look at)
- International Red Cross – Data Literacy Playbook
- Digital Impact Toolkit helps civil society organizations with checklists, templates.
- Open Algoithms Project (OPAL)
- Digital Social Innovation for Europe
- What is a data trust?
- An example for a service delivery in vaccine delivery
- Habitat for Humanity
- The Internet Society is a volunteer driven organization to promote and preserve internet’sopenness
- Handbook on data protection in humanitarian action
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