Dr. Nigam Dave* in Gandhinagar, October 2, 2016 : Philosopher Hannah Arendt once remarked, “Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. Revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up.” The Prime Minister of India has rightfully set the tone for the projects like Make in India and Digital India.

Now we need more brainstorming thinking to inspire confidence in India’s capabilities for all investors and citizens at large, design a framework of recent and changing technical information on 25 industry sectors, reforms and right policy directions and mechanisms to reach out to a vast local and global audience.

The collaborative models of Make in India stress on transformational power of public-private partnership, private-private partnership and inter-sectoral partnership within India and abroad. We cannot ignore the fact that digital data integration is giving advantages to leading manufacturing economies like Germany, Israel, and Japan.

China is learning fast to integrate its production system to minimize the cost, promoting efficiencies with real time data integration. Now we need more strategic decisions that even leading Indian leaders would have to make in order to march ahead as a global leader. For startups there can be no excuse, they need to build upon it.

Integrated Approach

Draft Education Policy on the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India portal emphasizes on the creation of new knowledge. Leading government and private universities, institutions, research organizations need to promote generation of new knowledge and their applications in collaboration with Industries to consolidate and strengthen India’s position as a soft power.

Universities are required to renovate their pedagogies and prioritise their focus by developing Centres of Excellence in relevant technologies. IISC’s Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM) is already in the process of establishing smart factory with funding from the Boeing Company.

In this IoT (Internet of Things) framework “things”, “objects”, or “machines” are enhanced with computing and communication technology and join the communication framework. In this framework, wireless and wired technologies already provide the communication capabilities and interactions, meeting a variety of services based on person-to-person, person-to-machine, machine-to-person, and machine-to-machine interactions and so on.

India has Scope and Market

We have entered the fourth stage of innovation – the era of Big Bang Disruptions. Frost & Sullivan describe Industry 4.0 as “an inevitable necessity for the Indian economy.” Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) report indicates by 2024-25 our IT revenue may jump to US$350 billion. India has twin advantages of a low-cost economy, and a highly skilled of age 28 and under. They are capable of addressing IoT related solutions if coached by their seniors in the industry, academia, and industry people.

To take it further identified technical institutions may be allowed freedom to hire these professionals and inculcate vision in our skilled youth. Adoption of IoT related solutions increase the productivity of engaged workers because of the increasing competitiveness of the economy. Industry 4.0 is certain to demand more upgraded skill sets in workers and pure blue collar jobs will fall. We expect more IT and data specialists jobs in most sectors including government sector.

Public orgnisations are struggling with computerization of data and difficulty and complications in data integration. Awareness and market for it is growing as people are using different devices and applications on different protocols. Private sectors are in the process of seizing the opportunities applying cross device integration. There is a concern for the storage tools of data. More jobs are created for the need for analyzing and retrieving the relevant data. Data availability is going help Indian psychology to overcome reluctance or roadblocks due to risk aversion and propel many towards entrepreneurship. This stores best rewards for ‘quick mover’ including startups.

Differences between IoT and Internet

(‘SENSE’ – Key attributes of the IoT and how it differs from the ‘regular internet’)

Source- Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research

Rolls Royce and Microsoft Corp have collaborated to enhance the capabilities of Rolls Royce engines using advanced intelligence Microsoft Azure IoT suite and Cortana Intelligence suite with service solutions to. CariQ prepares a device registers conventional data of car driving but because it is connected with peers one can compare data like mileage and speed with others. Commercial markets focus on consumer history, performance, and value for their marketability of financial and investment products including banking, insurance, financial services, and ecommerce.
IoT has integrated both cyber and physical world using artificial intelligence and augmented reality for better productivity and enhanced results. The process of automation is becoming accurate, faster, more customized and better networked through digital interface. IBM’s Ross (a computer) is able to understand the human language, the questions asked pertaining to regular law and equipped to provide legal advice like a lawyer.

Smaller to Begin-with and Faster Scale up

These small changes are small new disrupters. Gradually they scale up. By tying their products to the exponential growth and falling costs of new technologies, their offerings can be simultaneously better, cheaper and more customized. Not just for one group of users but for all (or nearly all) customers. This isn’t a disruptive innovation. It’s a devastating innovation.

Disruptors are Constant Factors

Task for Leaders

The industry 4.0 is definite to boost the culture of innovation. Industry needs to adopt it, workforce needs to adept at it. This is required for the existing industry, to retain their competitiveness with cost reduction in production of goods. It would also lead to better efficiency and accuracy. We expect successful corporate promote this practices.

They also have bigger duty to secure the system as operating in the cyber space makes it more vulnerable and high –risk activity. Individuals are worried off for personal data theft as there are regular instances of users are caught off guarded.

The biggest challenge that our leadership at industry, academia and political front need to deliver is that of ensuring digital literacy, skill development to help build more pro-entrepreneurship environment and seize opportunities of new market and help leveraging existing advantages.

*(Dr. Nigam Dave is the Director, School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.)