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Tag: technology

  • Why Gandhi would have championed Open Source Software?

    One of the greatest polymath and genius of all times, Albert Einstein, once said about the political views of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called as Mahatma Gandhi by his millions of followers, that “I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time.”. Going over his autobiography, “The story of my experiments with truth”, I find Gandhi as one of the most inspiring personalities that I have read about. As someone who works in the Information Technology sector with a keen interest in Open source in general and Linux Operating system in particular, I could vividly draw parallels between the ideology of this great political and intellectual Giant and the ideology that powers the Open source methodology.

    I have come to a conclusive opinion that had Gandhi lived today or during the times of technology and software boom, he would have become a “brand ambassador” and a thorough supporter of the open source movement. The principles that this “saintly leader having a global impact” followed and practiced in his life have several parallels with the foundations on which the open source was built. These ideals continue to stimulate and motivate millions of people around the world. Here are three resemblances between the modus operandi of Gandhi and open source that in my view reverberates with everlasting impact in the world we live in:

    A Community driven approach : Gandhi, during his days in South Africa was deeply inspired by Ruskin’s book “Unto This Last“, which he read and put into practice by establishing the “Phoenix Settlement”. Later, he was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s work “The Kingdom of God Is Within You” and established “Tolstoy Farm” near Johannesburg. The common aspect of both these establishments were that they were community driven places, an approach also central to the open source developmental framework. Communities form the nucleus of all the software written in the open source world. People who were members of the aforementioned communities formulated by Gandhi participated with a desire fueled by an intention of embedding a novel approach to life while making the society a more participative and responsible place to dwell. Participation is key in the open source world as well. Both these systems transmogrified the basis of the human thought.

    A Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach to life: The world of open source software is a world of experimentation. It is a world where the concept of DIY is implemented to its fullest and brought into its fruition. Engineers, hackers and software enthusiasts develop products that millions of people can play with, modify and recrate completely new innovations out of those products. Zealots can follow easily accessible in depth documentation to “break and make things”. This creates an enterprising environment benefitting technology, the business and the society as a whole. As I read his autobiography, I see the actions of Gandhi imbibing the same DIY scruples as the one’s described above. The “spiritual giant” was adept in experimentation and trying out new concepts himself and energizing people around him to do the same. Whether it be practicing as a Lawyer, working as a public servant, his explorations in dietary (especially his inclination towards earth and water treatment) or even learning geometry, Gandhi took the existing knowledge, mastered it, and inspired the world to implement the same in their lifestyles. It also implies the broad applicability of ideals and principles that forms the backbone of the open source realm.

    Power to the people : Through Free Software Foundation, the software pioneer Richard Stallman advocates to distribute the software in such a way that it is free for people to use and modify its source code. In 1989, he co-founded “League for Programming Freedom“, through which he campaigns against the software patents and restrictions on the use of “digital software products”. In a nutshell, he is a proponent of giving power to the people. On the same platform, Gandhi’s whole life was dedicated to empowering those who were deprived of exercising their rights. The core of both these ideologies was to challenge the existing norms and protocols and bring about a “constructive revolutionary change” in the lives of people and the world we live in. Evolving and nurturing the expression of individuality forms the spinal cord of both the philosophies.

    Whether it was the relentless pursue of truth which Gandhi immersed with the struggle for independence during colonial era or the software upheaval and revolution brought by the open source methodology to create a better technological ecosystem, I see deep affinity in both these approaches to tackle the pressing problems of the world from which we all can learn.

  • How entrepreneurial are the Indian educational institutes?

    Waterloo is a small University town located in the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of less than a hundred thousand, it is an entrepreneurial powerhouse. With more than one thousand start ups credited to its innovative history, the region is one of the most progressive startup ecosystems in the world. Situated twelve thousand kilometers away is Mumbai, India’s financial center. Indian Institute of Technology, or IIT located in this financial hub is one of the primary educational institutes in the Asian region. Its E-cell has spawned more than two thousand companies, making it the largest in the Indian subcontinent.

    This is not just a comparison between two of the finest institutes, it is a comparison between a highly developed G8 country and a one of the fastest developing countries in the world. Although, India has made great strides in developing an entrepreneurial environment, it still is a land of extremes. On the one side, we have universities that rank among the best in the global rankings, but on the other hand, we still have a significant population who can hardly put a signature with a pen.

    Indian startup scene is becoming more and more inclusive over the time. With an active role played by the governmental sector, the outreach program is reaching and changing lives of millions of people across the country. A few days back, I came across an article on Gatesnotes that talked about DroneDidis, an innovative public sector scheme which empowers women in rural Bihar to use the technology of drones to increase their agricultural output by effective use of fertilizers. This exemplifies how Indian entrepreneurial landscape is getting transformed, even though at a gradual speed.

    To create an enriching and a supportive platform for the ideas to nurture and mature into successful enterprises, it is not only the government sector that has to chip in, it is also the private players and other organizational stakeholders that need to contribute in the creation of a dynamic start up society. In my view, the Indian economical and business sector has gone through four waves of evolution. The first wave was the opening up of call centers after the liberalization of the Indian economy. The second wave was the onset of Information technology industry. The third was the investment of United States into the research and development sector in India, primarily in the cities of Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pune. The fourth ongoing wave is that of the boom in startups or technology oriented small scale businesses.

    I firmly believe that educational institutes can play an instrumental role in developing and nurturing the entrepreneurial energies of the Indian youth. They can act as a “beacon of inspiration” and provide the much needed mentorship, especially the in nascent years of the budding entrepreneurs. Although more and more universities and educational institutes are embracing innovation and entrepreneurship into their academic fabric, much still needs to be done. While I do agree that we have come a long way as an innovative and a productive society, there are challenges ahead of us.

    Recently, I was going through the specializations offered by the Master of Business Administration , or MBA program of my alma mater and I was surprised to certain extent that entrepreneurship was not one of those. It is not only my university business school that still hasn’t introduced entrepreneurship as a stream, the story is same for majority of the educational institutes across the country. The startup scene on the campus is still concentrated in the premier universities of the country like the IIT’s, IIM’s and private educational colleges.

    I think this is where we still have a gap and this is what needs a change. While I do agree that academic and vocational institutions do need to create a “white collar” workforce and prepare its pupils to excel in corporate jobs, but I strongly think that universities need to invest its resources in development of “Job creators” as well. Incubators should be set up on university campuses which not only nourishes students in its technology departments but also encourages young and aspiring minds from arts and commerce departments as well. Students should have an access to mentorship, to investment capital and access to the market where they can launch their idea. Cutting edge paradigms and business concepts like Design thinking should be absorbed in the entrepreneurial training and skill development. The start up growth has to be inclusive for India to compete with other countries.

    It is rightly said that the development comes when the highest level of technology reaches the lowest level of the society. The “startup culture” needs to percolate deep into the Indian society. Our educational institutes have the potential to accelerate this development and catapult the nation to the global stage.