Transcript of speech by Mr. Ajay Swahney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Telecommunication during the webinar on Opportunities for cooperation in ICT sector between India and Russia held on July 29,2020.
Earlier this year I was in Moscow and I remember the very good discussion with both government and people from industry as well as experts from academia & research. All of us have benefitted from the Mathematics and Physics books from Russia. I acknowledge that the best books have come from Russia. Earlier this year when I was in Russia I had a chance to renew my acquaintance with some of that and my compliments to the work that gets done in pure sciences in Russia, which has always helped us bring tremendous insights and help to be the spring board from which technology come. It is science from which technologies take shape and this core science is so powerful in Russia that this combination of basic sciences and technologies is the direction in which the cooperation between India and Russia can be forged further.
The areas of interest in India are already well known to our friends in Russia. But I would like to emphasis, especially when we are going through a Covid pandemic, the need for further and quicker movement on digitalization. I think this need is felt by everyone. During this pandemic we have kept all our systems running and are able to function quite well. The decision making whether in government or in industry is continued unabated. More and more people are adopting digital technologies. Inspite of very serious spread of pandemic in different cities, almost on extremely short notice our IT industry was able to start working from home seamlessly and I am told that 97% of their employee were working from home and hardly a ripple was felt on the service that are being delivered. The same thing happened within the government as well. From being accustomed to coming to office, attending meetings, going through various policy formation processes, to engagement with different stakeholders, I think suddenly we found that we are not coming to office but work is still going on. We were able to almost seamlessly switchover to a system which handled the same thing through electronic processes. We were able to meet through Video Conferences, sometimes multiple Video Conferences achieving more than we could have done even by moving to office as it saved the travel time.
Our experience during this pandemic has also been that we were deeply engaged in using technology for managing the pandemic. A Bluetooth contact tracing app ‘Arogya Setu’ that the Government of India launched was actually developed in less than 3 weeks. Immediately after the launch it went on to have more than 10 million users. Suddenly we realized the kind of abilities that are there within our ecosystem. An extraordinary ability that in 3 weeks, 15-20 young tech persons with the guidance of 3-4 persons within the government are able to come together and build a fairly complex IT system, an app, which is able to scale up to 100 million without breaking into sweat. Suddenly we realize that all this is available with us and it’s only that that we have been using technology in a limited way. Its time to use these technologies far more than we have been doing. Its time to use these technologies in governance, healthcare, education, agriculture and allied activities, financial services, payments and logistics. There is a sense of urgency and confidence that many of things which we used to attempt as a 3 year plan of action or as a yearlong or 3 months, the timeframe in which we achieve this can be compressed simultaneously.
We are encountering challenges to the economy in India, in Russia, in Europe and all across the globe. There are going to be challenges in every sector. There has been a disruption to the economic activity and there will be problems on financial side. We have to look towards technology and the strength that it brings to us and this is the journey on which we have embarked in India. I am quite certain, having visited Skolkovo and other extremely exciting locations in Moscow, that a similar groundswell of activities that are similar in acceleration of our processes are happening in Russia as well. The strength that Russia has in pure sciences, the strength that it is building in bringing together innovation and incubation of new companies, tapping and harnessing the newest technologies coming our way whether they are in additive manufacturing, 3D printing, blockchain, AI or Big Data Analytics or Industry 4.0.
I am sure that activities that both sides have embarked upon have a lot in common. We have a lot of complementarity between what we do here in India and the strength we have in Russia. Many of these strengths are actually represented not just by the government but also by industries. I am very happy to see major companies from India participating in this & equally having tremendous participation from Russia. While the two countries have extremely friendly relations, it’s important to move forward with business to business collaboration, participation and tapping of opportunities. When the industries from our side and industries form Russian side get together and explore these opportunities, I am sure we will find tremendous fit. There is a natural complementarity and this is what I would request all of you to tap.
Specifically I would point towards the opportunity in Software, as it is a significant contributor to IT services. We in India are moving towards building software products ecosystem & while building our own we have been using products across the globe. Over the past 3 years, we have seen very beautiful products emerge from India’s ecosystem, where youngsters are now making tremendous efforts. Young companies are exploring all the possibilities of software product rather that only offering software services. So this is the one direction in which we see tremendous amount of new energy flowing into creation of new products in India. Similarly electronics manufacturing has grown significantly in 7-8 years in India. We have a very strong base today especially of assembly of mobile phones and several other segments. 2020 should see us moving into very large scale of manufacturing. Till now a lot of concentration for electronics manufacturing was for Indian market. This is year marks a major milestone in our thinking, planning and in our capacity. This year onwards we are starting to go to a scale that caters to the demand not just in India but move significantly towards exports.
Some of the largest companies from across the world are today manufacturing in India. The supply chain components ecosystems are moving India very swiftly. Segments like medical devices, defense electronics, automotive electronics, consumer electronics, robotics etc. are excellent growth areas for us. As we go into much larger scale of manufacturing in India these are huge opportunities. At the same time in e-governance or use of technology within government we have some excellent successes in terms of National Public Digital platforms. Many of you might know about ‘Aadhar’, our digital identity system with 1.24 billion people having online aadhar identity, which doesn’t require a card and can be used for various services by each of the resident in India. We have an excellent GST network, a nationwide platform which has created India into a unified market. Government e-market place and UPI i.e. unified payments interface have been tremendous successes over past few years.We are moving forward with National Digital Health platform, National Digital Agriculture platform and Education platform. Similar efforts are been made in criminal justice system and logistics. This once again creates tremendous opportunities for new product and services to work alongside government and to provide services to huge market in India. We are very confident that the kind of new services & products that are emerging from this effort will go on to serve not just Indian markets but they are capable of serving markets abroad.
So this is the ecosystem in which we are welcoming our friends from Russia. There is a bottomless pool of talent in India; there is a huge system of startups not just in major cities but in more than 100 towns and cities. This is the place where large numbers of companies are becoming unicorn, almost 28 companies that have risen in past 3 years. Now we have another term ‘ Soonicorns’ i.e. soon to be unicorns. I think we have at least 80-90 companies that are today identified as ‘ Soonicorns’ in India. This is a very happening place and time and I would once again extend a very warm invitation to our friends from Russia. Please explore, get to know what is happening in India. It’s an India that is moving on a very different trajectory. This is the time to come and invest, and create partnership with your counterparts in India. This is the time when we can come together and create completely new products and services not just for India and Russia but for the whole world. With that hope I look forward to, as Ambassador Varma has mentioned, a significant delegation from Russia coming to India as soon as the pandemic is under control.
