Humans have always innovated yet in modern era any innovation that Simplified the arbitrage value, easily replicated it and there by scaled it in short time frame was termed "Technology". While the purpose of technology is to simplify, its outcome mostly is disruption. The reason is that Humans have been living inefficiently and innovation brings efficiency. A simple example of this evolution is the way "communication" has evolved over centuries when in early days, Pigeons were used to communicate that gave way to horses followed by letters and then Telegrams which got substituted by telephone and then mobile phones and now in the current phase it is called "The Social Media". One choses a tool to decide the target audience for communication, the manner and the mode of communication. In a sense, the need of communication was always there yet they were grossly inefficient and that led to the innovation over a period of time that continuously disrupted the status quo.
On the one side there is a direct impact of Technological innovation, which in above example is faster, better and secure communication efficiently. On the other hand there is an indirect impact of the same innovation which, using the above example, can be summarized as follows:
1. The entire infrastructure of Post Offices and Postmen become redundant. They have to reinvent and retrain to survive.
2. The general population is getting trained in Technology usage automatically by using Technology
While the 20th century Technology evolution was more focused towards automation within enterprises to enhance efficiency, eliminate human intervention in non-value adding repetitive tasks, the challenge however remained in proliferating the technology on one hand and making it palatable for common man to use.
Contrary to this the innovations of the 21st century are more Humane and geared up to mould itself to adopt to the general population's expectations. At the same time this evolution is eliminating the fear of technology in common population and hiding their ignorance in any domain thereby driving faster adoption and also the innovation.
So today, with a smart phone in hand the entire diverse population of the world is using technology for nearly everything that they want there by scaling up tremendously the efficiency of the entire value chain. Eg. China today does twice as many digital payments as USA does annually and India does 20 times as many as china does annually. What this means is that in the 21st Century,
1. The modernity of Societies would also be redefined as they would be disrupted absolutely by Technology. USA with over 400 years freedom and development is lagging India, just 75 years into modern development, by 40 times in digital payments..
2. Innovation would attract Capital. India, China and Israel who have taken up the innovation race will attract capitals much more than they did and may surpass the developed economies including US, for global integration has made capital flow easier.
3. Smartphones have already replaced Laptops as Last mile devices and are going to be the device as the centerpiece of all future innovations. In the next 5-6 years, the physical currencies may cease to exist and Smartphones would drive all commerce digitally.
When all this is going to happen, the innovators of 21st century need to innovate around the smart phones, the last mile devices with humane technology that can be assimilated by each and every citizen, irrespective of education, skill, language, disability et al. And That's when we would have a society where Technology is intelligent, Humane and Humans are on Technology. Unless we reach the last citizen on the planet in a language and a manner that the citizen understands and gets assimilated with that the technology, the quest for simplifying the innovation would continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment