It’s been a fascinating story to observe how technology has
completely transformed how we live. For people like me, who grew up in a
socialist though democratic setting of a third-world country, to observe that
transformation has been truly mind-blowing. It has been a wild ride to the
current state I observe living in the Space City, the Energy Capital of the
world – Houston.
Transformation of Kolkata, where “compooter” was a
mysterious machine in the 80’s to now seeing live video streams from Pujas and
soccer matches from there shows the unifying power of technology, I revel in
that and wanted to take you on that ride, which we went through.
Technology – the past
– City of Joy
Growing up in central Calcutta in my ancestral home, my
house was a hub of activity from my father’s clinic to a local sports club on
our premises to activity in our courtyard to playing table tennis in our dining
hall. From morning to late at night, our phone would ring on and off – call for
my doctor father from a patient or someone in my locality getting a phone on
our home phone. Telephone was a critical lifeline, but few had it.
TV came in 1975 to Kolkata. Grainy images with the same
monotonous sound would greet viewers and the show would go on for approximately
three hours on that one channel. My dad, my sister and friends would gather to
watch the important games of various Calcutta Leagues (soccer, field hockey,
cricket), the soccer trophies, the world cup cricket, India’s cricket matches.
That was technology for us at that time. Our Morris Minor car stood in my
house’s courtyard where I would play cricket or soccer with my friends. There
was no gadget per say in the car – just a vehicle of convenience. Mind you, I
still had not ever seen or touched a computer through high school.
Doctors still felt your pulse, tapped your stomach and
looked at your tongues. There were no myriad blood tests/stress tests/MRI’s and
other esoteric diagnostic test. My dad still diagnosed over calls sometime; did
his rounds in his car. There was a human touch; technology and insurance were hardly
a consideration.
Finally, a tryst with destiny happened. In 1983, I qualified
to study Computer Science at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),
Kharagpur. Also, we, my batch of South
Pointers had five of the top 10 in West Bengal Joint – all of us, who took the
plunge into computers in 1983, still remain in technology. I remember one of my
relative said “Babi is so lucky – will only work in AC rooms”.
But, I became excited
about the future. I finally saw the amazing machine – a COMPUTER! Was one of
the lucky few to access computer all through my four years of college. I was
fascinated by the potential of that machine. While I did have fun with various
activities, I still drew immense satisfaction learning technology. Even then, I
contributed as much with my writing as I loved learning technology and science
and math. Creative writing and expressing myself coexisted with the hard world
of technology and science.
In India, there was this fear of technology. It first
started with the banks – there were strikes at banks worried all the jobs would
be replaced by computers. There were worries in public sector companies as
corruption and bribery could vanish with computers bringing more transparency.
Computer was still a bad word for industry and labor unions.
I remember the Left Front government wanted to ban computers. Would technology
ever take off in India?
Technology – the
present – the Land of the Free
Artificial intelligence was THE talk of the technology world
in 1987. NASA, US Defense and other organizations were thinking of using
sophisticated AI, Computer Vision to do image processing, driving expert
systems. I left India for graduate studies to work at Intelligent System
Laboratory, funded by NASA and NASF, at University of South Carolina – one of
the three premier Computer Vision Labs in USA.
When I walked in to the Lab with 60 different computers,
processing thousands of pictures from space all through the day and night, I
was dumbfounded, amazed. Each picture triggered a mysterious set of sounds with
pictures being printed. I had never seen such a scene – even the Sci-fi films
had never shown such scenes.
One of my jobs was also teaching Apple computers to the
freshmen. I felt envious that young college freshmen from all majors were
getting a taste of computers while we still feared computers in India. PC’s and
Apples were making inroads in US homes while I was still struggling to connect
my expensive, weekly phone calls to my parents and sister. I desperately wanted my motherland to be on
the technology bandwagon – I firmly believed that computers will change the
billion people there.
It was time to think about how I could contribute to the
technology evolution. I was always fascinated to use technology to solve
business problems. Instead of pursuing PhD at Cal Tech, I came to Texas A&M
as NASA and NSF also offered me a full scholarship to pursue research in
Computer Science and Aeronautic Lab while getting MBA. On graduation, I came to
Houston to work at Schlumberger on technology in energy space, working on the
first expert system for drilling using real-time sensor information.
One thing to note: laymen in US were still not that
conversant in technology. People still did not have personal emails; work
emails were often internal; you needed permission to browse internet, that too
for official business purposes. Only techies like us did IRC chat (Internet
Relay Chat). We also set up message boards – internet groups like
soc.culture.indian and rec.sports. cricket were the forums for hot debates and
discussions.
Towards the second half of the 90’s, all that changed.
Mobile phones became the rage; internet became accessible to all. Personal
emails started with jungle which became Hotmail, brainchild of an Indian techie
– Sabeer Bhatia. Now, people started accessing personal emails. Yahoo and AOL
messengers became THE communicator mechanism – people started talking about
chat. They found long lost friends. It impacted lives of people everywhere –
people were easily reachable over phone be it US or India; people started
having access to same information. Satellite TV started beaming Indian shows
and cricket matches. We started watching good quality Indian movies here; NRI’s
here got hooked to Hindi serials. Indians there started watching CNN, HBO.
Walls were coming down.
Potential of technology to transform lives was in early
stages. Personally, by then, had moved on to the big bad world of leveraging
technology for profitable and efficient energy trading. Dynegy and Enron were
at the forefront – the new world of speculative trading in energy commodities
and deregulating energy supply had just opened up.
The new millennium saw two important changes which
completely revolutionized how we looked at technology. Those two were: 1) smart
phones 2) social media. They evolved from
a fascinating phenomenon impacting few critical industries to an everyday tool impacting
our way of life, anywhere and everywhere, 24 hours a day. By this time, walls
were completely gone – news spread instantaneously across the world.
Information was easily available – good AND bad. Now, whether it was the grocer
or the maid, everyone had phones, they could send pictures, access information
and talk to anyone, anywhere. India and US, at least on the consumer end, were
on comparable terms.
India made significant progress in technology. Google,
Facebook, Microsoft had a huge group of Indian engineers and leaders and,
millions of users and consumers. Technology touched people directly – farmers
checked forecast on their phone in remote places. I saw priests sending mantras
on the phone at weddings in India. Kids were glued to phones and games.
Positive movements started on social media. On the downside, people spread
malicious rumors and fake news. These started having deleterious effects both
in the East and the West. Popular movements took off on the backs of social
media; politicians fanned sentiments to help their cause. On the positive side,
The Arab spring started on social media.
In short, technology was not restricted to a few or just to
a computer. It was in everybody’s hand, accessible across the globe. If we stay
ethical, do not cross the boundaries of decency and integrity, it can do
wonders.
Technology’s Crystal
Ball – Challenges and Potential
Technology has enormous potential for the future. It can
impact aspects of our lives, which we cannot even think may be impacted.
Convergence of devices and data will happen – IoT (Internet
of things) , big data, smart devices are all joining up. For example, you will
have smart fridges with RFID (Radio-frequency ID), which will connect to
internet and access data. Your smart fridge can determine that your milk carton
is empty, access your profile, determine what sort of milk you should drink,
order the right milk for you using your Amazon profile and get supplied by
drone to your house. This pulls the information from your fridge in your house,
data from doctors, online grocer and financial institution (credit card)
together.
Convergence of equipment and experts will happen. A doctor
will be able to perform surgery remotely through smart equipment, looking at
your brain over the computer, with all your data at his fingertips.
Incredible progress in visualization and media will happen.
Virtual reality will become reality. Self-driven cars will take over. It is
very conceivable that in a self-driven car, all passengers including drivers
may don VR glasses and watch 3D VR movies. While the car is on the road, a
drone may supply you food and drinks just like refueling flights in mid-air.
Super-fast flights and pneumatic tubes or chutes transporting cars at
incredible speeds will cut down on commute time.
Nanotechnology and medicinal advances will significantly
improve the quality of life. Very pointed removal of tumors or application of
medicine to just the cancer cells can cure so many things without the side
effects.
Big data and analytical tools, combined with artificial
intelligence and machine learning, will be able to analyze data and make
decisions much better. Commodities trading, one of the most sophisticated areas
of trading which I am involved in, will benefit tremendously from trend
analysis, applying innumerable other factors, in making decision to trade. It
will help with energy distribution and using the optimal buy and sale of
commodities for your energy and food needs. Using right data, advertisers can
target ads for the right people at the right time.
Cell phone usage will skyrocket. Media houses will compete
with citizen journalism; you will see videos right from the scene; you can
verify facts by going through humongous amount of videos in a matter of
seconds.
One of the downside may be loss or at least re-positioning
of jobs. One of the more vulnerable areas may be mundane jobs, which can be
replaced by robots or “bots”. RPA – robotic process automation may replace
outsourced BPO jobs like call centers.
Benefits of digitalization and advanced technology will
hopefully far outweigh the negatives. Hopefully, we will stay honest, be
cognizant of the responsibilities of using technology correctly and make huge
impact to lives of people, all around the world.
In 1987, phone calls
were of poor quality and extremely costly between India and US. Now, a son in
US and his mother in India can Facetime videos live at almost zero cost. Looking
back, the excitement I felt the first time I saw a computer in college was just
the beginning of a beautiful future driven by technology that I hope will
continue to evolve and bring people closer, make lives happier and health
better.
