Evolution of technology and its impact to lives – a Journey from City of Joy to Space City

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.