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The world has changed dramatically in the last fifty years, much more than in the last 1000 years. A lot of the change has been brought about by disruptive products and services that did not exist before. This has been due to the blossoming of new IP from many nations:
The US gave us Amazon, Google, Gmail, Windows, Office, WhatsApp, Mobile phones, and the iPhone.
UK gave us ARM, the World Wide Web, MRI Scanners, and more.
Scandinavia, including Norway, Denmark, and Sweden gave us Spotify, Bluetooth, and Seatbelts; Linux, Google (yes, from Denmark!), Lego, and Insulin.
Japan gave us Walkman, VCR, Nintendo, Animes, Bullet Trains & more.
Though China has not produced unique products or services, it has dominated the world with its consumer goods, from TVs to Washing machines, and even laptops (Lenovo.) Every single component of iPhones is produced in China (and other countries), and we merely assemble them.
And so on.
Not a single world-beating product from India. India has out of necessity and need for self-sufficiency, has developed some fine ecosystems for nuclear energy, space, missiles and small Defense items. But not a single world-beating product or service. We have been followers and consultants but have no original product or service that has taken the world by storm.
Yes, we have our unique arts and cuisines that are still to get universal renown.
But no new IPR to shake up the world.
India has IPR.
Indians are no less than others in innovation. Only, what we have done is not known to the world or taken up by others. Many world-class products get developed but languish or die because there is no ecosystem to support them, and no own resources to take it up further. There have been some excellent products and services to come out:
- The retail financial system of UPI, fast E-Commerce, and getting small and big firms online. Nowhere else in the world does a micro-entrepreneur receive and send money electronically.
- The Electronic Voting Machine- never equalled anywhere.
- Tally, the small business accounting system that covers most Indian businesses, which has no equal in the world. It has morphed into a mini-ERP that can cater to all management functions of a small company. There are other unknown small gems.
- The pioneering work by C-DACT, which has produced a complete Operating System and application platforms in Indian languages that have languished for lack of publicity and marketing, and disinterest by our people.
- There have been many successful attempts to produce CPUs and other chips which have stopped at the lab/prototype level. We have been a force in IC design for the rest of the world but have not produced a single chip.
- Two Indian companies have at last come to equal global companies: Tata Motors and M&M. They now produce cars that can proudly compete with the rest of the world, in an industry dominated by Japanese and Korean companies.
A lot of IP has been developed in India by GCCs, including part development of MS Office, CPUs by Intel, hardware and software by Cisco, medical diagnostic equipment by GE, etc. that are crucial to the success of the product. But the IPR developed by Indians belongs to the foreign companies, that reap the benefits for long. India does not benefit except for the jobs for Indian engineers and infrastructure created locally.
So, it is not the lack of intellectual or world-leading capability- Indians go abroad and succeed very well- like the top honchos in Silicon Valley. What we lack:
- An ecosystem that encourages innovation, and takes it all the way to scaling, production, universalization, and marketing. Governments of countries like Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea have recognized in the early days of tech development the lack of this in the private sphere and created and nurtured it to enable their companies to go global.
- While the Central Government has been encouraging “Atma Nirbharta” there has been no vision to globalize our products. Our Aadhar, UPI, and fintech are globally great, but taking it to the world? No. Nor is the private sector interested or capable of spending on the resources needed.
- There is total disinterest among big companies, particularly the software giants, in product development. They are excellent at working on other people’s platforms and enhancing them, but local platforms or products? No. Not that we cannot. Microsoft long ago produced robust Indian-language versions of its products, but there are very few takers. It is as if we do not want our people to compute or develop in Indian languages.
We certainly can produce world-beating products and services and swamp the world. But we need to stop beating our chests saying we are the world’s greatest country, and that we will overtake everybody. And start thinking about how to get there. And act.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.