DIGITAL INDIA IN 2023... THE WAY FORWARD

Covid rocked the world. It almost took away two years from us but if I see the silver lining in this pandemic that will be Digital Adoption by the mass population. India has taken huge advantage of digital technologies not only to test, track and trace but also for vaccination and awareness. In my opinion, Covid has shrunk 10 years of digital adoption in two years. Digital India has become a life-saving initiative for the country and in my option will continue to make an impact in people’s lives.

On the other side, the crypto crash has wiped out more than $2 trillion in wealth. As per Crunchbase, venture capitalbacked companies absorbed $2.9 billion in the third quarter of 2022, down 66% sequentially and 81% year-on-year. We have the ongoing Big Tech downsizing, with tens of thousands of job losses. Now with 2023 upon us, this is an opportune moment to reflect upon this tumultuous year, learn lessons and start looking ahead.

BEST INTERNET EVER
In 2023 we could look at mass impact through 5G adoption. High throughout and low latency have made 5G an exciting trend to watch out for in 2023. In October 2022, the Prime Minister of India Sh. Narendra Modi ji launched 5G in the country and unveiled various 5G use cases of various Telecom Service Providers in education, health, worker safety, smart agriculture, etc. For enterprises, both large and small, 5G will play a vital role in extracting value in sectors like manufacturing, automotive, gaming, education, and industries through digital twins, smart manufacturing, immersive content, etc.

HUMANS LIKE ROBOTS
We have heard of social robots and Cobots or collaborative robots who can work just like your colleague in the office. 2023 will see robots becoming more like humans. You should not be surprised when you see a robot taking on the role of check-in executive, bartender, concierge, or caregiver for the geriatric. They’ll also perform complex tasks in warehouses and factories as they work alongside humans in manufacturing and logistics. Elon Musk revealed 2 Optimus humanoid robot prototypes and said company would be ready to take orders within next 3 to 5 years.

DRIVERLESS VEHICLES
It’s hard to move to a new city without Mapmyindia or google map app on mobile. These maps are now powered with AI and automobiles to take us to the destination we want, without any directions from Drivers. Driverless cars and trucks are already getting permission and soon that will be a reality in India too.

DIGITAL HYGIENE
Digital Hygiene is a phrase that refers to the practice of maintaining your tech devices, protecting your digital information, and safeguarding your electronic assets. Digital hygiene will be more important than ever for everyone including architects, designers etc. I have many reasons to believe that cyber attacks will increase in 2023 and people need to protect themselves more than ever before. Even MSMEs/ SMEs will be targeted and may face huge cyber threats. Most of these attacks take advantage of known vulnerabilities that have not been remediated.

AI AND PREDICTION
In 2023, more technology teams will focus on putting data and actionable insights in the hands of the entire workforce. AI will process the enormous amount of data generated by every organization, external data sources will be leveraged to gain even more insight and data governance will become a priority for more organizations. Even the AI projects by GoI like Bhashni will make a huge impact on people’s life.

DIGITAL INDIA ACT
A significant amount of work has been done on the proposed Digital India Act, and the draft legislative framework to support ‘India’s Techade’ is expected by early 2023. The upcoming Digital India Act will reportedly classify various online intermediaries such as social media platforms, e-commerce, and factchecking portals as different categories and come out with specific regulations for each of these categories. The new law is likely to prescribe different kinds of intermediaries because their regulation has to be different.

DIGITAL CURRENCY
Imagine your all currency notes get converted into digital form. That will be the norm soon by our RBI because of CBDC. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot launched by RBI in the retail segment has components based on blockchain technology. CBDC is a legal tender issued by the RBI in digital form. It is the same as the fiat currency and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency. Only its form is different — it is not paper (or polymer) like physical cash. It is a fungible legal tender, for which holders need not have a bank account. Some might confuse it with UPI, but let me tell you, it’s different. A CBDC is a digital currency that can be used for various financial transactions, while a UPI is a payment system that enables digital payments between participating banks and financial institutions.

MULTILINGUAL INTERNET
Multilingualism becomes an extremely crucial aspect to bring the next one billion users onto the network. There are more than 7,000 languages used across the globe. In India, we have 22 scheduled languages. Govt of India has prepared a policy for Multilingual Internet and Universal Acceptance. Localized domain names and email addresses are the key pillars. On my idea to promote Universal Acceptance in the world, ICANN along with UASG are going to celebrate UA-Day every March 28 and the first-ever UA-Day is going to be celebrated globally in the year 2023 with the main event in India. This will accelerate the process to bring the non-English population online. All businesses, websites, and services have to accommodate email addresses in different languages, for instance, अजय@डाटा.भारत (email ID in Hindi).

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

DR AJAY DATA The writer is Co-Chair FICCI ICT and MD — Data Group