Society’s operating system needs an upgrade. The model we have been using is simply not up to the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.A new era is unfolding at breakneck speed. It has huge potential to address some of the world’s most critical challenges, from food security, to reducing congestion in big cities, to increasing energy efficiency, to accelerating cures to the most intractable diseases.
Every industrial revolution even as it brings disruptions ultimately delivers more jobs, opportunity and progress, connecting people even more closely to the world around them. The invention of the steam engine reduced the need for raw human strength, canal systems and horses, as well as the blacksmiths who cared for them, but it sparked a new era of manufacturing, railways and shipping that created the arteries of the modern, global economy.
Be it AI or Blockchain, what works in India with its inherent diversity, complexity and scale will work in the world. Back in the 20th century, I took my first driving lesson in Jaipur, Rajasthan. At the start of the lesson, the instructor declared that learning to drive a car in India will prepare me to do so anywhere else in the world, with ‘minor adjustments’.