Day 3 of the Conference
Healthy dialogue and hefty doses of humour marked UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani's industry keynote on the 'Unique Identification Project and its Challenges' on the closing day of the IFIP WG 8.6 International Conference on June 29, 2013 at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
To a packed hall of young people, academicians and industry experts, Nilekani listed the reasons behind the need for a unique identification number for every Indian, explained the philosophy of inclusiveness and empowerment that formed the bedrock of the tech solution and took tough questions about 'project problems that keep him awake at night!'
Nothing unnerved the savvy man - not even a brave 'What is UIDAI's recruitment policy?' from a spunky member of the audience. "Do you want to be hired? Sure, come on over but let me tell you that we are a small team and we do not pay like McKinsey, so be ready to take a pay cut," Nilekani shot back, without missing a beat.
His approachable manner and his willingness to take on the trickiest and toughest of questions endeared him instantly to his audience.
Delving - at length - into the architecture of the IS developed by Aadhar, Nilekani answered concerns on everything from security to data sharing to the cost of the project and ROI to key challenges faced by the project.
Strategically, Aadhar has, he said, scored a perfect 10. "We have cracked the tech challenge by keeping the design of the information system (IS) simple, minimalistic and unambiguous. We have developed scalable, interoperable architecture to create a platform that will fundamentally change public service delivery," he said.
According to Nilekani, the focus of Aadhar, which he described as 'a virtual Ellis Island' (the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States from 1892 until 1954), was now on sustainability and irreversibility.
Even though he described the logistics and supply chain management of a project of this scale - providing unique identification numbers to 1 billion Indians - as 'massive enough to give anyone sleepless nights', he sounded a satisfied man.
To him, the societal impact of Aadhar remains remarkable "because it liberates locked identity and makes services accessible to all. It eliminates the bargaining power of the service provider and changes the balance of power".
Hopeful that the design architecture of Aadhar would take it the GPS way with a proliferation of apps that can benefit everyone, he reiterated the fact that the project was "more development driven at this stage rather than apps driven".
"Improving the quality of public service delivery is our key agenda; the fact that some embassies have been telling us that they can use Aadhar to simplify the visa process is encouraging but , to me, what is exciting is the app that we developed to enable financial transaction and ensure e-benefits transfer of LPG subsidiary to people's bank accounts. That's at the heart of Aadhar - empowerment. In my book, right now, giving a simple solution that can benefit a large number of people is better than developing a sophisticated system that benefits just a few people."
Earlier, in the day, a six-member panel discussed the road ahead for IT and how ICT can be used to make a better world. The panel comprised Professor Michael Myers, Dr Deborah Bunker, Professor Sarv Devaraj, Dr Amany Elbanna, Dr Shirish C Srivastava and Dr M Ravishankar.
Conference Chair Professor Dave Wastell summarized the session with his comments on ways of reconciling multiple stakeholders to make IS frameworks work in a meaningful and effective manner.
Day 2 of the Conference
Provoke, prod and persuade. That could well have been the tagline for Day 2 of the IFIP WG 8.6 International Conference, which saw a short but superbly structured industry panel discussion on the 'Societal Impacts of ICT'.
Chaired by Professor Sourav Mukherji, IIMB, the panel on June 28, 2013 had five industry leaders list the challenges for ICT, spell out interesting initiatives and assess the impact of ICT on society.
In his opening remarks, Dr Ashwin Mahesh, CEO of Mapunity, argued for public information platforms and public problem solving. "All of society should work towards solving social problems. The technology that we use to solve social problems should be built by all of society. It's time to break out of the 'silos' mentality," he said.
Mapunity is a social technology firm that built India's first city transport information system for Bangalore, which is now a model for replication across other Indian cities.
To Dr Ashwin Mahesh, the challenge for everyone involved in developing and adopting ICT for public good is to shake off paralyzing complacency.
Dr Srinivas Padmanabhuni, VP, ACM India, and AVP, Infosys Labs, called upon software architects to retain a strong focus on inclusivity, ethics and security while building information systems. "The ICT community is obsessed with functionality while what we need is close attention to non-functional requirements," he said, declaring that the coolest mobile app could be the most pointless one if it did not serve the needs of, say, a visually challenged person.
Chetan Patil, Founder CEO, Rakya Technologies showed why every industry leader using ICT would do well to leverage the power that comes from asking simple questions. Rakya, he said, had not only developed ICT for healthcare in a small town like Bagalkot in Karnataka, it had proved that "Made in Bagalkot software could become widely exported software!"
Rakya's success, he said, came from being able to leverage technology to provide cost-effective healthcare services to the needy. "When I visited hospitals in my hometown of Bagalkot, I did not sell my product. I sold the idea that my product could save people's lives by saving the time of doctors and adding value to their service," he said.
Building on the theme of 'keeping tech solutions simple', Dr Pramod Varma, Chief Architect, UIDAI, shared the thought process that went into creating an inclusive, simple and connected application programming interface (API) for Aadhar. "We have built a platform and we are sure innovation will happen on the outside of this platform. UID, to me, is like GIS. It can be used for all kinds of innovation," he said.
Amit Prakash, advisor, Social Sector Consulting, Deloitte India, and an IIMB alumnus, focused on the use of ICT for development, especially in areas such as education, healthcare and livelihoods for marginalized groups in society. "Should ICT for development projects be treated as IT projects, developmental projects or public service delivery projects?" he asked, indicating that ICT for development projects must display inter-disciplinary characteristics to serve the needs of society.
Earlier in the day, Karlheinz Kautz, Senior Research Professor, IT Management & Innovation, University of Wollongong, Australia, delivered the keynote address on 'Sociomateriality and Information Systems Success and Failure', using a case study on Olympia Online, an e-business system developed by an Australian general insurance company that proved to be both a super success (for users) as well as an astounding failure (for the company).
Day 1 of the Conference
The 2013 Conference of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 8.6 (IFIP WG 8.6) was inaugurated on June 27, 2013 at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB). The theme of the conference is 'Grand Successes and Failures in IT: Private and Public Sectors'. The three-day event is being held on June 27-29, 2013 at the IIM Bangalore campus and is organized by the Centre for Software & Information Technology Management (CSITM) at IIMB.
The focus of WG8.6 is the diffusion, adoption and implementation of information (and communication) technologies. This is the first time that the Group has met outside of its usual haunts, of North America and Europe, apart from one visit to Australia.
"We were delighted that the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore agreed to host the conference. Not only is this an important step in broadening the international reach of the Group, but with Bangalore known as the Silicon Valley of India, reflecting the city's position as the nation's leading IT exporter, what better place in which to gather," said Professor Rahul De, the Conference Organizing Chair.
"The conference is a result of three years of serious thought, serious hard work and serious belief that information systems should be really about human progress," said Professor De, crowning his opening remarks with a charming couplet on journeys and destinations from the celebrated Indian poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan's collection of poems, 'Madhushala'.
In his welcome address, Professor Devanath Tirupati, Dean Academic at IIMB, observed that while there was plenty of anecdotal evidence about how some information and communication technologies succeed while some others don't, the IFIP WG 8.6 conference would be a welcome step to ensure that there will be more serious deliberation on the subject, especially about the 'failures' and the lessons learnt from them.
Emphasizing the need for synchronization between IS and operational systems, he said that a tragedy like the Himalayan tsunami that has ravaged Uttarakhand in India could perhaps have been avoided had technology been used effectively. "Technology should not remain locked in labs and research institutes," he remarked.
Conference Chair Professor Dave Wastell introduced Professor Geoff Walsham, Emeritus, Judge Institute, Cambridge University, who delivered the academic keynote address on 'Successes & Challenges in ICT based Projects: Some Evidence from India'.
Listing IT & Business Process Outsourcing, mobile phone explosion, Indian Railways passenger reservation system and public information systems in the state of Andhra Pradesh among India's successes in the adoption and implementation of information and communication technologies, Professor Walsham drew attention to the need to integrate ICT with wider technical solutions, embrace a multi-disciplinary approach and build a strong ethical agenda for information systems.
The challenges, according to Professor Walsham, stem from having top-down ICT projects that fail to meet low level needs.
Emphasizing that the industry must develop a healthy respect for knowledge of local people and their needs, he gave the instance of a pharmaceutical company, headquartered in a European country, which implemented its information system - in English - in all its subsidiary offices, including the one in Brazil.
"When I visited the company's office in Brazil, I found that the IS was installed but nobody used it because it was in English. This may sound like a trivial example but I have seen, in my whole career, that at headquarters, IT head honchos insist that all is well but at the grassroots the reality is very different," he said.
Calling for attitudinal and institutional change, Professor Walsham spoke of the need to go beyond having information systems that merely work to developing systems that make a better world.
"That - technology for a better world -- should be the rallying point of all technologists," he declared.
As one of the programme coaches of the conference, Professor Yogesh K Dwivedi from Swansea University, United Kingdom, welcomed the delegates to the three-day conference that will have academic and industry panels and an address by Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI.
For more information, visit the conference website: http://ifip86.iimb.ernet.in/
