My Views: Core Competence for Knowledge Society

Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

A knowledge society can be one of the foundations for such a vision for the nation; Developed India. Knowledge has many forms and it is available at many places. It is there in human brains acquired through education, information, intelligence and experience. It is available in academic institutions, with teachers in libraries, in research papers, seminar proceedings and in organisation in various forms such as workers, managers, in drawings, in process sheets and on the shop floors. Knowledge, though very well connected with education, comes equally from learning skills-our artists, craftsmen, hakims, vaidyas, philosophers, saints and our housewives-knowledge plays a very important role in their performance and out-put. Our heritage, rituals, epics, rural, herbal, medicinal products and history all are as vast resources of knowledge as our libraries and universities. There is an abundance of unorthodox, earthly wisdom in our villages. There are hidden treasures of knowledge in our bio-reserves, oceans, mines, birds and environment. Every State in our country has a unique core competence for knowledge society.

Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power. The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area throughout the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. India is a nation endowed with natural and competitive advantages as also certain distinctive competencies. But these are scattered in isolated pockets and the awareness on these is inadequate. During the last century the world has undergone a change from agricultural society, where natural labour was the critical factor, to industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. In the 21^st century, a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. Efficient utilisation of this existing knowledge can create comprehensive wealth of the nation in the form of better health, education, infrastructure and other social indicators. Ability to create and maintain the knowledge infrastructure, develop knowledge workers and enhance their productivity through creation, growth and exploitation of new knowledge will be the key factors in deciding the prosperity of this knowledge society. Whether a nation has arrived at the stage of knowledge society is judged by the way the country effectively deals with knowledge creation and knowledge deployment.

Knowledge society has two very important components driven by societal transformation and wealth generation. The societal transformation is on education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. These lead to employment generation, high productivity and rural prosperity. How do we do that?

Wealth generation is a very important task for the nation, which is to be moved around national competencies. The task team has identified core areas that will spearhead our march towards knowledge society. The areas are : information technology, Bio-technology, space technology, weather forecasting, disaster management, telemedicine and tele-education, technologies to produce native knowledge products, service sector and infotainment which is the emerging area resulting from convergence of information and entertainment. These core technologies, fortunately, can be interwoven by IT. IT took off only due to enterprising spirit of the young. Thus there are multiple technologies and management structures that have to work together to generate knowledge society. It has to be recognized that the difference between an IT-driven society and knowledge based is the role of multiple technology growth engines. With India carving a niche for itself in Information Technology, the country is hence uniquely placed to fully capitalize the opportunity to quickly transform into a knowledge society. The methodology of wealth generation in these core areas and to be able to meet an export target set at 50 billion dollars by the year 2008, especially using IT sector is the subject of discussion, while simultaneously developing capability to generate Information Technology domestically to pump in for societal transformation.

Evolution of policy and administrative procedures, changes in regulatory methods, identification of partners and most importantly creation of young and dynamic leaders are the components to be in place. In order to generate wealth, which is the second component for establishing a knowledge society, it is essential that simultaneously a citizen-centric approach to evolution of business policy, user-driven technology generation and intensified industry-lab-academy linkages have also to be established.

India becoming a knowledge super power by 2008 is a very important mission for the nation. While a knowledge society has a two dimensional objective of societal transformation and wealth generation. The hard-earned wealth and the transformed society, which are two pillars on which the knowledge society is supported, have to be protected in order to sustain a knowledge society. The knowledge protection is the third dimension to the objective. The knowledge superpower status brings in its wake a tremendous responsibility to strengthen Intellectual Property Rights and culture should be protected against multiple attacks launched through business or culture or media, particularly foreign. Working for knowledge superpower has to lead the nation for economic prosperity and national security. It is very important, that our communication network and information generators have to be protected from electronic tacks through surveillance/monitoring and building technologies to handle such attacks. There should be a focussed approach to Intellectual Property Rights and related issues and major private sector initiatives have to be launched in the area of technology generation for information protection.

In 1960, agricultural areas employed in parts or in full 74% of people of the country and it reduced to 62% in 1992 and expected to further fall to 50% of people in agriculture by 2010. Whereas, the demand for agricultural products will double in quantity. Technology productivity and post harvest management will have to compensate the man power reduction in farming and agricultural products sector.

In the case of industry, in 1960, 11% of the population was used in small and large scale industries. The trend continued with 11% even during 1992. However it has to increase by 25% in 2010, as the GDP growth with high technology in WTO opening situation. The pattern of employment will take a new shape. Service or knowledge industry from 15% employability in 1960 has increased to 27% in 1992. And further it will increase to 50% in view of infrastructure maintenance areas and IT sector and entertainment demands. This big change will demand in all areas more trained skilled human power and technologist personnel. Our industries and commercial chiefs may have to get ready for such transformation in agriculture, industries and service – knowledge industries.

The fact that there is net migration from villages to cities indicates that, in the opinion of the rural people, cities are better placed to live. Ideally, both rural and urban areas should be equally attractive with no net migration either way. Near zero net rural urban migration is a mark of completed development.

How can we achieve that happy state of affairs? Rural development is the only solution and the details are described as a process which provides rural areas with all desirable amenities that are currently available only in cities; will generate as a consequence employment on the same scale, and at the same level, as cities do will provide these benefits at a small fraction of the financial, social, cultural and ecological costs the cities have to bear.

It is the expectation that this combination of employment and ecology will make rural areas as attractive as cities are, if not even more attractive. Then, rural development may be expected to prevent, if not actually reverse, rural-urban migration.

Experience in India has demonstrated that the true handicap suffered by rural areas is poor connectivity and little else. That lacuna may be rectified by linking together a loop of villages by a ring road and high quality transport. That transport connectivity creates in those linked villages a large enough market to support a variety of services, which the villages will not be able to do individually. Thereby, the ring road and transport service together convert those villages immediately into a virtual town with a market of tens of thousands of people. Such a well connected rural space (combined with state of the art telecommunication connectivity) will have a high probability of attaining rapid growth by setting up a virtuous circle – more connected people attracting more investment and more investment attracting even more people and so on. Basically, this proposal involves: a) selecting a ring of villages b) connecting the villages on the ring by establishing a high quality transport and telecommunication c) encouraging reputed specialists to locate schools, hospitals and other social services around the ring and marketing this well services space to attract industry and commerce d) internet connectivity.

Rural development is an essential need for transforming India into a knowledge super power and high bandwidth rural connectivity is the minimum requirement to take education and health care to the rural areas. Knowledge society leading to knowledge super power can prosper and survive only in the environment of economic security and internal security. The freedom movement or the vision integrated political leadership and mostly drawn from the profession of law during our freedom movement. Scientists, technologists and industrialists were partners to this great political movement. We got freedom in many aspects of life, improvement in literacy, agricultural products, strategic areas, certain small and large scale industries. Also, the life expectancy has increased. We are capable to produce sufficient food grains, cereals and milk. Today, India can design, develop and lead to production strategic space systems, missile systems, nuclear systems for national development and security. Also, we have seen in the ambient conditions the growth in Information Technology; the country is progressing in hardware and software business of more than 5 billion dollars. Now more than fifty years have gone by and we are branded as one of the hundreds of developing countries, in a distinct way a separation from G-8 countries. We have many challenges. Nearly 300 million people who are below the poverty line have to join the mainstream of good life. 100% literacy, health for all, multiple industrial and agricultural productivity and life style with value system has to blossom. Hence as the Prime Minister called the nation to enter into a developed India calls for transformation. I consider the transforming and developing India into “Developed India”, is the second vision for the nation.

In order to become a developed India the essential needs are: (a) India has to be one of the four top nations in terms of size of the economy, this means, the GDP growth rate has to be 9 to 11% and the people below poverty line must come below 10% from the present 40%.

For achieving the status of a Developed India, we have to focus on five major areas of action: 1) Agriculture and food processing; 2) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country 3) Education and healthcare; 4) Information Technology; and 5) Strategic sectors. These five areas are closely inter-related and lead to national security, food security and economic security. These five areas are marked by strong inter-linkages and progress in any one of them will lead to simultaneous action in other areas as well.

I believe that the five mega-missions when integrated and implemented with a national focus, will result in actions which will shape the Second vision of the nation. The necessary financial, managerial and human resources would flow from those whose minds are ignited, including those in the government and industrial sectors.

I have put forth the need of India entering into the vision of Developed India by 2020 it is possible to achieve this with our big resources of one-billion people, nearly half of them are young. Ignite the young minds with our core competence. Ignited souls are powerful resources in the Universe.

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