Page 69 - Abhivruddhi

The article is based on excerpts from an interview of Dr. Deepak
Shikarpur, eminent Digital Literacy activist and author.

Q. What is your general view on India becoming a five trillion-dollar
economy by 2024?
A: This is a goal which our Prime Minister has set and the one thing I
am very clear that everybody has to work for just one goal. This is
where entrepreneurs have to participate, startups have to participate,
many unicorns will have to come up. I’m personally not satisfied
with electronics and chips because today you see there is a global
chip shortage. How many factories have come up in India and what
have we seriously done to take advantage of this situation?

Q. Which role is technology sector likely to play in this endeavor?
A.I would say manufacturing of chips and semiconductors. This is one
area where we should partner with Taiwan as a country because
Taiwan is a market leader in electronics automation and chips So
what stops us from partnering with Taiwan? A workforce can be made
available to make these things happen because today, technology is
used everywhere. Tomorrow’s car will have more automation than
moving parts.
There is also an example of hospital, it also covers everything, now, so
technology is there in every aspect, but it has to percolate to ground
level operations and small changes are required which is where I am
not personally satisfied. I hope these changes happen in the future.
Technology I don’t consider as a sector anymore, technology is
everywhere, you can’t do anything without technology so you are
talking about academics, look at FMCG fast moving consumer
goods huge opportunities, healthcare, huge opportunities, you take
example of entertainment so there is so much technology in it. We
have VFX and CGI, so name a sector and it can be complete.
There is a currently a big opportunity for agriculture also.
Unfortunately, agriculture is the only sector where technology is least
used because we are working in a traditional way, the unfounded
fear that, a farmer working in the farm will be replaced with the
robot which is actually an idiotic threat. If you go to the Western
countries in US for example I will just say one acre equivalent for
India is manned by say 12 people. In the US 1000 acre is manned
by one person because the rest is all done by technology and hence

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