Asoke K. Laha,
President & MD, Interra IT
Have you ever thought how the year 2030 would roll out for us? That is precisely less than 18 long years from now! Some people say it is crazy to chase and discern the challenges and uncertainties of that era. They feel that the exact nature of that timeframe is shrouded in the womb of probabilities and imaginations and is not relevant to the present. Yet another group of people feel that crude rationalizations of that period and tentative sketching of sequences of events based on some assumptions and predilections are always good to unravel the mysteries of the future.
Nandan Nilkeni, the ubiquitous IT expert, has written a book titled “Imagining India” where he has attempted to give his prognostic assessment about the future resources of India, talent pool, energy requirements, and what have you extrapolating the present data to a future timeframe. His imagination is based on the crass data, scientific methods of projection using sophisticated statistical tools and analysis of informed opinions. Could there be another way of imagining India using predilections, conjectures and letting loose your imaginations from the confines of rationality?  I feel such hallucinatory extrapolations are possible. Another techie turned fiction writer young Chetan Bhagat has written a novel called Revolution 2020, which espouses the cause for a grassroots level revolution for setting right the systemic failure of the Indian society plagued by corruption, high-handedness and gross and unpardonable commercialization.
You have every reason to ask me what purpose it serves by cobbling up an irrational and illogical matrix of events and achievements. I can defend myself. Let there be two approaches for mapping the future. One based on scientific data, interpretation and logic. The other based purely on imagination, hallucination, conjecture and predilections. Let the posterity compare both at the designated time and in this read 2030.
Nandan had a holistic idea about the Indian economy, its history, potentials, political sensitivities and limits to growth, while he romanticized about India. I cannot make any claim to possess that intellectual aura to dissect the sweeping domains. Chetan has a young and creative mind, where seeds of fiction can germinate and the new generation swears by him going by the print order of each of his novels. Therefore, let me focus on my area of expertise - Imagining IT of 2030. I read somewhere that if globalization is the buzz word for late 20th century and early 21st century, “virtual world” will be the order from now onwards. Let us decipher what this conundrum would mean to a common man. Would that mean that there will not be any classrooms, offices, hospitals, shops, malls, cinema halls, theatres, etc.? Would that mean that everything will be beamed to your drawing room - from education to your children to shopping for your day-to-day requirements to medical attention? Scientists say that it is possible and it is not an illusion. As rationalists, we reckon that such events can happen even now given the scientific breakthroughs that we have achieved. Robotics is a fast developing branch in the IT industry. I do not know how many years we are short of creating intelligent robots, which can perform all such things which the man can do without any external assistance except through subtle and creative programming.  Â
Riding on these unending thirsts for incremental innovations, discoveries and one-upmanship, it is not difficult to conceive a timeframe not in the remote future that can unravel a virtual world. It would mean that at the press of a button, everything that you want, everything you desire, everything that you crave for, can be accessed.Â
Is the virtual world that will be rolled out as years pass by is an end in itself? I beg to differ. The virtual world that is triggered by the compulsive applications of information technology is not a negation of the real world. That will not confine human beings into the cocoon of the self or its immediate confines. Will people be cocooned in the cozy comforts of their household given that they need not have to go out for working, entertainment, shopping, walking, etc. Never will such things happen. Let us go by the facts before us. In the developed world, there are facilities for running virtual schools and universities. People can sit at home and seek guidance from experienced teachers and faculty. Yet, the enrollment in educational institutions has not dropped on account of these facilities. Look at the cinema halls in Delhi. The multiplexes and high-end cinema halls have proliferated despite the CD revolution wherein one can watch the latest movies in the confines of one's household. Despite the mushrooming of websites and B2B platforms that enable easy trading, people flock to markets and shops to buy things.
Therefore, the fear that the virtual world will eclipse the real world by 2030 or in any other future timeframe would be bordering on idiotism. At best, one can reasonably argue that by that time people will have several options that can be pursued. They can decide whether they can have education through the virtual medium or by attending schools and colleges, whether they can shop around either through net or physically visiting the malls and shops, whether they would like to consult a doctor in the US through the virtual medium or physically going to a doctor nearby.
Where should one draw the line between virtual and real world? To me, it appears that there should not be any defined divide between the two. Rather, they should supplement and complement each other as if they are two sides of a coin since the virtual world is as much a creation of the ingenuity of man as the real world.
