What can IT Industry do for India?
IT industry's contribution to the resurgence of India as a major economic power on the global stage need not be over-emphasised. What can it do for the transformation of Indian society? And, why should we burden the industry with a 'social obligation' ? Why should it be expected to do more than what happens automatically from its normal business operations ?
These are some of the questions which Amartya Sen dwelt upon in his Keynote Address at the NASSCOM 2007 India Leadership Forum in Mumbai earlier this month on "I.T. and India". He talked about the possibility of the IT industry to reach out beyond its traditional domain. While acknowledging the enormous contributions made by the industry, the nobel laureate emphasised that it can do even more, indeed in some ways, much more.
"This is partly because the reach of information is so wide and all-inclusive, but also because the prosperity and commanding stature of the IT leaders and activists give them voice, power and ability to help the direction of Indian economic and social development."
Full text of the address is available at The Hindu website. This is a must read for all Indian IT professionals. I am highlighlighting some important points from the lecture.
Amartya Sen has elaboarted on the connections between the success of IT in India and some particular features of India's past - intellectual traditions of Indian society that have tended to support the pursuit of specialized excellence, a general attitude of openness influences from far and near, etc.
Social obligations of the IT industry go beyond the very obvious charitable activities such as building hospitals, research centres and other social institutions which have traditionally been performed by Indian industry, including many of the major IT leaders. As information is key to societal change, the IT industry can take a central role in this regard and make a big difference.
"As it happens the key to the success of IT, namely accessability, systematization and use of information is also very central to social evaluation and societal change. There is, in fact, a very foundational connection between information and social obligation, since the moral - and of course the political - need to pay attention to others depends greatly on our knowledge and information about them."
IT industry's contribution to the resurgence of India as a major economic power on the global stage need not be over-emphasised. What can it do for the transformation of Indian society? And, why should we burden the industry with a 'social obligation' ? Why should it be expected to do more than what happens automatically from its normal business operations ?
These are some of the questions which Amartya Sen dwelt upon in his Keynote Address at the NASSCOM 2007 India Leadership Forum in Mumbai earlier this month on "I.T. and India". He talked about the possibility of the IT industry to reach out beyond its traditional domain. While acknowledging the enormous contributions made by the industry, the nobel laureate emphasised that it can do even more, indeed in some ways, much more.
"This is partly because the reach of information is so wide and all-inclusive, but also because the prosperity and commanding stature of the IT leaders and activists give them voice, power and ability to help the direction of Indian economic and social development."
Full text of the address is available at The Hindu website. This is a must read for all Indian IT professionals. I am highlighlighting some important points from the lecture.
Amartya Sen has elaboarted on the connections between the success of IT in India and some particular features of India's past - intellectual traditions of Indian society that have tended to support the pursuit of specialized excellence, a general attitude of openness influences from far and near, etc.
Social obligations of the IT industry go beyond the very obvious charitable activities such as building hospitals, research centres and other social institutions which have traditionally been performed by Indian industry, including many of the major IT leaders. As information is key to societal change, the IT industry can take a central role in this regard and make a big difference.
"As it happens the key to the success of IT, namely accessability, systematization and use of information is also very central to social evaluation and societal change. There is, in fact, a very foundational connection between information and social obligation, since the moral - and of course the political - need to pay attention to others depends greatly on our knowledge and information about them."
........"This foundational connection also gives the information industry a huge opportunity to help India by trying to make its contribution to the systematization, digestion and dissemination of diverse clusters of information in India about the lives of the underdogs of society - those who do not have realistic opportunity of getting basic schooling, essential health care, elementary nutritional entitlements, and rudimentary equality across the barriers of class and gender. This can also be said about problems of underdeveloped physical infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.), as well as social infrastructure, that restrain the broad mass of Indians from moving ahead. There are particular causal connections also here: an enterprise that hugely depends on the excellence of education for its success - as the IT sector clearly does - has good reason to consider its broad responsibility to Indian education in general."
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Further discussion on this at:
http://indianeconomy.org/2007/02/21/on-corporate-political-resposibility/
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