An Interview with Sam Pitroda
By Niti Bhan and Ric Edinberg
Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Sam Pitroda, born in Titlagarh, Orissa, India, is an inventor, entrepreneur and policymaker. Currently chairman of India's National Knowledge Commission, he is also widely considered to have been responsible for India's communications revolution. He is the Chairman and CEO of World-Tel Limited, an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) initiative. He holds many key technology patents, has been involved in several startups, and lectures extensively around the world on the implications of communications and information technology.
DesignwithIndia had the opportunity to interview him to share his thoughts on design and the future of India.
Question: Mr Pitroda, you have extensive experience with the user centered design methods and tools that the Chicago school promotes through your position as member of their Board of Trustees.
Can you share with us your vision of how India's design community can apply design thinking, design research as well as tools and methods in order to best effect positive change in India and add social and economic value? Also, What key 5 areas do you see as priorities for India to focus on for social and transformation design initiatives?
Sam: In my perspective, before we can look at the priority areas to focus on, we must first take a closer look at the challenges that face India today. These can be broadly summarized into three areas:
1. Disparity
2. Development
3. Demographics
Our nation is well known for one of the most obvious and gaping divides in disparity of income for the majority of the population, 550 million of whom are under 25 years of age, versus the very few who are rich in any currency standards. Our nation also requires high speed development - not only economic, but also social, educational and skills – this is our future workforce, we must provide development opportunities; we must focus on empowering them. What India must do is invest in the future, face the enormous human resource development problem and find solutions within our principles of democracy for all and the multiplistic perspectives of our diverse nation.
Our priorities for India can be identified as follows:
• Knowledge
• Infrastructure
• Institutions
Therefore we must look at the challenge of developing our nation’s resources – the youthful population who are our future. The basic need is education, across all linguistic and social barriers, around the nation. At every level, there is a gaping void in terms of infrastructure required and numbers of teachers to meet the demand.
Today when we talk of teaching, automatically visualize a classroom, teacher, formal setting, investment in infrastructure – at the speed at which we need to train our youth, we can’t afford to build schools in every village – the entire concept must change. The cost of physical transaction is too high and would take too long to overcome, if we use the analogy of the banking example. A branch transaction for a bank costs Rs 50 but an internet transaction costs Rs 2. An SMS or a mobile phone call is even cheaper. We need to think outside the box.
Can we devise a way to take the knowledge available to those who need it the most? Can we provide education in the most cost effective format possible for rapid dispersal across the nation?
How do we bring down the transaction cost of every possible service to be delivered to the common man in India, the humble kisan, the aam junta ?
By using existing technological infrastructure to minimize costs and maximize reach, both in terms of return on investment and social value created.
How best do we bring the best the 21st century has to offer to the villages of India, with the benefits of learning, knowledge and culture in a manner that best fits their needs and yet serves to minimize the effect on the surrounding ecology?
That is our challenge and our brief to the Indian design community.
Question: Based on your experience as Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, what advice can you offer the Indian design community on how best to support the improvement and growth of India's design knowledge and thus support national competitiveness?
Sam: We have already begun work on many information portals – we should look at capturing the vast knowledge in the field of design and creativity, both developed in India and abroad and creating an information exchange portal – one that can provide the cross fertilization of ideas garnered from our villages, our leading education institutions and from around the world. Why should we re-invent the wheel when we can learn and share so much using the technologies available to us?
Question: Now that the Government of India has ratified the National Design Policy what are your thoughts on the implications of this policy for the Indian design industry?
Sam: It’s hard to say, different people interpret the document differently. I think design has traditionally been defined as and too narrowly focused on design as craft or textiles, and later as products, but according to the document, design isn’t really about processes. A new design methodology is needed for this policy to be effective, but this isn’t yet a visible priority in the document. We need a ‘Design’ for new changes and new processes. This type of thinking isn’t emphasized in the policy.
Question: Additionally, what are the implications of this policy for India on the global stage?
Sam: Well there are 1.2 billion people in India, and so we need to focus on our interior markets first. We need to establish the design needs for the country, and we are already doing this with a large white paper on design and architecture, due at the end of this year. I think we may need to do this just for design. We need a plan on how many schools we’ll need, and what sort of programs they’d need to maintain: some for innovation, some for industrial design, some more focused on methodology. We definitely will need to provide the human resources for manufacturers and for that we’ll need more design schools.
Question: Finally, Mr Pitroda, every well-intentioned policy needs actionable next steps in order to make difference at grassroots level, what would be your advice to the government on how best to make the NDP actionable?
Sam: There are several factors that our Indian Design Institutes will need to take into consideration that are perhaps outside the typical notion of what design education is supposed to be about.
First, we need to have a broader view of design. India is a big, diverse place. Design will have to respect local customs with local applications. Take the computer, for example: 110 million people speak Marathi, but there is no localization to serve this population. So what we need is a combination of standards with flexibility to provide for localization needs. Open source is one avenue that can help solve some of these issues, but we have to figure out how to do it cheaper, more flexible, and scalable.
Second, the days are gone when you can have a silo-mentality. Today all research requires a multidisciplinary and a collaborative approach that provides for shorter product cycles, and faster projects.
Third, our family and interpersonal structures in India are very different than a place like the US. For example, a whole life can be played out on the street. Some people bath, sleep, eat and live there. Here in the US, our streets are empty except for shopping. Life in India is on the street, its open and in public. This kind of structure has different implications for the types of products and services than in the US. How do you take advantage of this?
This kind of sensitivity is our opportunity.
What we really need though is to produce thought leaders. We need individuals who can rise above the silos, above local politics, that can think outside boxes. These thought leaders have to ask important questions, experiment and not be afraid to fail. We need to help develop our new designers, as people who have the capacity to imagine for India, not just replicate irrelevant products and structures leftover from the days of the British.
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