A question that many want an answer for. Why is this question important to a country like India? For a country which has a 2000 year old history, which boasts about Upanishads, Arya Bhatta, the decimal system, and the zero why can't it boast about innovators like Wright Brothers, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs who changed the world map through their innovations? Is India just making mountains out of its pebbles like most number of Nobel Laureates, scientific papers and patents? Does India lack the knowledge of day-to-day scientific significance?
The news of Steve Jobs death spread a silence among many aspiring Indian techies who could not find a unique innovator and role model such as Jobs in their own country. The fact that Jobs' death made such big news in India shows that young people are seeing themselves in him. Like the Doppler Effect, Jobs has caused a Jobsian effect, an everlasting wave that generates the question in many: When will India have its own Jobs? A question that India has not answered for many years, but the question has been reframed strongly this time with the death of Jobs.
Time and again we have always reasoned out our failures, be it corruption scams, be it our inflation or be it our government system. For everything we have a reason to lean on. So here again we list out the reasons for failing to produce talented and innovative thinkers.
1. Education System in India:
A very critical reason. If you compare what propels the economy of the most successful nations today, it is education. What form of education system we follow is very important. "Tell me the books you read and I will tell your character", goes the saying. The education system that we follow is fit only for "conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population," says Thomas Babington Macaulay, Indian governor-general's Council of India between 1834 and 1838. Our system is so rigid that it pushes us into one narrow path of education with no way back once one is inside it. One doesn't have the leeway to actually move away from what one is ordained to by the system. On the contrary, the American model offers you flexibility in courses at the academic level. You can pick up a course in Painting while doing a major in Mechanical Engineering. This ability to compliment the engineering or core science with aesthetics is an asset whose importance was exemplified by people like Steve Jobs. The introduction of choice will enable better academic performance of students and will elevate the quality of education. Aditya Dev Sood, the founder and chief executive of the Center for Knowledge Societies, a consulting firm that works in what may be considered Jobs' pet areas: user experience design and innovation management told New York Times "Indian education system prepares us for society by a series of instrumental grading mechanisms that treat us like chickens in a hatchery."
The Indian model or the erstwhile British model (the Indian model's source) has its own set of advantages in terms of enhancing our mental storage potential but it is too rigid for today's world.
2. Incapacity to take new risks:
Risk is the basic instinct of an innovator and entrepreneurs. "Knowledge in the mind, passion in the heart and fire in the belly forms the anatomy of an entrepreneur". Indian Entrepreneurs have been successful at their innovations but most of the innovations have been an exploration of what was already a common knowledge handed from the West and not a result of any original thinking. The risk taking in India is less due to fear of failure and the fear of failure is because of not sufficient funding from venture capitalists. Silicon Valley is bustling with tech companies and venture funding is humongous. Bold and fascinating projects don't see the light of funding as they are trapped under the limits of a village or a district and if they make it to the top, they are underfunded.
3. Absence of a sense of perfection, thoroughness and excellence:
The best example of this is the $35 tablet that was introduced recently by the Indian government. The world's least expensive tablet $35 was one most promising and showcased idea by the Indian government for the enhancement of Indian students. This super-cheap tablet computer was devised as a method to impart higher-quality education to students around the country. The device was developed by student teams from India's premier technological institutes, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. The basic idea was to develop a computer that can be used by students of developing nations to better their educational quality. The $35 tablet started its journey way back in 2009 as a $10 tablet and went through a lot of difficulties and delays. Alas it was released on Oct 5 but was awaiting a bigger disappointment. The machine is quite slow, and its touchscreen is not very agile. Well, with low horsepower 366MHz processor, all you can have is a 'real snail' of the tablet space. What kind of computer related education will students in this country have with a device that is so substandard? Most middle-level mobile phones available in India are probably capable of giving a better computing experience than the tablet. The device uses resistive LCD displays rather than a full touchscreen. As it connects via WiFi, its usefulness in rural areas is seriously compromised. In urban areas students probably have access to better devices. At a time when HP is conducting a fire sale of its super-advanced Tablet, the TouchPad, at $99, and Amazon is retailing its brand new tablet, Kindle Fire, at just $199, we are trying to palm off $35 piece of plastic packed with obsolete hardware and software on our students! The need of the hour is to make the best hardware and software available to our students; we can't keep foisting useless plastic junk, which is tablet in name only.
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