Prime Minister Modi at a Nasscom event on 1 March. Photo: Subhav Shukla/PTI
Globally, governments have often collaborated with start-ups to fast-track innovation.
For instance, it would be impossible to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US, without hearing government officials speak admiringly of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), an American space transport services company — the only private company to bring back its spacecraft from low-Earth orbit.
George Tenet, a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has been quoted by Forbes magazine as saying that he wishes data technology start-up Palantir Technologies had been in existence before 9/11. Palantir played an important role in the capture of Al-Qaeda terrorist Osama Bin Laden. This was possible only because the CIA and US government collaborated with a start-up that was but a few years old.
At home, entrepreneurs often complain that success stories such as Palantir and SpaceX would be nearly impossible for start-ups given the archaic bureaucratic processes. Yet, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the stage at an event organized by software lobby Nasscom on 1 March, to address entrepreneurs, I was filled with hope that the government would build a new foundation for fostering innovation. In his classic style, he recognized how children these days “have only one guru — ‘Google guru’ and how ‘I-ways’ (information ways) were as important as highways!”
The government offers a multitude of services to citizens, but these aren’t easily accessible through a single portal. Could start-ups build mobile applications that help citizens access government services at the click of a button? Officials make a multitude of large-scale decisions every day. Can start-ups help make these decisions data-driven? Could our cities’ police commissioners look at a dashboard that aggregates data from tweets generated by citizens, internal data contributed by constables through a mobile app and historical data about crime, to identify the hot spots that require better police patrolling, filtered by time and location?
I believe that the government has taken the first steps for collaborating with citizens to build a better nation through platforms like MyGov, which behave like virtual “town halls”. My first experience with a town hall was in 2012, when I had a chance to attend one in Seattle, US. City officials were present at the event and asked citizens for inputs for some infrastructure plans. I was astonished at the involvement of citizens. It was this experience, along with others, that inspired Varun Banka and me to build SocialCops — a start-up that uses data to drive decision making in the public sector.
Yet the archaic tendering processes do not create a fair platform that allows start-ups to compete with a large organization. In spite of capabilities and execution skills, it is nearly impossible for start-ups to work directly with government. Innovative channels, such as setting up a “model district” as an incubation centre for innovative start-ups to collaborate directly with government, could act as catalysts to fast-track growth.
At the Nasscom event, Modi asked the audience: “Why was Google not built in our India?” I believe that 15 years ago, the easy access to high-quality talent, financial capital and large market size made Silicon Valley a choice location for start-ups. Today, all those favourable conditions exist in India.
With the right reforms, enhancing the possibility of start-ups competing at the same level as more financially stable and established firms, a world where the next technology superpower is headquartered in India may not be too far away.
Prukalpa Sankar is the co-founder of New Delhi-based SocialCops.org, which was recently recognized as one of 10 emerging start-ups by Nasscom.
Originally published at www.livemint.com on March 15, 2015.
