We need a melting pot of multiple technologies

Karthikeyan Natarajan, Global Head of Integrated Engineering Solutions at Tech Mahindra, says that India is very well placed as far as progress on the smart cities mission is concerned, be it infrastructure or technology.

Tell us about your Smart Cities Accelerator Program.

We have been successful in implementing smart and safe cities project across India and we plan to take this offering to a global level. Our implementations in Uttar Pradesh (UP Dial 100), Gandhinagar, Jabalpur and Kanpur have been successful. We are helping our cities manage all sorts of safety challenges, thus ensuring security of citizens. We aim to improvise their lives by bringing in digital governance. We now plan to take this concept to smaller cities of Pune –Chinchwad and Nashik.

Additionally, we are also collaborating with our counterparts in Vietnam, South Africa, and Bangladesh to inculcate the concept of smart living. As part of our TechMNxt Charter, we are betting big on new-age technologies like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Machine Learning, Robotics and Analytics to solve complex real-world issues.

How is India placed to embrace all these new technologies?

India is very well placed as far as progress on the smart cities mission is concerned, be it infrastructure or technology. Countries across the globe can take cues from India’s strategy and follow the model being adopted here. On Industry 4.0, India’s manufacturing sector contribution to GDP is around 15% and we have an aspiration to move to 25% over the next decade. This cannot be achieved without making the factories smart and efficient. Even though the adoption is slow at present, it is likely to accelerate over the next 5 years, with enhanced technology adoption by Indian manufacturers and improved labor productivity.

As far as consumer IoT is concerned, there is an explosion of smart personal care devices and smart products like vacuum cleaner, water purifier, scooter, home, etc. However, the adoption is slow and compelling propositions are emerging in niche pockets. For this to become mainstream, IT business model transformation needs to pick up momentum.

Most industries in India are still decades behind the rest of the world. How do we fast track them to Industry 4.0?

India has an opportunity and tremendous potential to grow with respect to its global counterpart, by riding on the new age technologies wave and by enhancing manufacturing prowess. Businesses need to look at their digital transformation journey as an effective way to change the growth trajectory. There must be an increased focus on improving the quality and productivity by using digital technologies to make fully integrated factories. Additionally, the smart factories of future need to have remote monitoring centers for factory throughput, quality and process efficiencies.

What are the next generation technologies and solutions to disrupt and enable digital transformation?

In the digital era, it is not fair to put the spotlight on a particular service line, since digital transformation cannot happen with one technology or service line in isolation; rather it has to be a melting pot of all of them. But if we really have to mention a few, we would state Artificial Intelligence (AI). We believe that AI is going to disrupt every industry possible. AI will make healthcare affordable and accessible to all, AI will help create smarter machines, AI will protect data and information.

At Tech Mahindra, our strategy is built around AI-Inside (use AI to make customers’ internal operations efficient and smart e.g. Supply Chain Transformation for an Auto industry) and AI-Outside (use AI to offer smarter products and services e.g. understand customer psycho-graphy and generate patterns to offer customized products for a retail industry). We have aligned all our industry solution offering to AI-first.

The next big thing is the combined service offering of physical design, digital customer experience and technology – what we call as “Humanized Experience”. We are strategically positioned to take it all together to our customers through our partnerships with BIO Agency and Pininfarina.

Third is Blockchain. The Blockchain market is expected to grow from about US$ 400 million last year to about US$7 billion by 2022 and is going to have widespread application on Payments, Exchanges, Smart Contracts, Documentation, Digital Identity, Supply Chain Management, and GRC (Governance, Risk Management and Compliance). We are working with government entities to bring all motor vehicle records on Blockchain to bring in transparency and traceability. We are also putting land records in distributed ledgers to eliminate corruption. Our partnership with ChromaWay, Adjoint, BlockApps and Andhra Pradesh government are testimonies to our long-term vision to Blockchain technology.

Fourth and the last bet is on Cybersecurity. We have not only partnered with Israeli firm ContextSpace Solutions to develop the world's first global software privacy ecosystem, MyData Shield, but are also actively working with 20 others to help our customer create a secure environment for their data.
Customer Experience – through real time analytics and Artificial Intelligence will also be a key differentiator.

We have done many firsts in all of these areas:

1) We have jointly created the first AI marketplace in collaboration with AT&T and Linux Foundation.
2) We are the first in India SI to bring Physi-Digital offering to our customers as an integrated offering.
3) The Telangana State Information Technology, Electronics and Communication department (ITE&C) has signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the global digital transformation provider Tech Mahindra to Launch India’s first Blockchain District in the state of Telangana.
4) We have collaborated with the government of Andhra Pradesh to establish country’s first Cyber Security Operations Centre (APCSOC) in the city of Vijayawada.

Can certain aspects of the Smart Cities project be adopted by India's agricultural and rural sectors?
Farm productivity can be enhanced through smart sensors, drones and data analytics. The next green revolution enabled by digital technologies could help in water conservation, reducing chemical usage and improved farm productivity per acre of agricultural land.

Can you also talk about smart energy management and how it can be applied across urban and rural India?

Jabalpur is a classic example wherein solid waste management process is being used to generate electricity through a power plant. It has in turn generated 15 MW (megawatts) of energy. This also avoided the need for landfill and helped in converting waste into energy. We believe that this brilliant idea can be further scaled up across the cities and in rural India.

Will 5G make any difference towards implementation of all of the above?

With benefits like increased bandwidth and lower latencies, 5G can help in real time monitoring, quality improvement and logistics with mobile edge computing in smart factories. In smart cities, 5G can help in enhancing the overall quality of life through multi-modal transport system and intelligent traffic systems through Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) infrastructure.