Five things I would tell my younger self about technology indigenization in India

I started developing indigenous designs for robotic and embedded systems in India in 1989. There were no blogs then. The only way to learn was from textbooks and experience. As India starts technology indigenization in earnest, here are five things I would tell my younger self.

• Why do it? Don’t do it for money yet. Payments can take months or years to come by owing to bureaucratic delays. Do it for the thrill of seeing your creation being bolted onto a fighter jet. Do it for the pride of demonstrating Indian-developed cutting edge technology to everyone from the jawans to the Prime Minister.
• What is the starting cost? It will take years to prove yourself to the powers that be. Do not let that discourage you. Start small and establish a track record.
• Is the system fair? No. There is very little knowledge as to how to indigenize. How to select a task/project for indigenization? How to choose the right vendor? How to determine whether the project has been successfully completed?
• Is it challenging? Yes. Let us focus on the defense requirements. Other than the men who fight, the defense forces need equipment, ammunition, offensive platforms to deliver the ammunition, and defensive platforms to protect themselves. Also needed is the equipment to gather intelligence, to create doubt or confusion in the adversary etc. not to mention the clothing, shelter and food requirements for the men who must perform their jobs in the most severe environments.
• What is Indigenization? Our country has relied on imported equipment for most of its needs in all fields of life. Indigenously manufactured content / products have been slowly added over the years in the civilian life. Today we may be self sufficient in producing food, cement, steel, automobiles, textiles, but we seriously lack indigenous technology to meet our defense requirements. The IT sector which contributes so much to the Indian economy also depends entirely on tools and core products developed outside the country. Indigenization is also loosely interchanged with the word “Digitalisation”. A large number of modern systems are now implemented using the so called ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). In such cases too, we develop apps or solutions riding on the back of existing platforms such as Android and Cloud based systems. The digital computer is expected to be the cure of all ills. Sadly, it is both true and false.