THE AMAZING POSSIBILITIES OF A TECHENABLED FUTURE
Imagine a world in which rich and poor alike have unlimited food, live in excellent health, and can zip through the streets of our cities in minutes in driverless cars — and enjoy affordable clean energy, education, and comfortable housing. This seems like a dream, but it isn’t. It is a future that can be created within two decades. Technology advances are literally making science fiction a reality.
India has long been held back by the cost of energy and the reliance on highpolluting fossil fuels. But the price of solar power generation has been falling by 10 to 20% a year for the past 40 years, and with every 20% reduction, total installed capacity has doubled. In 1980, solar-generated electricity in the US cost $1.50 per watt. In May, a solar power auction at Bhadla Solar Park in Rajasthan yielded a bid of Rs 2.44 per unit for a 500-megawatt installation, a greater than 99% reduction in cost. The trend is accelerating; by 2030, energy will be as inexpensive as cellphone minutes are now — and available to all.
Advances in LED lighting, which is already as economical as tungstenbased bulbs, and breakthroughs in optimising light frequencies for growing plants will reduce the price of energy making vertical farming economical. Using sensors and artificial intelligence software to monitor crop growth in glass-enclosed buildings, India can grow all the organic food it needs.
And then there is health care. More than four billion people lack access to quality diagnostics, so ailments that could be cured if diagnosed lead instead to suffering and death. But with the declining cost of micro-electromechanicaland nanofluidic-based sensors, a new generation of inexpensive medical devices are possible.
Forus Health, for example, has developed a portable eye-screening device, called 3nethra, that can detect eye pathologies such as cataract, diabetic retinopathy, and cornea-related problems. Health Cubed has built an inexpensive medical-grade device that provides 32 measures and tests and is able to diagnose diseases such as HIV AIDS, syphilis, dengue, and malaria. Mapmygenome analyses genome data to provide insights into the genetic bases of various aspects of individuals’ health, including traits, lifestyle, drug responses, and inherited conditions. These are all Indian startups that will soon help people all over the world.
With 3D printing, within 15 years, we will be able to digitally manufacture household goods, clothing and even buildings and electronics. The 3D printers of today are still slow and clumsy and do little more than produce prototypes and toys. But exponentially advancing technologies move slowly before they do amazing things. It will also become economical to synthetically produce meat. What if you were offered cooked protein which had the appearance, texture, and taste of beef or pork but was designed on a computer and produced in a 3D printer—and no animals were even touched. Would you eat it? That is a question you may have to answer in 2027.
In education, it is already possible to watch educational videos on smartphones. With Ai-based learning and virtual reality headsets, which will also become affordable within five years, India’s entire education system could be transformed.
It is not going to be smooth sailing to this amazing future, though. Every technology creates new risks, disrupts industries, and destroys old-line jobs. Technologies can be used for good and for evil. The challenge for India will be to ensure that the benefits of technology are shared equally, that the rewards of each technology outweigh the risks, and that there is greater freedom and autonomy for the people. If this is done right, it could open up the era of knowledge and enlightenment that we have dreamed of.