Digital hygiene will be more important than ever for everyone
By Dr Ajay Data
Pandemic rocked the world in the last few years. It almost took away two years from us but if I try to see the silver lining in this gloom, it also led to mass Digital Adoption by the vast population.
India has taken huge advantage of digital technologies not only to test, track and trace but also for vaccination and awareness. In my opinion, the pandemic has shrunk ten years of digital adoption efforts in two years. Digital India has proved to be a life saving initiative for India and will continue to make an impact in the lives of the common people.
However, the crypto crash wiped out more than $2 trillion in wealth. As per Crunchbase, venture capital-backed companies absorbed $2.9 billion in the third quarter of 2022, down 66 percent sequentially and 81 percent on a year-on-year basis.
Big Tech companies are downsizing and resulting in tens of thousands of job losses world over. Now with 2023 upon us, this is an opportune moment to reflect upon this tumultuous year, learn lessons and start looking ahead.
Best Internet Ever
In 2023, we could look at mass impact through 5G adoption. High throughput and low latency have made 5G an exciting trend to watch out for in 2023.
In October 2022, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G in India and unveiled various 5G use cases of various Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) in education, health, worker safety, smart agriculture, etc. For enterprises, both large and small, 5G will play a vital role in extracting value in sectors like manufacturing, automotive, gaming, education, and industries through digital twins, smart manufacturing, immersive content, etc.
Humanoid Robots
We have heard of social robots and Co-bots or collaborative robots, that can work just like your colleague in the office. 2023 will see robots becoming more like humans. You should not be surprised when you see a robot taking on the role of CheckIn executives, bartender, concierge or a caregiver for the geriatric.
They will also perform complex tasks in warehouses and factories as they work alongside humans in manufacturing and logistics. Elon Musk revealed two Optimus humanoid robot prototypes and said the company would be ready to take orders within the next 3 to 5 years. The robot can perform simple tasks like lifting items and watering plants.
Driverless Vehicles
It’s hard to move to a new city without Mapmyindia or google map app these days. These maps are now going to be powered with AI and automobiles will take us to the destination we want, without any chauffeurs. Driver less cars and trucks are already getting permissions and soon that will be reality in India too.
Digital Hygiene
Digital Hygiene is a phrase that refers to the practice of maintaining your tech devices, protecting your digital information, and safeguarding your electronic assets.
Digital hygiene will be more important than ever for everyone including architects, designers, and digital creators. I have many reasons to believe that cyber attacks will increase in 2023 and people need to protect themselves more than ever before. Most of these attacks take advantage of known vulnerabilities that have not been remediated. Improvements in pen-testing will provide organizations with near real-time identification of issues and confirmation they have been resolved.
Artificial Intelligence
In 2023, more technology teams will focus on putting data and actionable insights in the hands of the entire workforce. AI will process the enormous amount of data generated by every organization, external data sources will be leveraged to gain even more insight and data governance will become a priority for more organizations. Even the AI projects by the government of India like Bhashni will make a huge impact in people’s lives.
Digital India Act
A significant amount of work has been done on the proposed Digital India Act. The draft legislative framework to support “India’s techade” is expected by early 2023. The upcoming Digital India Act will reportedly classify various online intermediaries such as social media platforms, e-commerce, and fact-checking portals as different categories and come out with specific regulations for each of these categories.
The new law is likely to prescribe different kinds of intermediaries because their regulation has to be different. Intermediaries considered to be bucketed as social media platforms, e-commerce platforms, AI platforms, fact-checking platforms, etc.
There are no pure intermediaries anymore, so the adjudication and our understanding of it has to go beyond intermediary liability. These changes will make an impact on social media companies and end users too.
Digital Currency
Imagine your all currency notes get converted into digital form. The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot launched by the RBI in the retail segment has components based on blockchain technology. CBDC is a legal tender issued by the RBI in digital form. It is the same as the fiat currency, and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency. Only its form is different — it is not paper or polymer like physical cash. It is a fungible legal tender, for which holders need not have a bank account.
Multilingual Internet
Multilingualism becomes an extremely crucial aspect to bring the next one billion users on the network. There are more than 7,000 languages used across the globe. In India, we have 22 scheduled languages.
The Government of India has prepared the policy for Multilingual Internet and Universal Acceptance. It is believed that the next billion Internet users will likely come from non-English speaking countries, providing access for these users will require more than supporting internationalized or multilingual content.
Localized domain names and email addresses are the key pillars. In order to promote Universal Acceptance in the world, ICANN along with UASG are going to celebrate UA-Day on 28th March every year as proposed by me. The first ever UA-Day is going to be celebrated globally in 2023 with the main event in India. This will accelerate the process to bring the non-English population online. All businesses, websites and services have to accommodate email addresses in different languages like अजय@डाटा.भारत – email ID in Hindi.
I am sure that in the future there will be two kinds of organizations: Technology Businesses and Technology Enabled Businesses and Organizations, without which it will be difficult to sustain for the long term and make an impact for any business or Government.
I believe technology has aided civilization in a variety of ways, the most notable of which are health care, education, and communication. It has also changed the way people enjoy themselves, participate in politics, and work. Society and technology are inextricably linked and will continue to evolve in 2023.
Dr Ajay Data is an award winner techno commercial Founder & CEO of multiple technology companies. Currently, he is also the chair of the Administrative Group of the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (USAG). Twitter: @ajaydata
Disclaimer: The views expressed are not necessarily those of The South Asian Times
