If you didn't know, today, May 11 is the National Technology Day and our country is observing its 29th National Technology Day today. This day was first observed on May 11, 1999 in order to commemorate the scientific and technological achievements of Indian scientists and engineers.
To mark the occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to salute all the scientists for their achievements. “On National Technology Day, our nation salutes all those who are leveraging technology to bring a positive difference in the lives of others. We remember the exceptional achievement of our scientists on this day in 1998. It was a landmark moment in India’s history,” he wrote in a tweet.
May 11 is also the day when India conducted its first successful test in Pokhran. It was on May 11, 1998, when India successfully fired the Shakti-I nuclear missile at an Army test range in Rajasthan’s Pokhran. Two days later, the country conducted two more nuclear tests as a part of the same operation, which was followed by India joining the elite club of nuclear power nations.
May 11 also marks the flight of the indigenously developed Hansa-3 which was developed jointly by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) lab. On the same day, that is, May 11, 1988, the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) completed the final test fire of the surface-to-air Trishul missile.
Every year since 1999, the Technology Development Board (TBD) celebrates this day by awarding individuals for their scientific contributions to the nation.
National Technology Day is being celebrated today, and considering the current situation, views of various industry leaders are centered on how COVID-19 has affected organizations. Although the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact lives and livelihoods across the globe, it has also given rise to several opportunities and is making enterprises and individuals realize the power of digital like never before.
"National Technology Day is celebrated on 11th of May every year to recognize the innovations in technology that is creating a better India. This year, it is more contextual considering the challenges we are navigating due to the COVID-19 outbreak. From enabling remote working and collaboration to empowering banking, healthcare, education to function digitally, the developments have been a strong testimony to India’s Digital Prowess and Capabilities. Post COVID-19, India will be strongly positioned to leverage its IT infrastructure, human capital and internet penetration to create enterprises that will address the most pressing issues using new-age digital technologies,” says Neelesh Kripalani, the senior vice president and head of the Center of Excellence (CoE) at Clover Infotech.
Organizations are also releasing the potential of technology, and all its salient benefits. “Coronavirus has broken the supply chain while rupturing the demand and market trends. As we’re forced to work remotely and use technologies for the first time, we’re realizing the benefits they deliver. Organizations are getting deeper into digital transformation. There is a paradigm-shifting to remote banking, digital payments, and direct financial aid which is further pushing the financial industry to become digital. This transformation will inevitably promote India’s Digital Mission. Policymakers need to support the ways people and organizations are using the internet to come together and deal with new pressures as our lives shift abruptly online. The focal point will be to ensure that critical functions like IT, cybersecurity, fraud prevention, and digital services are well protected,” says Shibu Paul, vice president, International Sales, Array Networks.
Digital transformation, which was a common tech jargon, has now become a reality after it received a push through the COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdowns across the world. “The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed us to modernize and harness the power of technology. Stakeholders are using technology to cushion the impact of COVID-19. We see major digital transformation coming up as India gears to establish a sense of normalcy. This shift is bound to drive India’s digital mission. Remote working and e-services have become the new norm. Banking and Personal finance institutions are trying to limit customer walk-ins by augmenting their digital capabilities and extending new online services. We see exacerbated use of hybrid cloud and hyper-converged platforms as people have realized the importance of cloud-based communication-enabled business processing. This has also led to the strengthening of cybersecurity systems to safeguard sensitive data and protect assets from malicious data breaches. Going forward, the industry would need systems that enable remote monitoring of processes and machines. Remote work will play a significant role in business continuity planning and this digital transformation will further aid in fulfilling India’s Digital Mission,” says Gurpreet Singh, managing director, Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd.
Last but not the least, the payments industry in India has received the necessary impetus India post the COVID-19 pandemic. “Technology has made it all possible”. The pandemic gave us a chance to re-evaluate and push businesses everywhere into an accelerated state of digitalization. COVID-19 has increased the adoption of digital payment solutions significantly. E-payments options are making it possible for people to sit at home and order essentials online be it from Flipkart or Amazon or any of the online ecommerce platforms. The use of digital payments was anyway growing but we have now seen this grown even more exponentially thanks to this COVID-19 situation,” Prashanth GJ, CEO, TechnoBind.
However, with the rapid digitization in the country, there comes the issue of cyber threat and cyber security. Industry leaders also believe that the necessary measures to ensure users educated on the same. “The threat of cyber-crime is a real one – and there are technological solutions like encryption and tokenization which helps overcome this cyber-crime threat. There are government regulations in place but the implementation and the imposition of the guidelines of the same should be taken up seriously – currently, there is a gap,” added Prashanth GJ.
Along the same lines, Ashis Guha, CEO, RAH Infotech “Digital platforms are in general highly secure; however, it is also important how well aware the users are to potential threats reaching out. On the forefront of fighting off digital fraud, the users have to employ caution and security measures. Few basic measures like not using insecure data networks and not opening links to lucrative websites must be strictly enforced. Also, payments must be made only to trusted sources, and payment gateways on phones and other devices must be strongly protected with passwords, fingerprints, or facial recognition too.”
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