Covering the last mile

Outreach of integrated technology ecosystem at the grassroots level requires a broad-based construct to include the last-mile layer of a connected ecosystem

- RK MITRA KULBIR LAMBA

The balance of economic power, globally, is moving away from a  physical resource-centric base to an innovation and technology-centric resource base.

The countries are being reckoned based on their innovation capabilities. This change has enormous implications for a country's overall economic health in terms of policy priorities in general, and more profoundly in the technology arena. Countries like India have been burning much midnight oil in designing a conducive technology ecosystem to facilitate the growth and progressive rise of a new-age technology-at-the-centre economic development model.

A technology ecosystem, as is commonly understood, is a network of interdependent and interconnected entities capable of spurring innovations.

A technology ecosystem, by itself, may not be adequate to take forward the virtuous consequences of a tech ecosystem unless it is complemented by an equally resilient entrepreneurial ecosystem. For a country like India where still a significant percentage of people live in rural/semi-urban locations, the challenge is more complex due to the absence of growth of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. A technology ecosystem, without the support of a complementor in the form of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, may remain a stand-alone entity, with no culpable sign of an impact on the economic development of the larger community.

To become an economic powerhouse, India is betting on technology-driven innovation and entrepreneurship.

National-level programmes, policies, and initiatives bear evidence of this. India is now the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, behind only the United States and China.