Opportunity awaits

In the last decade software programmers have developed cutting edge tools that have minimized the drudgery in thousands of business operations around the world. Companies such as Computer Associates (CA) have thrived in offering businesses worldwide the software tools that have helped to transform their businesses to give competitive advantage and phenomenal productivity increases in the workplaces. Can these technologies be deployed effectively in combating some of the mundane problems facing millions of common people around the world?

Yes. Individuals and companies are successfully deploying software technologies combined with telecom in many creative ways. One successful example is the combination of web and paging technologies to track missing children in many countries. In India too, such things are beginning to happen. A Hyderabad-based company has devised a software program incorporating the Chaos Theory in maths to analyze billions of complex patterns to predict, for example the onset of Malaria in a Northeastern State.

According to media reports, Innareddy Computer Software Associates (ICSA) has developed a heuristic engine (a software) which has had a 90 percent accuracy rate in predicting the onset of malaria this summer. The company is extending the program to cover more States and is in the process of sharing the technology with the National Malaria Control Programme. The program was also used to predict the onset of another vector-borne communicable disease, Japanese Encephalitis, in Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh. It is indeed a heartwarming gesture from the company headed by G Bala Reddy. The software has been developed by the company's R&D head T
Sreenath.

The scientific team headed by US Murthy of government-run Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), also based in Hyderabad, is developing a Pest Disease Information System to provide advance warning against many pest attacks facing agricultural crops.

At the heart of these efforts is the ability of modern computers, with appropriate programs, to analyze quickly billions of random events that occur everyday around us into predictable patterns useful for effective use.

Surely our technology leaders can identify many such simple problems that can be solved with the right inputs of management attention and technical skills. And what better time than this to use the 'bench' strength of our software brains to find ready-made solutions to our simple but persisting problems. For instance, the traffic light systems at our major cities and towns can do with some help from our computer experts. The outdated analog systems are power hungry and do not serve the purpose of efficient regulation of our burgeoning but varied traffic. Energy-efficient, multi-phase digital traffic lights should be installed in all our major cities. A national telecom center had even prepared a blueprint for this over a decade ago. Traffic administrations are willing to switch if easy-to-deploy software solutions are available easily. It is possible to program these into at least 18 different phases easily, with simple software inputs. And certainly there could be a booming business opportunity in making life easy for millions of motorists now hamstrung by the unpredictable traffic regulators who switch off the lights at the slightest opportunity to increase efficiency at our traffic junctions during peak hours.

Our vast network of railways and post offices can surely do with some help from computer technologies to monitor huge volume of traffic and articles passing through them, currently monitored through 19th century technologies. Educational software is certainly another area that requires the attention of our technology leaders. The opportunities are immense. Imagine a market created by a few dozen computers running relevant applications in each of the nearly million schools in the country. Nasscom's new head Kiran Karnik has taken up the challenge in the right manner, advocating the need for government to effectively use 3 percent of budget allocations to each of the departments on IT. It will happen only if the industry provides the right solutions off the shelf. The chances of deployment are better that way.