Kal, aaj aur Kal

The idea for this post started out from a discussion with our VP today at work. Our team was presenting stuff we've worked on in the current quarter. At the end of the discussion, our VP asked a question, "How do you know if this stuff is going to be relevant three years from now?" What he meant was that given the current technology, of course what we were working on was useful, that it would add value for the consumer. But, what we're working on today might be rendered irrelevant by the rapid strides in technology! And he had a point. Today, the mobile phone is morphing into a computing platform. It's a device that enables a convergence in technology probably few would have visualized even five years ago. It's a device that's with you, whether you're working, or playing or socializing. You can use it to check e-mails on the go (even though it's still a nascent technology), click snaps on your lunch meeting, or capture a nifty video at your friend's wedding. Not only can you do all this, you can share what you're doing with your friends!! 

If we project this tremendous growth in the future, it's easy to see where our VP's question came from. And more importantly, what it points to. Today, it is no longer enough to innovate and come up with a bright idea. It's as important to make sure that people would still want that idea when it actually appears in a product! As technologists, it is no longer enough to be at the cutting edge today, it is imperative to be able to visualize what tomorrow's cutting edge technology would be. Else the millions of rupees that are spent in the R&D budgets would amount to nothing, apart from a smart prototype. Of course, this - visualizing the future - is not easy. Not everyone can be a visionary like Steve Jobs, and come up with the concept of an iPhone - and do it all over again with the iPhone 3G.  I read this post on Techcrunch a couple of weeks back, and that came to mind when I was thinking about this. Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn CEO) appearing on Charlie Rose commented that 'every individual is now an entrepreneur'. And it's true if you think about it in this context. You're an entrepreneur because you have to think about the technology trends, be in touch with the market directions. Of course, you could just forget about all that and just bury your head in the gory stuff - the equations, and the code and all that. But if you think about the relevance of your labors, well, you have to think about all of the above! 

Now this post would have probably concluded here, had it not been for a discussion with a friend, which I was lucky to have. While talking about an earlier post, and my discussion today, we realized that this issue of relevance is not just limited to technology practitioners. It is, in some sense, far more relevant to the technology practitioners of tomorrow! The engineering graduates of today. Yes, they face a much, much stiffer challenge to keep abreast of the latest technology. By the time they graduate, much of the stuff they learned in their junior years would already be outdated! Of course, the fundamental concepts stay the same. But their application is advancing by leaps and bounds. Is our system geared to handle this challenge? Obviously, this goes beyond the classrooms, and the labs. It goes into all those TechFests, and competitions and all the fun things that you do outside the classroom! But of course, the seeds of it have to be sown in our universities. And there lies the challenge. To the educators, as well as the students. Can they take up the gauntlet and make sure that what the universities produce is not just an 'assembly line' of engineering graduates, but guys who can actually innovate and think about tomorrow? This is especially true in a country like India, which severly needs innovators and innovation, if it is to retain the competitive advantage.