During my last trip to India (this Jan) I was once again struck by how different the Indian tech scene is from the US. In my last trip I talked about the very different mobile behavior in India, but during this trip, I was more struck by India’s beginning of transition to a digital economy. India is going through an interesting transition phase where its leaders, specifically Prime Minister Modi, are pushing a change towards a more digital nation. The road is bumpy but hopefully it will lessen some of the big problems India faces today.
In my three-ish weeks there, I found a number of things that I found interesting. Here are some notes from there.
Digital Society
India is at an interesting moment in history with the Prime Minister pushing the nation into the digital age. These initiatives include a digital identity program (Aadhaar), bank accounts for every citizen, a universal digital API for payments mandated for every bank (UPI) etc.
The transition may not be smooth, as evidenced by occasional reports of data breaches, and an overzealous broadening of the scope of what Aadhaar was supposed to enable (which is going through a course correction now) but I am optimistic that this can really accelerate digital services in India and arrest the corruption epidemic that plagues the non-digital economy.
Sometime in the next couple of months, I am hoping to dig more into the India Stack which aims to be the platform for the new digital society.
Digital Payments
The other thing that was really interesting to see was the rise of the “pay-with-QR-code” options all over the city, once again enabled by the UPI banking api and accelerated by the demonetization event in 2016.
Digital payment companies like PayTM saw a huge growth in the last year and with WhatsApp’s recent announcement of adding payments into the app (which Indians are addicted to), there will be a huge transition towards a more cashless economy.
The government is clearly doing everything it can to push the transition and news reports like the one shown below that show that government controlled services would cost digital payers less, are getting pretty commonplace to see.
There is definitely a lot of Pay-with-QR code options, but I am curious if systems like this could be abused. For example, I ran into the sign below at a railway station and while I am sure its legitimate, it could just as well have been part of a scam where someone just pasted these signs when people weren’t looking.
Some of this is prevented by 2-factor-auth or one-time-passwords (OTPs) which are enforced for all digital payments. So every time you make a payment, you get an SMS to confirm the transaction and it will not go through till you reply to the SMS message.
Uber vs Ola
The availability of Uber and Ola ride sharing services has also been good to see. Ola, at least for now, does outnumber Uber though I did end up taking each of them roughly the same number of times. And the fact that my Uber app from the US worked without a hitch (given it was connected to my globally valid American Express card) was also great. Its also a great convenience in India where its easy to travel 100 miles and end up in a place where you don’t speak the local language. Its also a relief to get away from the haggling over the price of a ride that used to be the norm earlier.
Uber and Ola though do have other challenges in India, from less accurate GPS data for mapping to local drivers who cant speak English used in a lot of routing apps (The Forbes article is an interesting read on the local challenges)
Oh, and apparently India is about to launch its own GPS system to address this and other local mapping challenges
Crime
India has had a lot of spotlight shone on its rampant crime problem, especially against women. While some of these problems are too systemic to really be fixed in a few years and require a huge cultural change, there are a lot of initiatives at play here as well. Its also a warning for startups aiming to start in India. Personal safety is a given in a lot of societies which does allow the sharing economy, but applying the same model in a complex country like India can really burn you, as it did Uber which was banned from Delhi for a while when a rider was raped by a driver there.
Last year, the Delhi police launched the Himmat app to allow women to broadcast an SOS to the police if they felt threatened. The app itself has had limited success and does feel rather poorly thought through (would you really have the time to find and launch an app if you were attacked?), but hopefully its a work in progress
Uber has added a series of security features as well including partnering with the Himmat app as part of its initiatives to add to rider safety and get unbanned.
I would love to see more startups look into this space. Personal safety for women is a big problem globally and services like Roar can make a real difference while also carving a sustainable business for themselves.
Conclusion
Its definitely an interesting time to be a technologist in India. There is a strong drive to grow technology companies and transform the society into a more digital one. There is no dearth of problems that need to be addressed. It’ll be interesting to see India’s transformation in the next 5 years as it goes through this phase.
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