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Tech-Driven Governance

In today’s age, the need of technology for driving the development of the country in unparalleled as well as in building a corruption-free society. The real problem is with the attitude of those that have to use it. Hence, there is a need to push it from the top.

One of the political problem of our times seems to be on how to adapt our greasy wheels of governance to match the acceleration of the technological age. We need better policies to obtain the benefits of technological innovation to manage our social problems— from poverty to pollution. Exponential growth in technology is driving today’s social change.

As rightly said by John McGinnis, “Our task is to place politics progressively within the domain of information technology — to use its new or enhanced tools, such as empiricism, information markets, dispersed media and artificial intelligence, to reinvent governance.”

Before we think that is a far-fetched idea, we have real-time precedence in this domain, like for instance:

Tata Trusts’ Data-Driven Governance (DDG) program aims to strengthen rural and urban decision systems through the use of data and technology. The Trusts have been providing functional and technical support to governments for carrying out data-intensive planning as a means to supplement decision-making, leading to the creation of the DELTA (Data, Evaluation, Learning, Technology, and Analysis) framework.

Beginning with a single gram panchayat in 2015, the footprint of the Trusts’ data- driven governance programme now extends across 85 districts in 27 states, and has covered a population of 2.5 million through on-ground surveys.

If one privately-owned entity can bring about a paradigm shift in this domain, imagine the potential that can be unleashed if the full might of the Government of India is dedicated to the cause of Tech-Driven Governance.

In today’s age, the need of technology for driving the development of the country is unparalleled as well as in building a corruption-free society. So let’s embrace the future and find ways to transform Indian governance.