| AsiaPop: A look at cultures across the sea Sam Pitroda and the Indian communications revolution by Ben Freund |
| When the average American thinks about modern India, he thinks about being put on hold. Placing orders, giving technical support, organizing financial services -- if you can do it over the phone, India is ready and eager to help foreign companies do it faster, cheaper, and better. In the past decade, India has stormed the telecommunications industry with well-trained employees willing to work for much lower wages -- often two thirds lower -- than their American counterparts. Jack Welch, legendary CEO of General Electric, is credited as the pioneer of outsourcing technical work to India, but before he could take advantage of India's manpower, somebody had to build a working communications infrastructure in India from the ground up. That man is Dr. Satyanarayan "Sam" Gangaram Pitroda, and thanks to his work India was able to successfully grow out of the colonial shadow of England and take its place among the economically and technologically advanced superpowers of the world. Pitroda grew up in the remote village of Titilagarh in Orissa and had never even used a telephone until 1964 when he came to America to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. "I came from a poor background," said Pitroda in a 2003 interview, "and those were the days when telephones were locked in a wooden boxes and considered an elite possession, so I never got a chance to use one." Pitroda was certainly not a member of the elite, he was an OBC, a member of the "Other Backward Castes" which suffered centuries of disenfranchisement under India's rigid caste system which is still in the contentious process of disassembly. He left with less than $400, and returned 20 years later with more than 50 patents under his belt and millions in his bank account. Pitroda's return was at the request of then-prime minister Indira Gandhi who wanted him to help the government rebuild a nation mired in poverty. Pitroda's revolutionary belief -- so unheard of in the pre-Information Age that some in the Indian press accused him of being a saboteur working for the CIA -- was that after the basics of food, shelter, and clean water, a nationwide telecommunications network would be the most valuable step towards rebuilding India's crippled economy. With the prime minister's support, Pitroda founded the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) and immediately began constructing and linking the first of millions of Public Call Offices (PCOs) across India that connected even the most isolated villages with the rest of the world. The impact on the Indian economy was immediate, but of course Pitroda's work had any number of other intangible benefits to a weary nation: "Once, when I was travelling from Baroda to Ahmedabad, near Kheda," recalls Pitroda, "there was a PCO where 30 girls in brand new dresses, were all lined up. I could not understand it for some time. We went a little bit ahead, and then we realized that these girls were waiting to call their brothers in New Jersey because it was Raksha Bandhan (a Hindu festival celebrating the relationship between brothers and sisters)." |
| Although Pitroda left government service after a disagreement with administration during Prime Minister V.P. Singh's rule in 1989, his vision remained and India's continuing investment in telecommunications was second only to investment in her people. In 2004, Pitroda returned to service, ultimately heading the National Knowledge Commission, a government think-tank formed to address the matters most dear to his heart: competition on the cutting edge of information education and technology, and ensuring that education in these areas reached and empowered the disenfranchised OBCs. It has not been easy work; in May 2006 two of Pitroda's colleagues resigned from the Commission, frustrated with its focus on competitive advancements rather than rectifying past injustices. As if reviving his homeland from the colonization of the 20th century and shepherding it into the 21st were not enough, Pitroda has one more trick up his sleeve that he hopes will be as revolutionary as his nationwide network, but on a global scale. As the digital lifestyle reaches more people across the world and advances in complexity with each day, the good doctor wants to make communication as smooth and efficient as possible yet again -- not personal communcation, but financial. Until 2014, Pitroda holds the sole patents on efficient and secure "e-wallet" technology which, since February of 2006, has made well-financed but hesitant steps into the marketplace with the support of companies like Motorola, Best Western, and Noodles, Inc. There's no doubt that there will come a day in the future when we can pay for everything from fast food meals to hotel stays to vending machine snacks with a wave of a phone and leave the clunky old physical wallet and checkbook at home, but can Sam Pitroda stage another revolution in time or will change come after his reign at the crest of the e-wallet patent has come to an end? "It'll really be done when one billion people are using it," he admits, but as much as Pitroda would like to be where the buck stops when that day comes, "It doesn't matter if it doesn't happen tomorrow. I'm interest[ed] in the journey. I'm not interested in destinations." Little wonder that Sam can find satisfaction in being on hold a little longer. |
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