Note From President Vineet Bhatnagar
From revolution on Twitter to romance on Tinder, we are witnessing the bewildering technological forces that are
transforming the world that we live in. Our guest speaker this week, Mr. Harish Mehta, shared fascinating backstories
about NASSCOM and how India found its national competitive advantage in Information Technology. He strongly believes that this leading edge of India is on auto pilot which is almost irreversible.
I have always deliberated over the equilibrium that lies ahead in the man and machine equation. On one hand, I reckon that the most powerful tribe in the world today appear to be the computer programmers. At the same time, I also ponder over the morality and politics of code(s) including its implications for civic life – the constant theme for me this year.
Very often, I ask myself – is there a Human advantage in an age of Technology and Turmoil (stylishly called “Disruption”)? We have all got fixated with the term ‘disruption’ as it has come to imply only one thing – economic success. Whilst some of these re-processed offerings might indeed bring cost savings and efficiency, I WOULD
LIKE TO BAT FOR WHAT MAKES HUMANS SPECIAL IN THE AGE OF ALGORITHMS AND HOW PEOPLE CAN IMPROVE THE WAY THEY THINK, TO STAY AHEAD OF THE MACHINE.
Much like the machines, every moment of our life is filtered through our mental models, obviously invisible to us (as we cannot see the “code”). We should be able to recognise the lenses that we apply and rethink them as the world changes around us as we need to get a steady handle for our turbulent times. We should be curious to find ways to harness these mental models to make wiser individual decisions and become a more flourishing species. Man cannot be
disrupted by the machine.
— President Vineet Bhatnagar