Since the last couple of days for many personal reasons I have been brimming my cup with nostalgia of various kinds. Especially with those spanning back nearly 10 years when I first started using a computer (first only if you could forgive and forget odd pacman games nearly 2 decades back). That and this day and age when I am charting entrepreneurial aspirations completely banking on the digital world.. I think we have all come a long way in the past 10 years.
The past 10 years might have truly belonged to China but somewhere along India too has caught up to be a close second in staking claim if not more. Of course our country has to attempt bigger strides to gain any credible momentum in many areas, we certainly seem to be doing well in one – the digital arena.
Yes, there are problems still – problems of ever delayed governmental norms and nods, problems of infrastructure and reach, problems of security and problems of acceptance on a general level. However, there is no denying that the web and mobile have been the catalyst of social and economic change in India. For the first time in 60 odd years of independence the country is connected, every little part of it. Everyone is rolling on technology to catapult their aspirations and digital media is playing its role in everyone’s dreams. The chronicles of digital revolution helping farmers, to students to giving wings to entrepreneurial flights in small towns and big cities has been documented enough already, but there is still so much more to say and do.
So while we look back on this decade that to my mind truly belonged to the digital, we realize that we’re actually at the cusp of greater digital convergence. I am not a man for much prediction and analysis to be honest, and hadn’t this been a year of decadal significance I might have let this pass without any talk. But this is such a year and for the reasons above I am looking forward to it with a lot of optimism.
With digital media the speed is numbing and the possibilities limitless especially for us Indians. In the next decade that will begin tomorrow :
- I believe the web and mobile space will bring out the highest employment numbers in an industry in this country
- I believe that this space will make the Indian more global
- And that if the world doesn’t commit any Hara Kiri come 2012 India’s growth as a global business hub and growth center will be accentuated.
And so I look forward to the morning that is set to follow this digital dawn that’s just begun to recede.
On a side note, my optimism is not just founded on the impact digital media had on our society and its speed in the last few years. However, to a small extent it also goes down to a small jovial list of wishes I made last year. It was written on boxing day, 2008 and was a feeble attempt at humour more than anything else. However, to my surprise some of those wishes came true or almost.
- A Youtube premiere for a bollywood movie didn’t happen but 3 Idiots will be available on it soon and be available in its official best
- Twitter finally seemed to have found a business model and Facebook making more money after all
- If it wasn’t for a not so surprising delay today we would have switched our mobile phone providers without changing the number..and it will happen soon
- 3G and IpTv did happen even if on a far limited scale, but it did. And more celebrities took to blogging this year and so did more companies
It always feels good when your wishes, however insipid they might have been come true and so it is with me and my wishlist of last year. Though I am restraining myself from repeating such an adventure this year which to my mind is a far smarter choice than the ones I put in my list last time. Then again, I think this whole story just adds a lot more weight to the idea that if you wish hard enough many things can come true if not all. And let that be a guiding though (although from an unlikely source and story) for all of us to live by from tomorrow.
With that I sure hope that we have a lot more to write, opine and analyse in the year and 9 others to come and that we do a good job of it. I’d also like to wish my co-authors besides the many visitors I have got to know personally at WATBlog a wonderful year ahead.
Before I conclude there is one small question lingering.
At the start of 2009 among other news one of the stuff that we had asked was whether 2009 will be the year the digital divide will be bridged? In my opinion it wasn’t, but some construction work like the Delhi CWG stadia and Mumbai metro has certainly begun. What’s your take..did we bridge it or was Economic Times wrong in its editorial outlook?
