Towards a New Indian Model of ICT-Led Growth and Development

Lead PI: Dr. Nirupam Bajpai , Radhika Iyengar

Unit Affiliation: Center for Sustainable Development (CSD)

July 2018 - June 2023
Inactive
Asia ; India ; Karnataka ; Uttar Pradesh ; Telangana ; Maharashtra
Project Type: Research

DESCRIPTION: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help nations leapfrog economic development in key sectors: health, education, infrastructure, finance, agriculture, manufacturing, and perhaps most important, governance. Focusing on India, over a three-year period, this project asks will India truly forge a new path to development, for example bypassing a period of further heavy industrialization? Will the patterns of nationl income, including the distribution of industries, incomes and wealth be strongly affected by the ICT revolution? Can ICTs be used to create new high quality, low-cost services in health, education and infrastructure, thereby enabling India to leapfrog in the development process? Can ICTs help to reconcile the challenges of economic growth on the one hand and low-carbon energy system on the other?
While we believe ICTs indeed offer India new and important pathways to sustainable development, including services-led growth, the decarbonization of energy, vastly improved education and others, we also believe that the potential contributions and options of ICTs are still only partially understood. For example, which aspect of ICT will be most important? Business-to-business or business-to-consumers e commerce? ICT-enabled public services? Artifical intelligence and robotics? Social networks and social media? E-payments and e-banking? The Internet of Things? The project team will engage in these and related questions to arive at suitable answers.

The education strand of the research includes a unique SDG-oriented intervention in Mahbubnagar district in Telangana State. CSD partnered with the District Government to provide technical inputs to the curriculum of a Women’s Computer Center. The education team is also conducting action research on the roll-out of a new content sharing platform in Maharashtra called DIKSHA, supported by the Indian national government, to understand challenges to it's uptake and support ongoing teacher training on integration of technology tools in teaching practice.

OUTCOMES: Providing technical advisory services to set-up and launch an ICT Center for Women's skill development; Providing technical advisory services to launch an education ICT platform in he state of Maharashtra known as Digital Information for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA). Undertaking policy-oriented research to provide advise to policy-makers in the areas of e-payments, education, health, nutrition, agriculture, and intersectoral convergence. Providing ICT related training to the District Institute of Education and Training, in the Mahbubnagar district of the State of Telangana, India.

RESEARCH TEAM:

Yanis Ben Amor, Tara Staffor, Heain Shin, Vijay Modi, Ram Fishman, John Biberman, Abhishek Beriya, Manisha Wadhwa, Anchal Sharma, V N Saroja, K Navatha, Srinivas Akula, Joaquin Aviles, Sana Tahniyath, Preeti Kumar, Dr. Shakti, Rajna Mishra

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY COLLABORATORS:

The Fu Foundation School of Engineerng and Applied Science

EXTERNAL COLLABORATORS:

Public Health Foundation of India, Mahbubnagar District Government, Maharsashtra State Council of Ediucational Research and Training, The Energy and Resources Institute, Leadership for Equity

WEBSITE:

https://csd.columbia.edu/research-projects/towards-new-indian-model-ict-led-growth-and-development

DATASETS: Data on education platforms in India; Health data on the use of ICT tools by community health workers, Medical officers, ANMs and beneficiaries; Agriculture data on crop area, productivity, soil health, rainfall

KEYWORDS

education technology information and communications technology (ICT) intersectoral convergence digital skills digital villages education health

THEMES

Sustainable living