Can India be a source of deep, real innovation?
Big companies are geared up for incremental innovation. For us in India, the cost of doing innovative technology is very, very low. The capability of India is its people. We can assemble more good and intelligent people than anywhere in the world. I admire China, but our people are better. India has ingenuity. If an ordinary car mechanic is aided by computers and simulation, his productivity leaps. Q: Tell me about your computer-aided adult-literacy program. What made you pursue it? A: [For years,] the Indian government has been spending a lot of money and resources on adult literacy. It has been using conventional methods. While there has been some progress, it’s inadequate, considering that about 250 million adults in India are still illiterate. There are constraints: You need 200 hours of instruction for full literacy, and you need trained teachers to teach. If I’m 25 and working in a field or as a housewife, how will I find those 200 hours? As for teachers, we need 500,000 trained
