Dear Teachers and Parents,
Fascinating Right!! Listen to My Video- https://youtu.be/NjqLMgcDJhs
Do You agree?
Ravi Saripalle
Dear Friends and Students,
If possible, read the above article which was published on
March 15th, 2001 by the Economic Times! I was only a 3-year-experienced Senior
Software Engineer, working for Finance Solutions at Wipro Technologies. It was
a proud moment on that day when I saw my article published next to Prof. S
Sadagopan Sir, Founding Director of IIITB from 1999 to 2021, and he taught for
25+ years at IIT Kanpur, IIM Bangalore, and IIT Madras.
While searching for some stuff today, accidentally I found
this paper! Curiously, today I read again both articles—Prof. Sadagopan Sir’s
and mine. How far they are true in today’s context!! Interesting, always,
right?
My topic was, “Tapping In-House Business,” and Prof.
Sadagopan Sir’s was “Is IT Killing other Engineering Disciplines”! By this
time, you would have understood what would have been the content of both and
their reflections to date. Today it is May 12th, 2024! Yes, the topic “Is IT
Killing other Engineering Disciplines” is still valid, but forms are different.
I will not go beyond on this topic in this story, rather I would talk more
about what I wrote and where we are today!
Friends, though 2001 was a meltdown or dotcom burst year,
still in 2001, the majority of Americans didn’t have the Internet. Most people
got online using dial-up connections. Only 7% of Internet users worldwide had
broadband. Most things purchased online were paid for by money order. On the
Internet, print publications were generally navigated using blue hyperlinks.
Font-sizes were rarely bigger than what you'd see in an actual paper. There
were no videos. Ads were small, boxy, and static and generally looked like they
were an afterthought and designed by a gold salesman (vice.com).
In India, if I remember right, the internet service, known as
the Gateway Internet Access Service (GIAS), provided a speed of 9.6 kbit/s
speed, was priced at ₹5,200 for 250 hours for individuals, ₹16,200 for
institutional dial-up SLIP/PPP accounts, and higher for leased line services.
Maybe it might have increased to 50+kbit/s!!
During that time, I wrote this article, saying, “Intranet is
going to be the future tool for an IT Company’s sustenance”! Employees are
internal customers. Intranet is going to be the Company Mart, essential to
engage Employees in the Knowledge Industry. They are powerful communication
tools. Functions like HR, Finance, Marketing, Admin, Sales, etc., should be
totally automated and operated through intranets. Employee referrals, Project
Management, Knowledge Management Workflows should be automated in these
intranet portals.
You know what, many wrote back to me, “a fancy model”! More
maturity is needed to write such stuff! Today after 23 years, what happened to
this? I don’t need to justify again! Do you agree?
Now let me write further! I may or may not live that longer
for another 23 years, but no human being would be involved in mundane/routine
tasks - AI would drive all these functions. AI took 17 years for speech
recognition, 14 years for handwriting recognition, 6 years for image
recognition, 2 years for reading comprehension. But after 23 years, with this
faster pace of learning, AI would handle all tasks which are done by current
Engineering/Non-Engineering graduates.
Do you agree? If so, up for an upgrade, else it becomes an
uphill task to survive!
Ravi Saripalle
