School of thought

When I look back at the 'education' I've got, I realize how worthless most of it (not all) has been. Arguably, the system is geared towards giving a pretty broad foundation on which individuals are supposed to build their sophisticated lives on. Education could thus be summarized as the spray-and-pray approach at the bottom and you-better-find-your-groove expectation as you get older.



If the aim of early schooling is to provide an awareness of the limitless options available and to enable a student to choose one when he is ready to - that is a worthy cause! But what if this ends up creating a generation of 'exam writers' ? Unhappy and corrupt citizens? People who can crack question papers problems but not real-life problems? I would not be very wrong if I say that this is what we have ended up with in India. There is a looming talent deficit that this emerging economy has to deal with. More worryingly, a good percentage of 'graduates' that this country churns out, are marked as unemployable! Recently, my colleague Mansi lent me her book 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman' to read. The book is a collection of anecdotes of the Nobel Prize winning, Richard Feynman. First published in 1985! What is interesting in that book is his critique on the education system that existed in Brazil. Excerpt (click this link on Rob Shearer's site to read more):

The lecture hall was full. I started out by defining science as an understanding of the behavior of nature. Then I asked, “What is a good reason for teaching science? Of course, no country can consider itself civilized unless… yak, yak, yak.” They were all sitting there nodding, because I know that’s the way they think.
Then I say, “That, of course, is absurd, because why should we feel we have to keep up with another country? We have to do it for a good reason, a sensible reason; not just because other countries do.” Then I talked about the utility of science, and its contribution to the improvement of the human condition, and all that – I really teased them a little bit.
Then I say, “The main purpose of my talk is to demonstrate to you that no science is being taught in Brazil!”
I can see them stir, thinking, “What? No science? This is absolutely crazy! We have all these classes.”
So I tell them that one of the first things to strike me when I came to Brazil was to see elementary school kids in bookstores, buying physics books. There are so many kids learning physics in Brazil, beginning much earlier than kids do in the United States, that it’s amazing you don’t find many physicists in Brazil – why is that? So many kids are working so hard, and nothing comes of it.If Feynman landed in India, I am sure he would have penned a similar chapter. Interestingly, Indians who continue their studies abroad seem to do well for themselves. The institutions abroad seem to be able to instill something in them that makes them thrive.

On the eve of India's Independence Day, let me attempt at putting together what I would really have wanted my school(s) to have taught me.


'The School of Thought' would only define the minimum education required, the maximum would be up to the students. The idea is NOT to enable them to recite the definition of addition, but the ability to actually add any two numbers up.


The following would be the ONLY mandatory subjects:


1. Language.
Two languages, English and the mother-tongue.
Alphabet. Words. Grammar. Phrases. Sentences. Prose. Poetry. Songs. Stories.
The pupil must be able to tell stories and read and understand stories.


2. Arithmetic.
Numbers. Counting. Concepts behind Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division. Tables. Mental Arithmetic. Estimation.
The pupil must be able to handle all the calculations required in daily life.


3. People.
Self. Others. Family. Friends. Acquaintances. Colleagues. Life Partners. The Opposite Sex.
Listening. Thinking. Meditating. Caring. Negotiating. Integrity. Context. Diversity. Perception.
The pupil must be able to understanding what he/ she needs and expressing it. Grasping different contexts, people, body language. Speaking tactfully. Understanding what others want.


4. Money.
Saving. Borrowing. Lending. Taxes. Giving. Make a living. Enjoying work- doing what you love doing. Starting a small enterprise. Planning for a big one. Value of having/ not having. How does money work?
The pupil must understand the need and value of money, the nature and effects of its uneven distribution. Understanding what money can't buy.


5. Searching.
How to search for information? Optimal formation of keywords. Synthesizing information. Scanning through large data sets to get what you need.
The pupil must understand that transforming data into information creates value. Must be able to do that and use the information to get literally anything.


6. Happiness.
Staying alive. Staying safe. Games. Sports. Health. Team play. Arts. Music. Enjoying nature. Religion.
Maximizing life and joy.


7. Thinking.
Logic. Reasoning. Things beyond logic? Questioning. Controlling thoughts. Wrong? Right? Role of the community in forging individual thoughts.
The pupil must be able to spend time thinking and be able to capture the gist of their thoughts, understand which aspects have been influenced- consider the nature of each influence.


8. Exposure and experience.
Reading at least a book a week. Keeping notes. Movies. Imagining and accepting the possibilities of worlds and contexts beyond what is obvious and proximate. Exploring Nature. Places. Traveling. Understanding issues that different people face. Empathy.


In my opinion, the 8 subjects above are the building blocks. If a student masters the skills above, there is no subject that will be beyond his/ her reach. Physics, Chemistry, Botany will be things that they would naturally and out of their curiosity; be able to explore- or not! This country; any country for that matter, needs thousands of smart workers, farmers, artists, authors, administrators and politicians not just engineers and doctors. Its time this school of thought is given a 'School of Thought'. If we get this ONE thing right, we do not need to worry about anything else. Corruption, lack of infrastructure, inequality and a thousand other wrongs can be set right only through the light of knowledge.


Nothing captures this better than Gurudev's timeless words:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore.

UID as my Mobile Number. An Open Letter to UIDAI

An Open Letter.

To,
Mr. Nandan Nilekani,
Chairman,
UIDAI

Dear sir,

Let me jump straight to an outlandish idea and then delve into the whys and hows behind it:

Why not have the UID number as the defacto mobile number of an individual?

- So if my UID is 999123456789, I can simply print it on my visiting card and folks can call me on it.
- This is truly a mobile number for life. So as a customer, I will have a mobile number that will never change.
- Gives me a very valid reason to get a UID number asap.

UID = My Mobile Number for Life.

Why?

Aadhaar is slowly but steadily progressing in its mission to provide a unique identification mechanism for this country. This dashboard for instance shows 8 million cumulative enrollments in the last 8 months which I think is pretty impressive.

As the UIDAI website notes, the Aadhaar model clearly aims at attaching two attributes to every individual in this country-

a. a unique numeric identity and
b. an authentication mechanism.

This has very very profound implications on the way things are done by most of us. Aadhaar has already laid out its plans to work with its banking partners towards extending their reach by becoming the sole and minimum criterion for getting a basic savings account, which is a great fillip to the Financial Inclusion agenda.

The one thing I have learnt to value a lot above most other virtues in my past 3 years at Eko has been the value of simplicity. At Eko, we simplified the financial identity of a customer by providing it the customer's mobile number as a transactional alias and ensured that all transactions were done as simple number dialing -today we can claim that the choices have worked for Eko, where we have processed over Rs. 15,000,000,000 in cumulative volumes- way more than what all the other 'mobile banking' initiatives in India put together would have handled in the same period.

So,

Why not make things simpler for a few billion people, now that you've anyway embarked on this ambitious journey?

Why not provide a mobile access number to everyone, rich or poor? This could be a good utilization of the Universal Service Obligation funds with the Dept. of Telecom which I guess is well worth over Rs. 25000 crore!

How?

In India, TRAI had mandated the following mobile numbering scheme in 2003:
XXX-YY-NNNNN
where,
XXX= Mobile Operator
YY= Mobile Switching Center
NNNNN= Subscriber Identity

However, in January this year, 2011, Mobile Number Portability was launched. MNP essentially made the mobile operator and switch lookup as described above- redundant. Since launch, nearly 10 million customers have opted to change their operator while keeping their mobile number!! This clearly shows the need for an operator neutral numbering scheme. I think the 12 digit UID number neatly fits the bill.

How do we do this? Maybe, in a similar way MNP was rolled out; I guess the Telecordia solution for MNP already has some provision to achieve this. Another approach could involve UIDAI/ its nominated partner, maintaining a national master mobile switch (just as NPCI maintains a national financial transaction switch). Lets call it NMMS.

During Aadhaar enrollment, the customer is anyways asked to provide a mobile number, UIDAI would, from that point on, maintain the UID-Mobile Number mapping and the telecom operators be mandated to push any mobile number changes to UIDAI. This database could be used to seed the NMMS.

Aadhaar also does mass enrollment drives at places where not everyone might have (or be able to afford) a mobile number. At the end of such an enrollment drive, UIDAI could provide the entire block/ list of such customers enrolled to the highest pre-bid telecom operator which operates in that region. The telcom operator gets thousands of customers in one shot, which lowers their cost of acquisition and enables such 'no-frills' customers while UIDAI gets more customers in since it is now also seen as a mobile number provision drive  (Lets face it, the grandest successful 'inclusion' project so far in India has been the telecom inclusion project driven by the telecom operators in India with over 600 million customers already enrolled. The need to communicate is perhaps the biggest implicit driver!)

Dear sir, I'm sure you'd agree that its time to move the focus from thinking about 'allotment' of UIDs to mass utilization of the same. The more use cases there are and the more compelling these are, the more will be the adoption of the UID. Mandates and rules can only take an initiative so far; Only by addressing the innate needs of people can this initiative truly expand to its true potential.

I've been an ardent fan of your vision for this country and the ambitiousness of a project like UIDAI. I hope this crazy idea finds some resonance with your thoughts.

Regards,
Anupam

My first month at Eko, an intro

Its been almost a month (though Feb is a short month) since I joined Eko. The past few weeks have been typically hectic with Eko launching its 5000 customer target pilot in Delhi.

Before I proceed any further, I guess it would be appropriate to point out what exactly Eko is all about.

Eko (www.eko.co.in) - startup based in Delhi, India aims at extend banking facilities in these untapped/un-banked areas through the use of mobile phone as a channel; currently there are over 200 million mobile phone subscribers (GSM & CDMA). Eko is looking to ensure greater financial inclusion and increase the outreach of the banking sector as envisaged by RBI – the Indian Federal Bank through the use of Business Correspondent Model.

Eko’s unified approach to financial services will address two key challenges - ubiquity and comprehensiveness of range of financial services. Often financial services with the focus for financial inclusion have resulted in high transaction & servicing costs, inadequate collection & use of customer information, and a focus on credit based services leading to the exclusion of more needed services including Savings.

Our first initiative is “Branchless Banking” using mobile phone as a channel. For now we have initiated a pilot project at Uttam Nagar in Delhi in partnership with Centurion Bank of Punjab under the “Business Correspondent” model. Our first offering is “Abhilasha” - No Frills Savings Account to customers with only two transaction - deposits and withdrawals.

Customers are acquired through Eko Relationship Officers (EROs: local salesmen of the locality with full KYC and good banking record) while they can transact (deposits and withdrawals) at Eko Cash Points (ECPs: local retail shops). EROs are remunerated for customer acquisition while the ECPs are remunerated per transaction.

The model is such that money is deposited to the bank, through the distribution chain of ECPs, even before the savings are mobilized from the retail customers. Hence there is no exposure to the bank. Subsequently, ECPs mobilize savings from retail customers. The customers have all the protections extended just like any other depositor with a bank.

Eko issues Signature Booklets (filed for patent) to every account holder. The Signature Booklet is used to secure the transactions and ensures more than ATM like security for the transactions. Eko also issues a comic for easy communication to the customers.

Eventually, multiple value added services would be offered to the members, through the network of EROs and ECPs including more credit and savings product apart from transactional services.

We would like to invite all those interested to visit our Pilot site at Uttam Nagar in Delhi. The directions are:
1. Take the Delhi Metro Blue line, get down at the 'Uttam Nagar West' station.
2. Once there, if you are facing west (or looking opposite to the direction of 'Uttam Nagar East' station), take the first turn left immediately after the station.
3. Ask directions for Eko, T 105, 'Shukkar Bazar' Road. (Its essentially three blocks straight and three blocks right from the beginning of the road and normally you zig-zag one block straight and one block right at a time)
4. Keep watching en-route to spot shops (medicos, groceries) sporting the eko signboard.

The following is the location of the Pilot Project on Wikimapia (you have to reach somewhere near the bottom left corner):



In my next post (when I get the time for it) I will post with pictures and illustrations how the transactions are carried out. So folks, watch out this space!

India, when will you truly rise?

I've been traveling the past few weeks. Just returned after visiting my parents at Satna, MP (Madhya Pradesh, the heart of India). Our church runs an ICSE-ISC school here, my father is the principal and my mother is a teacher. I too was a student here over a decade ago. This little town is also the preferred railway station for tourists to proceed towards Khajuraho, famous for its erotic sculptures and a UNESCO heritage site. It also serves as a hub to Panna, the diamond district and Chitrakoot

What is startling is the sheer state of neglect and apathy towards public infrastructure development in these places. Compared to Kerala, these places (a significant portion of India) are decades behind, with little hope of catching up (not many residents of Kerala realize just how lucky they are. I'd suggest a North India trip to all Kerala cribbers). From what I've seen in my travels in India, the state of Satna is representative of most of India, the real India and not the 'Bangalore-India' or 'Delhi-India'.

The last time I'd been to Satna was 13 years ago. Sure, there are a lot more houses now - unimaginative, haphazard blocs of brick and cement. That makes me conclude that architecture, symmetry, design and aesthetics are 'higher' needs, maybe they are not even 'needs' per se. When people with limited resources just need a roof over their heads and four walls around - thats exactly what they make.

The roads are an excuse at best. ISRO can readily test its moon buggies, if at all it makes em, on any of the roads here. Even Kerala has its fair share of potholed roads but this place has more potholes than roads.

Water supply - non-existent (this is winter, I dread what will happen in summer!). Electricity erratic, the lights give an almost apologetic glow. Public transport - rickety metal boxes with an engine, wheels and a few seats thrown in.

Uncleanliness and an absolute lack of hygiene (cant blame the folks completely for this - when there is no water, how can one wash?). But some things should change. People here still defecate by the side of the railway and road tracks. Cows, dogs, fleas and mosquitoes share the space on the railway platform! The concept of sanitation has either not yet percolated down to some people or perhaps remains an unattainable luxury. A man no less than Gandhi ji was extremely concerned about this even half a century ago.

It is in circumstances such as these that resilience shines. I admire the warmth and hospitality shown by many at Satna despite their constraints. Some people just go out of their way to help. Heres a note of thanks to Mr. Jain who runs a popular book store there who helped us with all our railway bookings and personally came in at 5 am in the chilly winter to see us off.

How I wish the people running the state machinery would rise above their petty squabbles, corrupt selfishness and simply implement the development policies. How I wish most people would have access to at-least basic education and infrastructure. Before talking about broadband, wifi and what not in India, essential infrastructure, good governance and accessible education must be talked about. Only then will there be a chance for the real India to rise.