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Salzburg Global Seminar is still accepting applications for the second cohort of the Japan-India Transformative Technology Network from applicants working and living in or who are citizens of Japan due to available places. Applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis until January 31, 2022. If you meet this criterion, please apply as soon as possible.
Ellora-Julie Parekh (EJP): Aishwarya, you have now been part of the Salzburg Global Fellowship for one year – what is it providing you that you find valuable?
Aishwarya Raman (AR): I joined Salzburg Global in February 2020 to participate in the Japan-India Transformative Technology Network, which brings together tech innovators from India and Japan to exchange on [the topic of] the power of data and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve lives globally. I am involved in two collaborative projects with other participants coming from a wide range of fields (academics, health care, and AI experts): (1) leveraging AI to improve road safety in India and (2) empowering women who can’t read or write with access to information.
Often, for people like me who’re deeply entrenched in policy research, discourses on AI are limited to theoretical questions situated in futuristic scenarios. Near-term questions, too, do not go beyond the concerns around data collection, privacy, security, and ethics. The discussions facilitated by the Salzburg Global network have helped us go beyond the oft-discussed questions and seek concrete usage of AI to make our lives better and more equitable. Our interactions - all online due to the pandemic - were designed in the form of “Challenge” sessions, allowing us to deep-dive into numerous topics.
It has been fantastic to meet experts in the field that I would otherwise not have met. One of the participants is a product innovator who’s bridging the communication gap between persons with disabilities and the non-disabled. Another participant is an urban planner who uses technology to map houses in dense, urban low-income areas to get them a “digital address.” To date, the residents of these houses have found it difficult to access directed welfare schemes or receive packages at their doorstep. And now they can, because they have an address!
Each session was very insightful for me, giving me ideas I could directly apply in my work on urban and mobility planning in India. Learning what works and what doesn’t work in Japan from the local change-makers is very relevant. And of course, I learned from others’ examples of partnerships, influencing policy, and consumer behavior.
EJP: Aishwarya – you are a serial entrepreneur. How did you have the idea to create India’s first all-women auto rickshaw fleet, AutoRani?
AR: I launched my first start-up at age 22. AutoRani is a dial-an-auto-rickshaw service, only with women drivers. I used my sociological thesis on the lives of auto rickshaw drivers in Chennai and turned it into a social enterprise. This enterprise introduced convenience, trust-building, and remuneration opportunities in a pre-smartphone world. Many young and middle-aged women - those dropping out of school, married or widowed, single mother, et al. - in Chennai’s low-income localities were keen to take up driving.
Platform work of this nature affords women flexibility and choice to work when and where they want, as we have found in this systematic study conducted in 2021. The early adopters were primary breadwinners for their families. As challenging as it is for women to take up such unconventional, non-traditional jobs, their entry into the mobility economy makes public spaces more inclusive and safe for everyone, thereby driving up India’s female labor force participation.
EJP: You are also very passionate about giving back to society and are very active in mentoring people behind young start-ups – what do you find exciting in doing this? Why do you do it?
AR: The purpose of one’s life should be larger than the self, and that is the rationale of my existence. I am a product of mentoring. My teachers, social science experts, citizen activists, and many leaders from civil society have guided me throughout my life. Many serendipitous encounters have empowered me to make the right decisions, from choosing to specialize in sociology, setting up a social enterprise, gaining expertise in the mobility sector, and now informing public policy through real-world evidence.
Entrepreneurs and students grapple with many challenges for which there are no easy solutions. By sharing learnings from my life with entrepreneurs, students, or young professionals, I wish to make a difference to the world we live in, however small the change might be. I also gain immensely from my interactions with those new to a field. Their outside-in perspectives keep me grounded in reality.
EJP: At OMI, you are looking to solve mobility through innovative interventions that bring together urban planners and economists, but also climate activists and sociologists? How does that work?
AR: Ola Mobility Institute (OMI) is unique in India. It is a new-age policy research and social innovation think tank developing knowledge frameworks at the intersection of mobility innovation and the public good. We develop research products and policy interventions on the subjects of electric mobility, energy and mobility, urban mobility, accessibility and inclusion, future of work, and platform economy. We bring together experts from different streams - urban and mobility planners, sociologists, economists, public policy professionals, communications experts, data scientists, climate activists, in a way no one else does. We put an emphasis on data-driven policymaking, and our efforts are rooted in real-world evidence, big data analytics, and machine learning. Again that’s quite unique.
An example of a program we run is the Ola City Sense. We use low-cost, mobile sensors to capture street-level air quality and road riding quality (detecting the presence of potholes) and provide hyperlocal insights to policymakers. We recently developed the concept of ATOM - short for “AuTonomous On-demand Mobility.” ATOM is conceptualized at the intersection of shared, connected, electric, AI-powered, and autonomous mobility. It involves driverless electric vehicles dynamically platooning on access-controlled roads, and offering demand-responsive mobility to cities of all sizes has the potential to revolutionize public transit as we know it, not just in India but around the world.
EJP: India is sadly known for its ultra-congested large cities. What gives you the energy and the hope to get up every day and work on improving it?
AR: As one of the most populated countries in the world coming of age with one of the lowest vehicle penetration rates of a major economy, India has a unique opportunity to establish a sustainable mobility system. India has 23 cars and 128 two-wheelers (motorbikes, scooters) per 1,000 population compared to over 900 cars per 1,000 persons in the US or UK. India is thus well poised to embrace new paradigms of mobility: shared, connected, electric, and autonomous, and leapfrog to a sustainable future. A majority of us already rely on the low-carbon modes like walking, cycling, public transit, and intermediate public transport such as taxi cabs and auto-rickshaws for our everyday commute.
Today, the ubiquity of smartphones and the availability of affordable data are transforming mobility and catalyzing India’s rapid transition to a zero-emission future. Crucially, the mobility policies that India adopts, the pilots, and the large-scale transformations it enables have the potential to change global energy and mobility landscapes. The decisions India makes afford a blueprint for many economies around the world, thereby modeling their own sustainability transition pathways after India’s.
The Japan India Technology Network, launched in 2020 by Salzburg Global Seminar and The Nippon Foundation, connects tech entrepreneurs from India and Japan to foster collaborations and surface creative ideas to use tech and artificial intelligence as a force for good, solving some of the pressing challenges of today, mobility, equity and access, economic development.
Salzburg Global Seminar is still accepting applications for the second cohort of the Japan-India Transformative Technology Network from applicants working and living in or who are citizens of Japan due to available places. Therefore, applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis until January 31. If you meet this criterion, please apply as soon as possible.