Vikas Nath

Hacker Mindset: Conceiving, Coding and Commercialising Ideas

For developing countries to break free from poverty, aid and dependence trap, they need to focus on development through technology, talent and innovations.

At present there is overemphasis on trade. Trade is meaningless if developing countries do not have anything to sell. And where it is not matched by transformation in domestic education system that prepares youths to innovate, create products of tomorrow and compete in global marketplaces, we are simply raising a new generation of consumers for products being sold by multinational companies. The benefits to developing countries remain minimal. Continue reading →

Weak link between multilateral negotiations, agreed goals and financing is stalling the talks.

The persistence of climate change negotiators huddled together in Warsaw from over 190 countries is laudable. Even when countries are failing to reign in their greenhouse emissions that is causing a rise in global temperatures, the negotiations keep going. This is their 19th attempt under the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which meets every year to get member countries to take action on climate change. But ‘action’ seems to be an elusive and a constantly receding goal as the link between multilateral negotiations, agreed goals and financing is weak.

The Warsaw gathering is not expected to lead to immediate actions that everyone is hoping for, namely collective and concrete measures, and financing to bring deep reductions in the global emissions. Instead it is expected to lay foundation for a global pact to deal with climate change beyond 2020. Continue reading →

A bigger question remains. Can e-governance improve the lives of common people? And the answer is not as easy as it may seem. While making government services available online certainly saves time, drudgery and costs incurred by people in accessing them, it may not necessarily improve lives of the majority. E-governance makes it easier to pay electricity and water bills online but can it provide assured electricity and water supplies to everyone? Providing assured water and electric supply, basic health, education and other infrastructure facilities assume precedence. They have to be provided as pre – requisite of e-governance and not as outcomes. Continue reading →

When it comes to democratic societies, where voting is an affirmation of one’s freedom and equality, and is the cornerstone of democracy, the freedom to abstain from making a choice is often missing. Citizens are given the freedom to vote for any candidate standing for elections, but few democracies give voters the explicit right to reject all the candidates, if they find no one suitable. In effect, citizens are given the freedom to choose but not to withhold making a choice. Continue reading →

Vikas Nath, Founder of DigitalGovernance.org will give the Special Guest Address on Sharing ICT Experiences Across the World. See more at: http://www.et-egovernance.com/

In mid-April 2013 over a thousand people gathered in Mumbai for the annual Sankalp Forum organised by Intellecap. Refreshingly none of the social entrepreneurs present talked about providing products and services for free, and for the right reasons – to engage with the unreached and the poor in a relationship which is equal and business-like. They did not find it incongruous to talk about creating business solutions which work for the poor and creating profits in the same sentence. They are focused as much on creating income inflows from year one of their enterprises as they are on reaching the unreached.

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