Mr Mukesh Ambani Mobi com speech

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INDIA’S OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION
Mukesh Ambani
Chairman and Managing Director
Reliance Industries Limited
MOBICOM 2018
New Delhi
30th
October 2018

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Shri Ravishankar Prasadji,
Shri Narayana Murthy
Shri Rohan Murthy,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A very good morning.
I feel honoured and privileged to be invited to the 24th
MobiCom
conference.
MobiCom is the world’s leading forum in the domains of mobile
computing, networks and algorithms.
When Shri Narayana Murthy called and requested me to meet Rohan
Murthy and to be a keynote speaker for MobiCom 2018, I readily agreed.
I have the highest respect for Shri Narayana Murthy for putting India on
the Global IT map.
My hearty congratulations to Rohan for organising MobiCom2018.
Rohan told me that he is busy disrupting the business that his father
founded.
By using algorithms, big data, artificial intelligence to make enterprises
and people and processes far more productive.
I admired Rohan for what he said.
Disrupting the old and constructing the new, which is bigger and better.
This is exactly the spirit of the youth of India – they are not happy being
incrementally innovative but they want to be truly disruptive.
Disruption is about creating a new way of life that will make the old way
of life completely obsolete.

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Dear Friends,
When the first conference of MobiCom was held in the mid-90s, I was
busy in the world of energy and atoms.
Not in bits and bytes.
It was an altogether different world then… the all-pervasive impact of
mobile technologies was, at best, science-fiction.
India’s GDP was around USD 350 billion.
We had just come out of a severe financial crisis.
And very few in the world thought that our country’s prospects were
bright.
Today our GDP is nearing USD 3 trillion, and India is well on its way to
becoming one of the three richest countries in the world.
I am delighted that MobiCom chose to host its conference in India.
I can say with confidence that if there is one place in the world where the
transformative power of digitisation is breaking new ground every day, it
is India.
India’s digital transformation is unmatched and unprecedented.
In just 24 months, India has taken a leadership position from being 155th
in wireless broadband technology adoption – and the impact of this
unprecedented growth can be seen across all digital domains.
Mobile computing as a catalyst is driving massive data consumption –
and this has given young Indians a fertile ground for disruptive ideas.

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Cloud computing and networking technologies have used broadband as
a foundational enabler – leading to Indian entrepreneurs starting to
make a global impact.
In the next two decades, I can confidently say – that India shall be
leading the world and shall contribute to the next wave of global
economic growth.
Friends,
Let me tell you why I am so optimistic about India’s potential…
Not just optimistic, I am actually convinced.
Earlier, the world had witnessed three industrial revolutions.
The first one was powered by coal and steam,
The second was fuelled by electricity and oil,
And the third used electronics and information technology.
During the first two revolutions, India languished on the fringes.
It started playing catch-up in the computer-driven Third Industrial
Revolution.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is now upon us.
It is marked by a fusion of technologies straddling the physical, digital
and biological worlds.
I can say with full confidence that India has a chance of not just
participating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but also leading it.
And I say this because of three main reasons:
First, The India of today is remarkably different from the India of
yesterday.

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The India of today is a very young nation – 63% of its 1.3 billion
population are aged below 35.
India’s vast tech-savvy young population is its key strength.
Just imagine the kind of connected intelligence India can create if the
power of a billion-plus minds is combined!
Our nation is more vibrant and ambitious than ever before on the back of
its youthful energy and enterprise.
Second, India is a democracy and is run on the model of equitable and
inclusive growth with a society-wide culture of empathy.
And it is openly embracing the digital technologies of tomorrow.
With a world-class digital infrastructure in place, each one of the 1.3
billion people of India can now productively participate in the Fourth
Industrial Revolution.
We can solve the biggest unsolved problems facing humanity right here
in India.
Third, India is a rich and fertile ground for entrepreneurship.
It has already succeeded in creating a healthy ecosystem to nurture
entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs.
Most significantly, India has emerged as the fastest growing start-up
base worldwide.
Today, the nation is home to the third largest number of technology-
driven start-ups in the world.
Never before has India witnessed such an explosion of entrepreneurial
spirit.

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Dear Friends,
How can India rise to its full potential, to its destined eminence?
There are four major areas, which India needs to focus on and
embrace:
First, we need to prepare ourselves for a period of information and
digital abundance.
All Indians will have access to quantum computing on the cloud, and
access to all the information on the planet.
I am proud to say that, instead of a digital divide, India today is
digitally united.
All 1.3 billion connected minds are going to accelerate the future.
Digital platforms make it possible for many consumers to be
entrepreneurs at the same time.
Imagine a force of 1.3 billion networked consumers and entrepreneurs
having access to all the knowledge and all the computational power they
want at extremely affordable price.
Also, imagine the force of IoT when nearly 80 billion things worldwide
join the network and begin to communicate with each other.
Every single aspect of our lives – the way we earn our living or conduct
our businesses – will undergo a sea transformation… not in 30 years….
not in 20 years… but within a decade.
Early adopters will have the opportunity to leap-frog competition, and
create unprecedented societal value.
Second, we need to adapt ourselves to the scorching pace of innovation
and learn to collaborate on scale.

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As computational power gets faster, so do networks and sensors, AI and
robotics, 3D printing, Synthetic biology, AR/VR, Blockchain…
All these technologies are accelerating in speed, rate and power.
You could be an expert in any one of these, but it's the convergence of
two, three or four of these that's transforming existing ways of working.
Which means, collaborations will become both a necessity and a
requirement for success.
You may have a brilliant idea that has the potential to disrupt an
industry.
But so do a thousand others.
We need to quickly transform the idea into a breakthrough innovation.
And in order to do that, you have to master the art of collaborating with
your peers anywhere in India or the world, pooling your ideas, and
leveraging your competencies.
In the digital world, none of us is as smart as all of us put together.
Third, we have to shift from a system of time-bound education to a
mode of continuous learning.
Now, it is both possible and necessary to reorient education for the new
kinds of productive and creative opportunities.
We have to groom our children to be digitally-savvy right from school.
Schools should train students in ‘the four C-s’ – critical thinking,
communication, collaboration and creativity.
These are the skills required to build the foundation for a sustained
leadership in the digital age for India.

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Within a single generation, we can empower and enrich our vast and
young human resources to give India a competitive edge in the world.
The Fourth major task is closely linked to the third.
It is to ensure that new and disruptive technologies create more
employment opportunities than they take away.
I have no doubt that they will.
However, there is a lot of apprehension to this score.
And these very apprehensions could resist or delay digital
transformation of our societies.
That would be a mistake.
Therefore, governments, businesses and civil society organisations
should put together an ecosystem for massive upskilling of workforce.
Significantly, most of the upskilling can happen on digital platforms.
Dear Friends,
We now have the opportunity to digitally reinvent all sectors of our
economy – be it financial services, commerce, manufacturing,
agriculture, education and healthcare.
India can leapfrog competition and lead the world in each of these
sectors.
Let me focus on three important sectors ─ agriculture, education and
healthcare.
First, I have chosen agriculture because we cannot ignore the reality of
underdevelopment in rural India.
Over 60 % of Indians still live in villages.

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And by 2050, there will be 300 million more Indians to feed.
Today, our average farm yields are about 20-30 % of the best global
yields.
There is both a pressing need, and a golden opportunity, to create a
digital green revolution - an evergreen revolution.
India has an unprecedented opportunity to create wealth and new
knowledge-rich livelihood opportunities in rural areas…
By encouraging adoption of technologies for water conservation, soil
management, precision farming, waste reduction…
…To enhance agricultural productivity.
I am sure that if we combine digital technology tools with the innate
knowledge and wisdom of Indian farmers, we can usher in an evergreen
revolution.
The second big digital opportunity is in education.
India’s youth is our biggest asset.
But we need good quality education for all to make them a productive
asset.
We need digital tools and innovations to break geographical, social,
language and economic barriers.
58,000 colleges, over 700 universities and 19 lakh schools in India will
be digitally connected, with Jio playing a leadership role.
Any student, even in a remote village, can have access to the best
teachers and the latest knowledge in the world.

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AI-based smart assistants can bring personalised learning adapted to
the needs of each student.
And which can in fact overcome the gaps and constraints of classroom
education ----- like any age, any time and any subject learning in any
language.
Thirdly, healthcare is a basic human right of every Indian.
Our purpose is to ensure affordable and quality healthcare to all, which
is both a national necessity and a national responsibility.
For the first time in history, this has become possible because of digital
technologies – accessible even in remote locations.
Today, constraints of budget, physical infrastructure and trained
personnel make it difficult to deliver quality healthcare to India’s large
and growing population.
India can overcome these constraints by adopting digital tools and
innovations.
As in education, the best doctors and best diagnostic facilities can
become accessible to all citizens anywhere in the country.
India can design a path-breaking and affordable healthcare system that
will be a model for the rest of the world.
Similar disruptive and scale opportunities exist in India in virtually
every domain.
I can safely predict that, from now on, every new generation of Indians
will live a better, longer and more-fulfilling life – than the previous
generation.
Friends,

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Reliance is a proud participant in India’s rise.
And privileged to serve this new India.
I have been fortunate to participate in building global-scale Reliance
businesses in energy, information and digital services.
Jio, our youngest and fastest growing venture, has been conceived not
as a business, but as a digital movement.
It is on a mission of making Digital Life a reality for 1.3 billion Indians.
While India has pole-vaulted into global leadership in the mobile
broadband space… we still lag behind in fixed-line broadband.
India is ranked quite low at 134th
in the global ranking for fixed
broadband.
Jio is determined to move India to among the top 3 in fixed-line
broadband, too.
Our state-of-the-art digital infrastructure provides mobile and broadband
connectivity across the country, with the largest fiber footprint.
We will now extend this fiber connectivity to homes, merchants, small
and medium enterprises and large enterprises simultaneously across
1500 cities to offer the most advanced fiber-based broadband
connectivity solutions.
For the 30 million small merchants and businesses, this will provide
them the agility and customer obsession of a small owner-driven
business and simultaneously provide them the tools and capability to
compete on level terms with larger businesses.

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The success of Indian small businesses and small merchants translates
directly into faster and more sustainable growth with large-scale
employment for the Indian economy.
Friends,
In conclusion, MobiCom technologies have inaugurated a new era in the
history of the human race.
Across the world, the digital era is dispelling despair and bringing new
hope.
For the first time, we can make poverty a thing of the past, and provide
the fruits of prosperity for the entire world.
A better world is indeed possible.
Each one of us should work together in a spirit of partnership to make
this optimism come true.
I am confident that when MobiCom returns to India to hold its conference
a decade later, you are bound to see India’s Digital Dreams come true,
substantially.
With these words, I wish the very best for the success of the first-ever
MobiCom 2018 conference in India.
Also, I take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy Diwali.
Thank you.