Innovation rules

There is a nagging feeling that there is no, or very little, innovation coming out of India.

There are numerous ways in which this feeling presents itself - sometimes as a itch that needs scratching, sometimes as a job that helps pay the bills, sometimes as a need to prove something to the world and oftentimes as a voicing of frustration.

It is not too difficult to articulate this feeling. Why does a Linux or Google or Facebook never originate in India. Why do we only spawn businesses like Infosys and TCS which help support innovations from other cultures rather than create any themselves. At the same time, you find that large proportions of people in companies, like Microsoft or Google, that innovate, are Indians.

Where’s the glitch?

One explanation that is usually served up, most recently by the CEO of TCS, is that it is a question of perception. This implies that one only needs to make it look like India is innovating - in one word, marketing. This probably makes sense from the point of view of a business, where everything is marketing. If you really wanted to understand the phenomenon though, such an explanation is too easy and in a strange way shines a little diffused light on the fundamental issue at hand. 

When faced with a problem there are two basic ways in which one can react - logically or emotionally. The various shades between these two extremes are what we usually find ourselves painted in, depending on factors like what we were taught and how were made to feel in relation to the world.

Logic, when translated into something tangible, becomes a set of rules. Follow the set of rules and there’s a good chance you’ll get where you want to go to. If you don’t follow the rules, any movement you make will be an error within the logical framework. Rules then, define the boundaries within which expected results can be obtained. 

Rules are meant to make life easier. When a rule is the cause of problems, the logic behind it can be modified and the rule mended to suit reality better. Doing so would, over time, evolve the rules and result in a society based more on logic than on emotion. Western economies have evolved to such an extent that they have rule books for everything - even torture.

We evolve rules in India too. Only, the driving force is emotion. When we don’t like a rule, we reason out an alternate logic, apply emotion to it and implement the rule change immediately - without making it part of the framework. This means that we have a multitude of logical frameworks, each following its own evolutionary path. Bribery and corruption are nothing more than logical frameworks. Bribery in India is not anarchic. There are a set of rules governing it, with emotion being the thread that ties the rules together. You could be driving a stolen car with no license, but when stopped by a Traffic cop in India, your options vary from Death to winning the friendship of the cop.

The changing of rules dynamically and instantaneously requires quick thinking and adaptation - in one word, innovation. However, in the vacuum that exists without a logical framework, the rules are short lived and exist only for the duration of the transaction. Also, since the innovation occurred beyond the boundaries of the original framework of logic, it cannot be recognized as an innovation that can be replicated. The CEO of TCS throwing the ‘perception idea’ in the air is a tangential example of such innovation. The fundamental problem is that there is no innovation coming out of India, but to him the immediate problem to solve is, ‘people asking him why there is no innovation’. By fixing the second, he dissociates himself from the first and evolves a new logical framework which solves the immediate problem.

You take this same person with an immense capacity for dynamic rule creation and place him in a culture where rules are curated and see what happens. All those random rules he’s been creating just to get by are now absorbed into a logical framework and he feels like he’s in rule heaven.

Technology limit

It’s nothing new. There is a limit to extent to which technology can solve problems at any point in time. Some problems, then, are beyond the scope of what the current state of technology can address effectively. Among these problems there are some whose technological solutions can be imagined - and they are usually the stuff of science fiction. There are others where it appears technology can only remain an enabler of solutions and not a solver of problems.

An example might help illustrate this.

Reserving time slots for appointments is now a trivial technological problem. There are a fixed number of slots which can be reserved and once those slots are taken none will be available. The problem is, this works well only until you have a ‘manageable’ number of applicants for the slots. Once you have more than a certain number of people scrambling for the fixed number of slots, strange things start happening.

Primarily, the queue which was in effect to implement the ‘first come first served’ policy now becomes a mob. Within a mob, as anybody who has participated in a railway booking mob will tell you, there is no order. What there is, is a delta - a crowded triangular area that is formed spontaneously around the mouth of the queue, which one needs to be present in to have a fighting chance of obtaining the desired outcome. Within the delta the ‘first come first served’ policy does not work. The dynamics of the delta are highly volatile. Rules and policies are coded, communicated and enforced on the fly in a rapidly changing environment. 

The number of variables that need to be computed to move closer to the mouth are so immense and varied that one needs to function at an instinctual level. To list some of the variables that need to be considered - how important is the appointment slot to your life, How strong are your elbows, how much stamina can you afford, What are your motivations, How many people can you bully without incurring the wrath of the collective mob, how much do you care about other people. To put all these variables together into a usable piece of data is possible only instinctively. 

What is really interesting is that what is described above applies equally well to any queue - even one that is enforced technologically.

The solution that is usually proposed - enforce the first come first served policy strictly through the threat of violence - only displaces the problem. if disorder is eliminated from the queue, in the case of railway booking, the disorder is transferred to the train itself. The desperate ones who do not make it to the top of the queue before the train leaves would board the train anyway or spill onto the platform and start becoming a hindrance to the smooth and happy functioning of society.

The easy solution to this problem is to increase the number of queues and trains until everyone can get a slot while still following the ‘first come first served’ policy. This would require that the requirement of queues and trains is computed dynamically and the required number of people and machinery is mobilized and made available on the fly. This, to me, is in the realm of science fiction - an optimized society where everyone gets what they want, when they want it - and hence something that can be imagined.

But our original problem was one where we have a fixed number of slots which a number of people are seeking to occupy and there is no restriction on the number of people who can try. Not having an infinite number of slots is a real condition and the removal of that condition cannot be a valid solution to the problem. 

The other solution that is usually proposed - use a different selection algorithm - different from ‘first come first served’ - introduces, in effect, a certain randomness into the situation. This seems like a suitable solution; if only it could be made fair.

Without an infinite number of slots on offer and needing to give everyone a fair chance at success, one would seemingly have to allow the delta to be created - and once it has formed, let it manage itself. This would ensure that there is a randomness in making the selection but since the participants in the mob define the algorithm it would be fair for that particular mob.

There it is - technology enabling a solution; the mob generated algorithm, rather than solving the problem itself.

India’s passport issuing service (Passport Seva) has an online interface, developed by TCS, to book appointment slots. About a lakh users try to book from among 200 slots. The interface allows a user to book a slot by choosing from a set of available time slots (possibly arrived at depending on the personnel available) on a certain date in the future. This system seems to make use of the delta to decide who gets a slot and who doesn’t. The window remains open for an hour every day, but when the window is open, all available slots are filled in less than 5 seconds. You might be the first person in the queue, but there’s a good chance that you’ll be ejected from the queue. The fine timing that is required at and between each step in the process ensures that a delta is created. The mob of requests evolves an algorithm on the fly to ‘decide’ which requests would go through successfully. The algorithm evolved by a certain mob cannot be replicated by another, thereby ensuring complete randomness and hence, fairness.