What India needs today is a ‘skills movement’ to which every skilled or educated individual should contribute, says Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, who was recently elevated as executive director — India, Cognizant. Edited excerpts:
Can you elaborate on your new role as the executive director, India?
A less-known fact about Cognizant is its contribution to building of societies globally, specifically with the jobs of the future. The sheer scale of high-quality jobs created by Cognizant across countries where we operate, be it the United States, India and so many countries in Europe and Asia-Pacific is striking. Today, we are among the world’s top technology employers.
And, in building and nurturing high-end technology and business talent, we have enabled clients across industries to make a meaningful impact on society, be it in driving financial inclusion, saving lives and improving quality of care, or preserving and sustaining the environment. We now plan to further strengthen this larger purpose of Cognizant and help elevate humanity through our business. Our objective is to reinforce that we are doing well by doing good, which is why this new role has been created.
How does it align with your larger education and skilling initiatives?
In this age of significant technology adoption, we do not have enough technology talent globally.
This is further compounded by frequent and rapid disruptions in technology. To put things in perspective, look at IT. In the last five decades, every big technology disruption — mainframe, client server or the Internet — was followed by long periods of stability. This gave companies and the academia enough time to adjust to the changes.
But today, it’s very different. What we are witnessing is an unprecedented confluence of multiple disruptive technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented reality and virtual reality, big data and analytics, cloud, and Blockchain. All this is collectively called digital. Our belief is we are not going to see long periods of stability like in earlier waves. This makes education and skilling, both within companies and in the academia, even more challenging.
To address this issue internally, Cognizant upskilled over one lakh of its employees last year. Likewise, Cognizant is investing millions of dollars and effort to make a difference to education and skilling in every geography where we operate.
Can you give examples of what you are doing in the area of education and skilling?
In India, for example, we are helping introduce newer courses in universities, enabling changes to curricula and syllabi, driving faculty development programmes, and working closely with NASSCOM in identifying and developing the skills of the future. In the U.S., we have been driving public-private partnerships with bodies such as Per Scholas.
What is the need for firms to get into skilling today?
The government is doing a lot. The formation of a Ministry of Skills, NSDC and skill sector councils are significant initiatives. But because of the rapid shifts in technology, I believe that the role of corporates today is even more relevant than ever before.
India today needs “skilling at scale” as the opportunities unleashed by digital technologies are at scale. I would add that these opportunities are not just limited to India, but are global. With about 65% of India’s population under the age of 35, I think it is no longer an issue to be addressed only by the government.
It should be the focus of every company and every individual.
But the government still influences much of education and skilling...
I agree that the government has a huge influence. It can look at opening up education and skilling to an even bigger extent.
Today, in the academic council or governing council of many universities and institutions, over 75% of the members are academicians and bureaucrats.
With rapid changes in technology and business models, this composition needs to change. I would suggest that we have significant representation from the industry and get the practitioners to influence curriculum and syllabi.
Cognizant, for example, has many of its leaders in academic councils of institutions, enabling changes to curriculum, driving faculty development programmes, curating content, implementing newer learning-centric models, and so on, but this needs to be done at scale.
But the government still controls policy making and influences much of education and skilling in the country. What needs to change?
It can look at opening up education and skilling to an even bigger extent.
Today, in the academic council or governing council of many universities and institutions, over 75% of the members are academicians and bureaucrats. With rapid changes in technology and business models, this composition needs to change and the government can drive this change through appropriate policies. I would suggest that the pendulum swing in favour of significant representation from the industry and get the practitioners to influence curriculum and syllabi. We are seeing this happen in progressive private universities, but only a few. Corporates like Cognizant do have many senior leaders in academic councils of universities and other institutions, enabling changes to curriculum, driving faculty development programmes, curating content, implementing newer learning-centric models, and so on, but this needs to be done at scale.
Second, the government needs to look at creating a policy on “employee volunteering” and encourage individual social responsibility. Cognizant, for example, has run Outreach, an at-scale, employee volunteering program for over ten years. In just calendar 2017, over 10,000 Cognizant employees taught in schools and colleges across India, educating or skilling over 60,000 students. In addition to teaching in physical classrooms, we recently launched our “Schools on the Cloud” program, where our employees from within and outside India teach in schools in far-flung districts and villages, such as Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu, through Skype. It is these types of initiatives that can create an education and skilling movement and help build the much needed access, quality and equity at scale.
Job requirements are changing every day. The threat of automation is making students nervous...
Yes, and it is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. As such, ‘learning agility’ or ‘learnability’ is what will make employees and prospective employees relevant. Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work recently did a survey and found out two very interesting things: the impact of automation on existing and new jobs, and the likely jobs of the future.
The survey results point out that 12% of existing jobs are at risk of being taken over by automated systems, 75% of all existing jobs will be enhanced or changed by newer technology, and 13% new jobs — some unimaginable at this time — will be created as the technology creates new revenue opportunities. In a related research, the Center envisions “21 jobs of the future” by looking at macroeconomic, political, demographic, societal, cultural, business and technology trends. These jobs include man-machine manager, cybercity analyst, digital tailor, ethical sourcing manager and personal data broker. All these jobs share the common theme of coaching, caring and connecting: Coaching being the human ability to help others get better at life, caring being the human endeavour of improving people’s health, and connecting being bringing humans and machines together, like connecting physical with virtual, commerce with ethics, and so on. What is fascinating is that technology is going to create more jobs and enhance existing jobs than what it will take away. Hardly surprising though, considering this has been happening for ages. But transitions can and will be painful, if not handled properly.
