Use technology to address social problems, says Satyarthi

218 million children engaged in work, but 210 million youth are jobless

Meaningful interaction: IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao greeting Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi during a conference on ‘Road to GES’ in Hyderabad on Sunday.

Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi has underlined the need for young entrepreneurs to find technological solutions to social problems like child labour, and trafficking.

“A combination of ideas and ideals as changemakers will usher in a tide of change,” he said at the ‘Road to GES’, which was inaugurated by IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao. Mr. Satyarthi wanted refocus to be on health and education which had become expensive while areas like crime on children and inculcating the idea of global citizenship among the people deserved equal attention. He lamented that 152 million children were engaged in jobs, a majority of them in hazardous occupations, among 280 million who were engaged in economic activities.

“We have technologies like robotics and artificial intelligence that can transform the character of lives entirely forever as also eradicate problems like child labour, hunger, slavery, malnutrition,” he said urging the younger generation entrepreneurs to innovate and bring solutions. The session saw several prominent personalities including Accenture Labs India managing director Sanjay Podder, Tata Group chief technology officer Gopichand Katragadda and ShareChat co-founder and CEO Farid Ahsan giving suggestions to bidding entrepreneurs about their experiences in the industry.

Mr. Satyarthi said there was need for IT interventions in education, child labour, health, crime against children and global citizenship. Education for instance needed one million teachers at primary level and there was need for digital solutions that could help in democratisation of knowledge. “There are 218 million children engaged in economic activities and about 210 million jobless youth. We can come up with solutions wherein these youth can replace the children in the economic activity,” he said.

There was also need for innovations in tracing missing children and avert crime against children. There were instances of children being sold at prices lesser than cattle prompting the need for thinking as to how technology could help in averting crime against children.

“More than half of India’s children are subject to sexual abuse of one form or another before they become 18. A platform can be created with technology for making children global citizens who have a sense of responsibility towards one another and society,” he said.