In a candid discussion with Sanjay Goyal, VP, Times Internet, Enterprise IT world explores the changing dynamics and their impact on the Indian IT segment. The industry head honcho also details about Code Gladiators 2018, World’s biggest Coding Competition recently held in Mumbai
What is the main focus of Code Gladiators 2018?
The main focus is to identify the interest areas of young tech professionals. For them, in order to grow, they need large developer communities to pick their product from them, use their APIs, use the technology platforms to work on their product. Every platform would want the largest focus of the developer community to be successful and we bring all of it on a single platform at Code Gladiators.
How according to you is Code Gladiators bolstering innovation in the IT segment?
Innovation is about bringing new solutions to new challenging problems using the technology trend. While technologies are more of an enabler, the true idea is to find a solution for some of the important problems which people face. What we do is primarily that we expect people to pick up technologies to build the solutions but its more solution targeted. I saw a presentation where the candidate was talking about a smart garbage collection system. There are location-based technologies available which could make it simpler and self-sufficient as well as cheaper for the government to implement or for the private sector to innovate in these areas.
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“It’s not possible to continuously revamp your architectures. One has to be very, very smart in terms of designing solutions now so that you look into future more than you look in your current.”
Sanjay Goyal
VP
Times Internet
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This is what we do at Code Gladiators. We bring companies who have platforms we bring coders who want to work on these problems and challenges and we expect these people to use certain technologies to innovate the solution.
What is your advice to young IT professionals to stay relevant in the IT sector citing new disruptive technologies emerging almost every year?
Disruption is now becoming a norm like change was a norm sometime ago. I completely agree with that part that today the software development career is more challenging than what it was 10 years ago. Given the new technologies coming in every 3 months. To pick up a new technology and be fluent in that to use it to deliver a new solution is becoming very challenging. My advice to developers would be that they should continue to stay ahead and more than technologies they should focus on the solution part.
If they think that why a certain product is being used, how it makes complex problems simpler then they would be able to leverage technologies better. Rather than fitting a solution into a new technology, it would be better to fit a technology into a solution.
Which are the technologies that will dominate the coming decade?
Without any doubt, I can say Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Machine Learning, Blockchain; Big Data are going to rule. Without AI and data science, I don’t think there is a future. Today data science is present everywhere like Amazon where they collect every data of yours when you purchase a product including purchasing behavior, your smart phone usage pattern etc.
Which are the verticals which will be leading the AI domain?
It would be very difficult to comment about the verticals because each technology or vertical or library or solution out there has a specific niche or application. So each one of them would be very relevant. It would be difficult to pick between two databases.
What are the major challenges upfront for IT heads in organizations as new technologies pop up every year?
It’s not possible to continuously revamp your architectures. It’s not possible to continuously learn new technologies and implement solutions every one or two years down the line. And so one has to be very, very smart in terms of designing solutions now so that you look into future more than you look in your current. I had a phase when we picked up a technology and we were building a solution on that. It took us six months to build it and then we realized that the technology we used is now discontinued. These kinds of challenges didn’t exist 15 years ago. You will have to stay agile. I believe that, if you have people with the right temperament and attitude, picking up new skills is not a big deal.
How would Code Gladiators be beneficial for young IT professionals?
Like I said it’s a platform where they work together in a crowd of like-minded competitors and young people. They get an opportunity to showcase their products to the industry leaders and to straightway launch yourself into a platform like that and create a solution that surprises the industry is something they really benefit from. I don’t think for millennials it’s a big challenge
What’s your thought on new technologies helping businesses tap new revenue streams?
I would delink new technologies with new solutions I would say that as the social structure becomes more diverse and more complex we require new solutions more frequently than we did earlier. There was a time when people would watch movies on VCR and TV. Now we use Netflix, streaming in India is very common now and is rapidly spreading. Amazon launched Prime, Netflix is there and they are streaming 4K quality videos. It works flawlessly. These are solutions which are now greater in demand with the data costs going low and the government putting its own endeavors to make sure that certain norms are now accepted in the society.
I also think there would be more and more demand for these kinds of solutions as the consumers are also more technology savvy. For companies these are good times as newer technologies are being introduced, its even easier to build new solutions. A lot of companies are building 90 percent of their products using open source based solutions. These are not licensed products, Operating Systems are now open source and with that, there is no limit to building new solutions.
Are Indian users slow in adopting new technologies as compared to developed nations?
I think in India the adoption is faster. Technology is very complex but the solutions are simpler. Mobile wallets picked up really fast in India after demonetization. So I think India is doing a good job when it comes to technology adoption.
