Technology - the Key to Bhutan's progress and aspirations

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Two experts of technology share their views on its importance 
The importance of technology for the nation’s progress and future has been reiterated by His Majesty the King at several platforms, saying we have to figure out ways to use technology to solve problems – to improve governance, democracy, education, agriculture, to create jobs, enhance wellbeing, in healthcare, to make our cities safer and cleaner, and in various other ways that will benefit our people. His Majesty has also said that now is the time to think about how to make use of emerging technological advancements such as Digital Identification, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Big Data, Quantum Computing, Machine Learning, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, etc, which present unlimited opportunities for Bhutanese. 
Speaking along the lines of His Majesty, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Thimphu Tech Park, Dr.(PHD) Tshering Cigay Dorji said “the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector will play an important part in our activities towards achieving the vision to become a high income tech driven economy without losing our Gross National Happiness (GNH) values.” Similarly, Director of Druk Holding Investment (DHI)’s Department of Innovation and Technology, Ujjwal Deep Dahal highlighted that “technology is the tool that will help build a resilient self-thriving economy and a generation of Bhutanese with a growth mindset that would protect and love our nation intelligently.”
On the prospects of using technology to derive maximum benefits, Ujjwal defined technology as a tool. “We need to master the art of using the tool and better even- design and build tools. Basically, we need to build technology in Bhutan.” Ujjwal underlined that ICT provides the platform, at a certain abstract level, to build the quality of life by providing products and services at the convenience of an individual. “But it would be important to realize and leverage technology, built on the fundamental blocks of mathematics and science in providing the next paradigm shift for our economy and importantly as a society,” he added.
Similarly, Dr. Tshering mentioned there are many areas to use technology, beginning from reducing wasting paper by printing, signing contracts online and others. “There are many areas where process automation using IT can bring about efficiency and productivity improvements. Some processes for public service delivery, be it from the Government offices or corporations or autonomous agencies, are laboriously long. We need to submit so many papers. And then some papers are lost,” Dr. Tshering stated, adding these should be things of the past, but are still very much happening even today.
Quoting the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, Thimphu Tech Park’s former CEO said “the pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.”  “The pace of change is accelerating at an exponential rate. At both our personal and professional lives, we have to deal with more changes coming faster at us than ever before, and the pace of change will only get faster in the future. What drives these changes? It is all driven by technological advancements. Therefore, how much we can catch up is not the question. The question is whether we will keep watching from behind and do nothing or do something fast to be part of the global technological ecosystem,” he added.
Highlighting on other related issues, Director Ujjwal said that considering the exponential rise of technology development fueled by fundamental breakthroughs and the development of use cases with “technology convergence”, it is crucial that our strategy as a nation take a critical relook in building the talent pipeline, cultivating, creating and sharing knowledge, creativity and innovation. He added that relooking of the strategies should be to re-engineer the fundamental building blocks of nation building, including education, economy, infrastructure and utility services. “Building a problem-solving mindset with the grit and resilience to see challenges as opportunities is fundamental for societies and nations to grow and thrive. If we are able to identify and solve problems that concerns a billion people, we would be engineering the next generation of products and services. My hope is that we are able to provide that direction as a society in our nation building efforts in the 21st century age of automation and ICT led by the Industry 4.0 technologies,” he noted.
On questions concerning the dynamic nature of technology, Ujjwal explained that building an agile, learning and a “growth mindset” is important. He said there is the need to learn, unlearn and relearn, for adapting to use “technology for good” with the fast “rate of change” of tech and innovation. With the exponential growth of technology - its dynamic nature, it actually provides opportunity to be the builders of technology, to innovate and create and not just be a consumer of tech,” the Director underscored.
Similarly, Dr. Tshering mentioned “we have to start somewhere”. “We need to have very dynamic and forward looking curriculum for our universities. On top of that, we need to have very active Academia – Industry collaboration which is not there right now. One reason for that is that our industry itself is very small and nascent. We have to activate the industry too through FDI as well as by supporting our own local entrepreneurs and investors. If we start and follow through with determination, we will get there someday soon,” he added. 
There is nothing without challenges. However, Ujjwal firmly believes that any challenge is an opportunity to explore, innovate and improve. “Probably the biggest challenge is the will to take the challenge and find the solutions in the atrocities.  While (as one example) the cost, quality and the reach of Internet needs to be enhanced exponentially, the access to computing devices in the last decades has also exponentially increased,” he said, adding that on reflection, “we need to ask if we have created and provided the platform for the young minds to innovate and create with the abundance of computing devices and open source knowledge available in this era of Internet and AI?” “Probably this is an interesting and an important challenge to solve for us as a society in the 21st century! Innovation may then become a habit and become perpetual?”
Along the same lines, Dr. Tshering said there are many challenges, but not without solutions.  “So, challenges should not daunt us. Our communications infrastructure (fibreoptic network) needs to be improved in terms of reliability and robustness, our international Internet backbone link need better redundancy, our industry needs to become more vibrant, the overall ecosystem and the triple helix collaboration model needs to be enhanced, and most importantly, our talent pool for tech work needs to be improved through better education and training.” 
On the relation between Bhutan’s education system and technology, both believe something has to be done. Director Ujjwal said it will be important to provide a platform of “learning to learn” and eventually everyone creating one’s own learning paths. “We would need advocating responsibility of learning to individuals. Basically, a philosophy of decentralization of learning and education,” he said, adding that on a real time note, the education system could be more “project and case based” towards identifying and solving problems. “Where theories and tools are critically analyzed (and not taught for what it is) for innovation and application development in the real world. I feel this is possible. Education system should at best spur curiosity and provide the direction to explore. Young minds and humans in general are natural explorers and technology and the development of its expertise is an easier frontier,” he underlined. 
“Not as of now,” Dr. Tshering said, while highlighting that with the reforms taking place in the education system with guidance from His Majesty the King, he is optimistic that Bhutan can produce tech experts in the not so distant future.
On their picture of Bhutan as a tech savvy country, Director Ujjwal says he visualizes a nation of people that solves problems of humanity and provides optimism and aspiration to life and living. In line with His Majesty’s vision, Dr. Tshering visualizes Bhutan as a high income tech driven economy without losing GNH values. “One of the outcomes of that will be that our youth will not have difficulty finding gainful employment opportunities in Bhutan then. All we need to do is work hard and be united behind the vision of His Majesty,” he added.