India of Things
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Sinha, Sreowshi
Ganesh, Maya Indira
Developing an Internet of Things ecosystem is what Sreowshi is working on in Bangalore. In this interview she will discuss the journey so far and future in building awareness around the penetration of the Internet to our homes, everyday objects and tool and the importance of having innovators and users work on solutions that will benefit the majority of the population and not just the producers or elite consumers.
 Okay, so thanks and welcome to the session called India of Things. I wish I could say that I had given the session its title, but I hadn't, I haven't. Thank you very much to Gig and to Republica for inviting me to talk to Sryoshi as our presenter, sorry I didn't get your name. Kristo said this is a new topic and I work at Tactical Tech, I'm research director there and I'm an independent scholar as well in technology and I think I know a fair bit about the Internet of Things, but just chatting with Sryoshi yesterday was a real eye-opener to me because there's actually not a lot that I know about the ecosystem of the Internet of Things in India and so I think this will be kind of interesting and informative for all of us so thank you very much Sryoshi for being part of this and for being part of Republica. It's your first Republica, right? Yes, it's my first Republica. Thank you Republica for inviting me, thank you Gig community for inviting me and nonetheless Maya for hosting me. Thank you. Great, so since we're kind of short on time what I'm going to do is try and talk about a couple of issues with Sryoshi about her work at Frugal Labs which is the company that she's the co-founder of and then we'll try and open up to a few questions because I'm sure many of you have things you want to talk about and ask about as well. So I want to actually ask you how you got into working on Internet of Things because I take it that you're actually a geoscientist so I'm curious about that journey, maybe you could introduce yourself to us. So I would just take a little time and introduce myself so my story begins like I'm from another beautiful city in India, Kolkata, I don't know how many of you have heard of so I am from there and I am brought up in a typical middle class family and from there I studied geoscience, geography being my favorite because I'm like kind of nature lover and all that so I studied geography and then I got a job and got shifted to Chennai and that was my first multinational company job and I was pretty excited about it, wanted to go with it and suddenly some of my friends were into robotics, they were doing some kind of robotic start up so they told me why don't you come and join us as our marketing person and I was like yeah let me take this up because that's a start up so I was like very pretty much excited and I joined them up and it was 2012 that we founded Frugal Labs in Bangalore, India and so from then we are working into Internet of Things and I would just review about my journey into Frugal Labs, we started up as a training company, it was purely a training company like creating resources and skills in India into Internet of Things and then with 2012, 2013 it went up like that and yes by 2014 we came up with industry approaching us like we want solutions, we want you to be a part of us and you know make up some IoT, IoT space, IoT lab setup and that is how we have been working and now Frugal Labs is a company which is close to 10 to 15 members team and we are into IoT solutions and design, IoT resource creation, IoT lab and yes all about IoT whatever you say we are into this space and we are one of the pioneers in IoT in India and we are very glad to say that. Thank you. Thanks, thanks Roshi. I think we wanted to actually show the website. The website. Shall I go? It's Frugal Labs, FRUGA. And we're just going to keep that up so you can take a look because as Roshi is saying there's actually a lot that they're working on and a lot that they're doing but I want to start by actually. Let's just get that up. Minus Labs. Sorry we didn't have much time to set this up because the last one ran over as it happens. Maybe you should just do it, Sri Roshi. There also gets other people a chance to come in and join us and find place to sit down. Maybe the internet isn't working. The things of the internet are not working. So when I think about IoT I actually think about things like connected toasters and IoT in the home. But talking to Sri Roshi I actually learned about a much wider larger ecosystem and applications of IoT that we don't often really think about. And so maybe you can tell us a little bit about the context of the work that you're doing in the larger industry context, industry applications of IoT and there's two very interesting clients that you've worked with. So maybe you can tell us both stories. Finally there is the website. This is our website. I would take you. So learning is there, product development is there, Spanth Solutions is there, IoT Lab is there and when we say product it is two of the products. We have one initiative as RoboKids. So still that robotics is there in us and we work with kids into robotics and we make kids for them and we train them into robotics and it's very interesting to see how in India a seven year old kid can also program and do things. So that was quite an interesting story for us. Initially we were thinking that let's do some drag and drop software, something like that because they are kids. They might not be able to catch it. But then it was interesting. It was really very interesting. So that's one initiative which we are doing and the second one is so we have an IoT platform. It's a complete hardware software platform that we called as FLIP. It's Frugal Labs IoT platform. Sorry, I don't know your name. Maybe people will just need to find it themselves. I think you can do that because we have the most ideal setup. So that's our website. You can anyway just click into that and check it out what all we have when you have time. Yeah. So talk about the two clients that you're working with in the IoT ecosystem in India. So when I was coming to Berlin and I was coming to Germany, I was pretty much excited about industry 4.0 because that's what we hear about Germany. I am not really sure because within this two, three days I have not really heard of anything and with Maya coming in and telling me about smart toasters and all. But I would say India is progressing. It's advanced. I mean, in India we are talking about smart manufacturing, smart retail, smart logistics and smart transportation. So when you say India, we are actually not working in the individual space of IoT. More than that, we are working into the industrial space and that's what we are much curious to know about how to take this. I mean, in Frugal Labs we get quite a lot of projects coming into us and recently, so we are into one of, we are working with one of the giant food tech industry in India, in the world I would say. Yeah. I cannot tell you the name but yes, we are working with that. It's a smart button. So it's like one click order button that we are working into. So we are also, I was telling Maya that we are also working with the automobile industry and the problem statement is they get a very kind of distortion in the painting when they paint the vehicles. And the kind of distortion they see, really we cannot see as customers but then they can fill it because there is a change in the colors. And these basically happens due to the change in temperature and humidity in the room where they do this kind of paintings. And that was a solution, that was a problem which came to us and we were asked like, give us a solution. So yeah, so just let me tell you, this is something which we come across every time. The companies and the industries comes to us saying, we want to implement IoT. We want to move into the next stage of automation but then we don't know what to do. So that is our main function. That is what Rugal Labs is working into, test case development and providing applicable solutions to the companies. So yeah, coming back to the paint industry, the automobile client. So we actually did a temperature humidity controller and we have implemented the setup in the area where they are actually painting the cars. And we are taking up the data and it's like six months now the project is running. And so we also have a plan that by the end of six months we will also implement analytics and we'll see how this can be sorted out and then they have a plan to take it across the globe. So that is what we are working into two of the projects. Apart from that, we are also working with the agriculture industry where we are again working into the temperature humidity control. So what I feel is temperature humidity control is one of the very important things in any kind of industry. So what's your process for working with a client that says we don't know anything about IoT but we know that we need to be learning more about it. How do you actually work with them? What's your process? So that's really challenging at times because what we push them is that the program, the problem statement should come from their end. Or else it becomes really difficult for us to penetrate into all the functions that they are doing and identify the problems and then come out with a solution. But that hardly happens. They are again two, three days. Again, the mail comes as in like we could not find anything, you just need to find out something. So yes, in that case what we do is we generally start with a factory visit and we try to find out the kind of sensors we can implement. And there is again a challenge because there are certain kind of machines where you cannot implement any kind of sensors. They are age old machines or maybe the machine won't allow you to put any kind of sensor. So yes, that's again a challenge. But then somehow we do it and the entire thing takes like one and one to one and a half months of time only to identify the problem. The research phase, the kind of ethnography phase of understanding the space. And then again it changes from geography, call locations in the client to client. So it varies from industry to industry. That's how it happens. Okay. One thing that I found kind of interesting was this thing about IOT in the home and personal IOT which I feel I hear a lot about. But there's actually this whole industrial development and application of IOT which is completely different. Why do you think there's no sort of connected toaster enthusiasm in India? Because everybody's on mobiles and why don't people want connected toasters? Okay. So that's a question. I think maybe Indians like without toasting to have bread. I don't know. But some of us like toast. But yes. So that's really a concern that in India you don't find people more into the individual space of IOT. So I would just tell you a brief about it. So I think in US, UK and in Europe we have seen IOT as an automation smart devices from ages. It's not something that is new to you people like getting into the you already have Nest, you already have thermostat, a lot of things you already have. But for India it is a very new concept. And so we thought that okay let's not jump into this. Other than let's get into the other part of it. That's the industry perspective. Which is what, because there is a lot of industries coming in with our new government in there is make in India concepts. So now we are more focusing into make in India. So when we focus into make in India, industry is something which has got to play a lot. So that's why we are more focusing into the industry section of it. And yes I would say maybe the smart devices in the individual space it's growing. People are taking it up. We are thinking that yes we should also do it. Fitbit is very, wearables are very high there. And smart home, we do also get builders coming to us saying that we need smart home solutions because now the flats which are already like maybe Karol flats. So in that we actually face that kind of things that we need smart home solutions. But then it's less. Yes. And I think that cost is probably a factor as well. I mean I think eventually there are going to be more and more connected devices. As you are saying kind of luxury apartments and sort of high end real estate is going to start offering things like smart home solutions. And I would also mention one thing that the awareness. I am not pretty much sure about here. I think it will be more. It should be more. But in India people living in two tier cities and all they are not much aware of what the concept of IoT is. So still it is like when you say IoT they are like okay. But then cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, the metro cities probably they are taking up too much into IoT. And also in the industrial cities they are taking up. So I think there is a gap in the awareness part. But then yes we are, Frugal Amps is what we are also doing into the awareness creation and skill development. We are working with a couple of government projects as well to bring up sector, I mean with the sector scale council of India, with the IT segregation of India, with DSCI, with IES. So DSCI you are mentioning lots of data security council of India. So we are also trying to develop something called GDPR in London. And we are framing the proposal to submit it to our government to bring out something like that sort of. Okay, so this is a good point at which to talk about things around data protection and privacy. Because we actually don't have a data protection law in India. We don't have robust privacy regulations in India. And the sort of unspoken elephant in the room and that we spoke about yesterday when we met was that around privacy and security issues which are really, I mean there is a loud, big, great conversation in this country around data protection and privacy. And Surya was saying that it was really interesting and new for her to come here and she was like why are all these people talking about privacy and data protection so much. Individual data protection is, so I have been attending a couple of sessions from last two days and I see a lot of buzz on individual data protection, individual data law, GDPR and all that. But yes, in India you don't see that much into the individual space. Again the reason being we don't use that much of individual devices I think maybe. But then again nowadays smartphones and laptops are anyways there. But yes we are also trying to frame out a proposal as in GDPR and submit it to our government. So GDPR is? GDPR is the general data protection law that's in UK. So yeah, something like that's what we are also doing. I think the problem is India is just a 60, 65 years old young country and certain things to come up very, very fast. I think it will take time but then again it's the, with the GDP and all the way it's progressing. I think things are not very far. Within two 20 we are having, I mean let's see, let's hope for the best and we see a lot of things coming up. Well maybe this is where we kind of diverge in our optimism about what's happening with India and I think generally in terms of data protection privacy issues. So I'm actually fairly pessimistic about the lack of data protection in regard for personal privacy in India where in a situation right now where yes you do have fairly right wing new con Hindu fundamentalist government that wants to attract investment in India, make in India and the IT industry is a very big part of that. We may even disagree on what we think the Indian government is right now and that's probably not the conversation but you've got that on the one hand trying to attract business but then you also have the situation that's very hot and live right now around the national biometrics database that we have. It's called ADHAR. The unique identify ID authority of India is the body that's been set up to administer the personal information of half a billion people. We want to get everybody basically on a national biometrics ID program. This has been kind of challenged by civil society and journalists and technologists, academics for like over five or ten years now ever since it's been in development and I think it's become really big now as there are proposals to link your income tax card. We have another identifying card called you know personal identification number for income tax to basically link every kind of identity that we have to this national biometrics database and to do away with all the other identity cards that we have. There's a lot of discussion right now because the infrastructure is not robust and we don't have laws to actually protect people. I read a very interesting article by the guy who actually is heading the ADHAR project, the biometrics project. It's Nandan Nilkani. The reason why he's also really interesting is because he's one of the people who was at the forefront of the big IT revolution in India about 25 years ago. There was no sort of, you didn't know Bangalore. Bangalore was a sleepy backwater town. It's where people went to retire. Suddenly everybody knew about Bangalore because it became India's Silicon Valley and it became the center of business processing and outsourcing. Nandan Nilkani was one of the people responsible for that. It was pretty interesting to see here whenever I'm telling someone that okay so from your from India but with cities where I say Bangalore. Okay so you're from Bangalore, the IT city of India. Exactly. Nandan Nilkani was the man responsible for that and then they chose him to be the person who would set up this biometrics project. I read an article by him two days ago reacting to the criticism around the lack of security and privacy of this massive database of half a billion people's data. What I found really interesting was he made a fantastic case for the need for privacy regulation and you were reading it, I was reading it and thinking he makes a lot of sense. He's a very, very compelling, interesting speaker and technologist and yet he was not actually addressing the fact that there is no discussion about personal privacy. He was saying we need a privacy law but we also need this biometrics database. So there's this massive kind of disconnect that's going on and the government actually doesn't need to address it. I think the courts may be a bit active but I think the point at the time is what I saw here is a lot of activists and groups acting on the data security part whereas in India we don't see that much. I mean I've learned a new thing from here and I'm sure that going back there I'm going to find, I'll just gather some group and make some kind of data activist group. Yeah I need to do that. There are some which I can point you to in Bangalore as well. So this issue of kind of data protection and privacy I think is something that is not discussed in the IoT space. But is there any register in which the discussion of security comes up? I mean what's the point at which security gets discussed and how? Just I told you there is a data security council of India. So this is a particular organization which is working under government of India and they are making certain laws regarding privacy of individual data as well as the data for the companies. I mean that's also a concern right? If we keep on talking about individual data but the company is also they're sharing certain in terms of IoT when we talk about. So yes now as I told you before like so they are kind of we do have lot of meetups every month and there are a lot of people involved. There are a lot of stakeholders involved in this. Academia is one. Industries are the other. Government is one. So we all are trying to yeah startups are one. So we all are trying to frame up some kind of policy and the government is always like you need to frame up a few points and a policy and then you give it to us and we are here to agree to that and disagree to that. So we are yes we are trying to bring out some certain kind of points and we are also following GDPR of UK. So we can take certain points from there and that's why yes I am always I have a positive feeling that maybe within five ten years of time we will also come up with certain other policies which are not not only data protection but maybe certain other kind of policies which are not yet visible in India that much. What do you think what are the other policies that you think we need in the IoT space? Okay so I think awareness is the first and foremost thing that should be done and. Awareness about? Awareness about IoT? Awareness about smart devices? So whenever I come across the concept of IoT and being myself a founder of IoT company I also I have a question in my mind and yesterday I was attending a session by a professor. I am bad with names so I don't remember his name but I was attending a session and he was actually telling that smart cities doesn't really mean it has to be with technologies. It can be with people becoming smart so I was like yes bang on that is my idea I mean you know I keep on speaking in India trying to whenever I am with people smart city doesn't mean it has to be smart with technology it can be smart with people being smart and how do I do that? So yeah I took again a lot of points from him and fortunately lack of time I could not meet him in person but yesterday morning I have shoot a mail to mail to him so let's see when he replies. I just want to take up his idea and see what I can do in Bangalore. I hope so I think there is a lot of initiatives around sort of smartness and connectedness and you know data is the future of everything but I sometimes feel there isn't enough of a critical conversation about what does that actually mean and this is a good moment to kind of shout out to sort of academics and researchers and technologists who are working in these issues so there is a center for internet and society in Bangalore that has a lot of scholarship. NASCOM is a government IT body and they have formed the center of excellence in India and that's in that's specifically into IOT and that's in Bangalore and so it's kind of a 10,000 square feet of area where all the giant bodies like the UNEMIT they have it like Intel, Cisco, IBM they all are coming in and they have set up a lab there so it's kind of a hardware software lab and where the startups of India are given that opportunity they can come in and test in their whatever product they are making and they are getting a huge amount of mentoring from the industrial experts and all that so that's kind of initiative which is being taken so I am like you know after I go back there will also be a COE IOT coming up in Gujarat so we are in talk with that we are a stakeholder in that and so these are the kind of bodies that we are also working in and as I mentioned that Frugal Labs being one of the pioneer in IOT in India we actually get a lot of opportunities from people because they know by our names and yes so we are also working into different pockets of IOT so. So I would say that you know sort of Germans who are looking to work in India and connecting with India. With us. With us. But also in terms of transfers of ideas I think it would be fantastic if there was actually leverage in terms of regulations because it would be interesting to actually see the same companies that are working globally and transnationally there are certain restrictions or local legal issues around you know security privacy and implementation of IOT that don't have to be you know sort of implemented in India because you know the sort of regulation or the infrastructure or the government is like this is not an issue so if something is implementable in one country in context why isn't it in another and so I would think that you know it's for industry to actually work together with civil society and academia and technologists to kind of have more of these issues in place. I think we are probably out of time. Do we get five minutes more because we started five minutes late. I guess we could ask if anyone has any questions and if not I still have one but yeah sure please. I think there's a mic coming to you. I think you may need to record it for the recording itself. Thank you. Hi I'm Anne Schwartz from Bread for the World. I've got a question concerning what you said Maya about the concerns you have about that biometric system because just a few weeks ago I met in another round of meetings just very shortly an activist from India who told me that this system actually doesn't belong to an Indian company but or the company who is maintaining it is based in the US so it's under US law so meaning FBI and all the others have direct access to it if they want to the data if they want to plus that there has already been a leakage of data of biometric. So I would just want to have your opinion on that because that was very disconcerting. I think that in any case if the FBI wanted any information from the Indian government I think that you wouldn't need a biometrics database for that and we've seen that in the last few years so I think that there would definitely be very easy kind of rollovers on that kind of thing. I'm sure that there's a lot of the sort of collaboration in terms of access and I don't know this is actually new to me but my colleague is telling me that you know that is the case that actually there's jurisdiction in the US which is which is strange to me but I don't know the details of other I don't I never really worked on it and I kind of read it as a technologist and kind of you know heavily concerned citizen but I think the issue of the leakage is definitely there and I think people have pointed to this but again as I was saying about Nanda Nilakani he said yes we need robust infrastructures we need laws to kind of govern the fact that there will be security breaches and there are security breaches happening all over the place so he's also sort of calling to that but I think the issue is that's not being articulated is that we have a country of such disparities and sort of active persecution of marginalized communities and minorities and just this huge database of you know everybody with a certain kind of name for example you know being on that database is really worrying that's the conversation that's not happening. I think the issues of privacy and security are sort of very well known and everybody who's involved in the system is talking about it and the need for it but I think that civil society pushback is not there. Yeah it's definitely a concern so it's not something that people are not aware of it or they're like you know okay let's leave it it's not something that sort of but then okay so coming back to Adhar Adhar is kind of a thing which we are as like Indian government is trying to make it like you know one sort one kind of identification method and with that he actually can trace in even a person living in far beyond Himalayas in India so it's kind of like when I say I think somewhere it's again coming back to the awareness because when I say when I'm actually connecting to a person who is living somewhere out there and he doesn't know anything about this so my first concern becomes is how can I bring this person into my system. And also with informed consent because this person living in the back of beyond it's not just about getting into the database and knowing what that means. It's kind of like India is a country with the 28 states and 7 union territories so you can understand the kind of diversity we go through every day. Within 100 of kilometers you change your language, you change your cuisine, you change your attire, you change your everything so it's kind of I mean you know. And I think we have to end it there. I'm sorry but we're getting indications that we need to move on to the next one. Yeah? Oh okay so we can. Oh we do have to move on okay. Okay thank you very much. Sorry this was so sort of abbreviated but thanks so much Sree Oshi. Thank you. And all the best and I hope we continue this conversation. Sure, sure. Thanks for coming. Anyone if you want to check in our website please log into that and check out what all solutions and things we are doing. It would be great to connect with you. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
 Okay, so thanks and welcome to the session called India of Things.  I wish I could say that I had given the session its title, but I hadn't, I haven't.  Thank you very much to Gig and to Republica for inviting me to talk to Sryoshi as our  presenter, sorry I didn't get your name.  Kristo said this is a new topic and I work at Tactical Tech, I'm research director there  and I'm an independent scholar as well in technology and I think I know a fair bit about  the Internet of Things, but just chatting with Sryoshi yesterday was a real eye-opener  to me because there's actually not a lot that I know about the ecosystem of the Internet  of Things in India and so I think this will be kind of interesting and informative for  all of us so thank you very much Sryoshi for being part of this and for being part of Republica.  It's your first Republica, right?  Yes, it's my first Republica.  Thank you Republica for inviting me, thank you Gig community for inviting me and nonetheless  Maya for hosting me.  Thank you.  Great, so since we're kind of short on time what I'm going to do is try and talk about  a couple of issues with Sryoshi about her work at Frugal Labs which is the company that  she's the co-founder of and then we'll try and open up to a few questions because I'm  sure many of you have things you want to talk about and ask about as well.  So I want to actually ask you how you got into working on Internet of Things because  I take it that you're actually a geoscientist so I'm curious about that journey, maybe you  could introduce yourself to us.  So I would just take a little time and introduce myself so my story begins like I'm from another  beautiful city in India, Kolkata, I don't know how many of you have heard of so I am  from there and I am brought up in a typical middle class family and from there I studied  geoscience, geography being my favorite because I'm like kind of nature lover and all that  so I studied geography and then I got a job and got shifted to Chennai and that was my  first multinational company job and I was pretty excited about it, wanted to go with  it and suddenly some of my friends were into robotics, they were doing some kind of robotic  start up so they told me why don't you come and join us as our marketing person and I  was like yeah let me take this up because that's a start up so I was like very pretty  much excited and I joined them up and it was 2012 that we founded Frugal Labs in Bangalore,  India and so from then we are working into Internet of Things and I would just review  about my journey into Frugal Labs, we started up as a training company, it was purely a  training company like creating resources and skills in India into Internet of Things and  then with 2012, 2013 it went up like that and yes by 2014 we came up with industry approaching  us like we want solutions, we want you to be a part of us and you know make up some  IoT, IoT space, IoT lab setup and that is how we have been working and now Frugal Labs  is a company which is close to 10 to 15 members team and we are into IoT solutions and design,  IoT resource creation, IoT lab and yes all about IoT whatever you say we are into this  space and we are one of the pioneers in IoT in India and we are very glad to say that.  Thank you.  Thanks, thanks Roshi.  I think we wanted to actually show the website.  The website.  Shall I go?  It's Frugal Labs, FRUGA.  And we're just going to keep that up so you can take a look because as Roshi is saying  there's actually a lot that they're working on and a lot that they're doing but I want  to start by actually.  Let's just get that up.  Minus Labs.  Sorry we didn't have much time to set this up because the last one ran over as it happens.  Maybe you should just do it, Sri Roshi.  There also gets other people a chance to come in and join us and find place to sit down.  Maybe the internet isn't working.  The things of the internet are not working.  So when I think about IoT I actually think about things like connected toasters and IoT  in the home.  But talking to Sri Roshi I actually learned about a much wider larger ecosystem and applications  of IoT that we don't often really think about.  And so maybe you can tell us a little bit about the context of the work that you're doing  in the larger industry context, industry applications of IoT and there's two very interesting clients  that you've worked with.  So maybe you can tell us both stories.  Finally there is the website.  This is our website.  I would take you.  So learning is there, product development is there, Spanth Solutions is there, IoT Lab  is there and when we say product it is two of the products.  We have one initiative as RoboKids.  So still that robotics is there in us and we work with kids into robotics and we make  kids for them and we train them into robotics and it's very interesting to see how in India  a seven year old kid can also program and do things.  So that was quite an interesting story for us.  Initially we were thinking that let's do some drag and drop software, something like that  because they are kids.  They might not be able to catch it.  But then it was interesting.  It was really very interesting.  So that's one initiative which we are doing and the second one is so we have an IoT platform.  It's a complete hardware software platform that we called as FLIP.  It's Frugal Labs IoT platform.  Sorry, I don't know your name.  Maybe people will just need to find it themselves.  I think you can do that because we have the most ideal setup.  So that's our website.  You can anyway just click into that and check it out what all we have when you have time.  Yeah.  So talk about the two clients that you're working with in the IoT ecosystem in India.  So when I was coming to Berlin and I was coming to Germany, I was pretty much excited about  industry 4.0 because that's what we hear about Germany.  I am not really sure because within this two, three days I have not really heard of anything  and with Maya coming in and telling me about smart toasters and all.  But I would say India is progressing.  It's advanced.  I mean, in India we are talking about smart manufacturing, smart retail, smart logistics  and smart transportation.  So when you say India, we are actually not working in the individual space of IoT.  More than that, we are working into the industrial space and that's what we are much curious  to know about how to take this.  I mean, in Frugal Labs we get quite a lot of projects coming into us and recently, so  we are into one of, we are working with one of the giant food tech industry in India,  in the world I would say.  Yeah.  I cannot tell you the name but yes, we are working with that.  It's a smart button.  So it's like one click order button that we are working into.  So we are also, I was telling Maya that we are also working with the automobile industry  and the problem statement is they get a very kind of distortion in the painting when they  paint the vehicles.  And the kind of distortion they see, really we cannot see as customers but then they can  fill it because there is a change in the colors.  And these basically happens due to the change in temperature and humidity in the room where  they do this kind of paintings.  And that was a solution, that was a problem which came to us and we were asked like, give  us a solution.  So yeah, so just let me tell you, this is something which we come across every time.  The companies and the industries comes to us saying, we want to implement IoT.  We want to move into the next stage of automation but then we don't know what to do.  So that is our main function.  That is what Rugal Labs is working into, test case development and providing applicable  solutions to the companies.  So yeah, coming back to the paint industry, the automobile client.  So we actually did a temperature humidity controller and we have implemented the setup  in the area where they are actually painting the cars.  And we are taking up the data and it's like six months now the project is running.  And so we also have a plan that by the end of six months we will also implement analytics  and we'll see how this can be sorted out and then they have a plan to take it across the  globe.  So that is what we are working into two of the projects.  Apart from that, we are also working with the agriculture industry where we are again  working into the temperature humidity control.  So what I feel is temperature humidity control is one of the very important things in any  kind of industry.  So what's your process for working with a client that says we don't know anything about  IoT but we know that we need to be learning more about it.  How do you actually work with them?  What's your process?  So that's really challenging at times because what we push them is that the program, the  problem statement should come from their end.  Or else it becomes really difficult for us to penetrate into all the functions that they  are doing and identify the problems and then come out with a solution.  But that hardly happens.  They are again two, three days.  Again, the mail comes as in like we could not find anything, you just need to find out  something.  So yes, in that case what we do is we generally start with a factory visit and we try to find  out the kind of sensors we can implement.  And there is again a challenge because there are certain kind of machines where you cannot  implement any kind of sensors.  They are age old machines or maybe the machine won't allow you to put any kind of sensor.  So yes, that's again a challenge.  But then somehow we do it and the entire thing takes like one and one to one and a half months  of time only to identify the problem.  The research phase, the kind of ethnography phase of understanding the space.  And then again it changes from geography, call locations in the client to client.  So it varies from industry to industry.  That's how it happens.  Okay.  One thing that I found kind of interesting was this thing about IOT in the home and personal  IOT which I feel I hear a lot about.  But there's actually this whole industrial development and application of IOT which is  completely different.  Why do you think there's no sort of connected toaster enthusiasm in India?  Because everybody's on mobiles and why don't people want connected toasters?  Okay.  So that's a question.  I think maybe Indians like without toasting to have bread.  I don't know.  But some of us like toast.  But yes.  So that's really a concern that in India you don't find people more into the individual  space of IOT.  So I would just tell you a brief about it.  So I think in US, UK and in Europe we have seen IOT as an automation smart devices from  ages.  It's not something that is new to you people like getting into the you already have Nest,  you already have thermostat, a lot of things you already have.  But for India it is a very new concept.  And so we thought that okay let's not jump into this.  Other than let's get into the other part of it.  That's the industry perspective.  Which is what, because there is a lot of industries coming in with our new government in there  is make in India concepts.  So now we are more focusing into make in India.  So when we focus into make in India, industry is something which has got to play a lot.  So that's why we are more focusing into the industry section of it.  And yes I would say maybe the smart devices in the individual space it's growing.  People are taking it up.  We are thinking that yes we should also do it.  Fitbit is very, wearables are very high there.  And smart home, we do also get builders coming to us saying that we need smart home solutions  because now the flats which are already like maybe Karol flats.  So in that we actually face that kind of things that we need smart home solutions.  But then it's less.  Yes.  And I think that cost is probably a factor as well.  I mean I think eventually there are going to be more and more connected devices.  As you are saying kind of luxury apartments and sort of high end real estate is going  to start offering things like smart home solutions.  And I would also mention one thing that the awareness.  I am not pretty much sure about here.  I think it will be more.  It should be more.  But in India people living in two tier cities and all they are not much aware of what the  concept of IoT is.  So still it is like when you say IoT they are like okay.  But then cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, the metro cities probably they are taking  up too much into IoT.  And also in the industrial cities they are taking up.  So I think there is a gap in the awareness part.  But then yes we are, Frugal Amps is what we are also doing into the awareness creation  and skill development.  We are working with a couple of government projects as well to bring up sector, I mean  with the sector scale council of India, with the IT segregation of India, with DSCI, with  IES.  So DSCI you are mentioning lots of data security council of India.  So we are also trying to develop something called GDPR in London.  And we are framing the proposal to submit it to our government to bring out something  like that sort of.  Okay, so this is a good point at which to talk about things around data protection and  privacy.  Because we actually don't have a data protection law in India.  We don't have robust privacy regulations in India.  And the sort of unspoken elephant in the room and that we spoke about yesterday when we  met was that around privacy and security issues which are really, I mean there is a loud,  big, great conversation in this country around data protection and privacy.  And Surya was saying that it was really interesting and new for her to come here and she was like  why are all these people talking about privacy and data protection so much.  Individual data protection is, so I have been attending a couple of sessions from last two  days and I see a lot of buzz on individual data protection, individual data law, GDPR  and all that.  But yes, in India you don't see that much into the individual space.  Again the reason being we don't use that much of individual devices I think maybe.  But then again nowadays smartphones and laptops are anyways there.  But yes we are also trying to frame out a proposal as in GDPR and submit it to our government.  So GDPR is?  GDPR is the general data protection law that's in UK.  So yeah, something like that's what we are also doing.  I think the problem is India is just a 60, 65 years old young country and certain things  to come up very, very fast.  I think it will take time but then again it's the, with the GDP and all the way it's progressing.  I think things are not very far.  Within two 20 we are having, I mean let's see, let's hope for the best and we see a lot  of things coming up.  Well maybe this is where we kind of diverge in our optimism about what's happening with  India and I think generally in terms of data protection privacy issues.  So I'm actually fairly pessimistic about the lack of data protection in regard for personal  privacy in India where in a situation right now where yes you do have fairly right wing  new con Hindu fundamentalist government that wants to attract investment in India, make  in India and the IT industry is a very big part of that.  We may even disagree on what we think the Indian government is right now and that's  probably not the conversation but you've got that on the one hand trying to attract business  but then you also have the situation that's very hot and live right now around the national  biometrics database that we have.  It's called ADHAR.  The unique identify ID authority of India is the body that's been set up to administer  the personal information of half a billion people.  We want to get everybody basically on a national biometrics ID program.  This has been kind of challenged by civil society and journalists and technologists,  academics for like over five or ten years now ever since it's been in development and  I think it's become really big now as there are proposals to link your income tax card.  We have another identifying card called you know personal identification number for income  tax to basically link every kind of identity that we have to this national biometrics database  and to do away with all the other identity cards that we have.  There's a lot of discussion right now because the infrastructure is not robust and we don't  have laws to actually protect people.  I read a very interesting article by the guy who actually is heading the ADHAR project,  the biometrics project.  It's Nandan Nilkani.  The reason why he's also really interesting is because he's one of the people who was  at the forefront of the big IT revolution in India about 25 years ago.  There was no sort of, you didn't know Bangalore.  Bangalore was a sleepy backwater town.  It's where people went to retire.  Suddenly everybody knew about Bangalore because it became India's Silicon Valley and it became  the center of business processing and outsourcing.  Nandan Nilkani was one of the people responsible for that.  It was pretty interesting to see here whenever I'm telling someone that okay so from your  from India but with cities where I say Bangalore.  Okay so you're from Bangalore, the IT city of India.  Exactly.  Nandan Nilkani was the man responsible for that and then they chose him to be the person  who would set up this biometrics project.  I read an article by him two days ago reacting to the criticism around the lack of security  and privacy of this massive database of half a billion people's data.  What I found really interesting was he made a fantastic case for the need for privacy  regulation and you were reading it, I was reading it and thinking he makes a lot of sense.  He's a very, very compelling, interesting speaker and technologist and yet he was not  actually addressing the fact that there is no discussion about personal privacy.  He was saying we need a privacy law but we also need this biometrics database.  So there's this massive kind of disconnect that's going on and the government actually  doesn't need to address it.  I think the courts may be a bit active but I think the point at the time is what I saw  here is a lot of activists and groups acting on the data security part whereas in India  we don't see that much.  I mean I've learned a new thing from here and I'm sure that going back there I'm going  to find, I'll just gather some group and make some kind of data activist group.  Yeah I need to do that.  There are some which I can point you to in Bangalore as well.  So this issue of kind of data protection and privacy I think is something that is not discussed  in the IoT space.  But is there any register in which the discussion of security comes up?  I mean what's the point at which security gets discussed and how?  Just I told you there is a data security council of India.  So this is a particular organization which is working under government of India and they  are making certain laws regarding privacy of individual data as well as the data for  the companies.  I mean that's also a concern right?  If we keep on talking about individual data but the company is also they're sharing certain  in terms of IoT when we talk about.  So yes now as I told you before like so they are kind of we do have lot of meetups every  month and there are a lot of people involved.  There are a lot of stakeholders involved in this.  Academia is one.  Industries are the other.  Government is one.  So we all are trying to yeah startups are one.  So we all are trying to frame up some kind of policy and the government is always like  you need to frame up a few points and a policy and then you give it to us and we are here  to agree to that and disagree to that.  So we are yes we are trying to bring out some certain kind of points and we are also following  GDPR of UK.  So we can take certain points from there and that's why yes I am always I have a positive  feeling that maybe within five ten years of time we will also come up with certain other  policies which are not not only data protection but maybe certain other kind of policies which  are not yet visible in India that much.  What do you think what are the other policies that you think we need in the IoT space?  Okay so I think awareness is the first and foremost thing that should be done and.  Awareness about?  Awareness about IoT?  Awareness about smart devices?  So whenever I come across the concept of IoT and being myself a founder of IoT company  I also I have a question in my mind and yesterday I was attending a session by a professor.  I am bad with names so I don't remember his name but I was attending a session and he  was actually telling that smart cities doesn't really mean it has to be with technologies.  It can be with people becoming smart so I was like yes bang on that is my idea I mean  you know I keep on speaking in India trying to whenever I am with people smart city doesn't  mean it has to be smart with technology it can be smart with people being smart and how  do I do that?  So yeah I took again a lot of points from him and fortunately lack of time I could not  meet him in person but yesterday morning I have shoot a mail to mail to him so let's  see when he replies.  I just want to take up his idea and see what I can do in Bangalore.  I hope so I think there is a lot of initiatives around sort of smartness and connectedness  and you know data is the future of everything but I sometimes feel there isn't enough of  a critical conversation about what does that actually mean and this is a good moment to  kind of shout out to sort of academics and researchers and technologists who are working  in these issues so there is a center for internet and society in Bangalore that has a lot of  scholarship.  NASCOM is a government IT body and they have formed the center of excellence in India and  that's in that's specifically into IOT and that's in Bangalore and so it's kind of a  10,000 square feet of area where all the giant bodies like the UNEMIT they have it like Intel,  Cisco, IBM they all are coming in and they have set up a lab there so it's kind of a  hardware software lab and where the startups of India are given that opportunity they can  come in and test in their whatever product they are making and they are getting a huge  amount of mentoring from the industrial experts and all that so that's kind of initiative  which is being taken so I am like you know after I go back there will also be a COE  IOT coming up in Gujarat so we are in talk with that we are a stakeholder in that and  so these are the kind of bodies that we are also working in and as I mentioned that Frugal  Labs being one of the pioneer in IOT in India we actually get a lot of opportunities from  people because they know by our names and yes so we are also working into different  pockets of IOT so.  So I would say that you know sort of Germans who are looking to work in India and connecting  with India.  With us.  With us.  But also in terms of transfers of ideas I think it would be fantastic if there was actually  leverage in terms of regulations because it would be interesting to actually see the  same companies that are working globally and transnationally there are certain restrictions  or local legal issues around you know security privacy and implementation of IOT that don't  have to be you know sort of implemented in India because you know the sort of regulation  or the infrastructure or the government is like this is not an issue so if something  is implementable in one country in context why isn't it in another and so I would think  that you know it's for industry to actually work together with civil society and academia  and technologists to kind of have more of these issues in place.  I think we are probably out of time.  Do we get five minutes more because we started five minutes late.  I guess we could ask if anyone has any questions and if not I still have one but yeah sure  please.  I think there's a mic coming to you.  I think you may need to record it for the recording itself.  Thank you.  Hi I'm Anne Schwartz from Bread for the World.  I've got a question concerning what you said Maya about the concerns you have about that  biometric system because just a few weeks ago I met in another round of meetings just  very shortly an activist from India who told me that this system actually doesn't belong  to an Indian company but or the company who is maintaining it is based in the US so it's  under US law so meaning FBI and all the others have direct access to it if they want to the  data if they want to plus that there has already been a leakage of data of biometric.  So I would just want to have your opinion on that because that was very disconcerting.  I think that in any case if the FBI wanted any information from the Indian government  I think that you wouldn't need a biometrics database for that and we've seen that in the  last few years so I think that there would definitely be very easy kind of rollovers  on that kind of thing.  I'm sure that there's a lot of the sort of collaboration in terms of access and I don't  know this is actually new to me but my colleague is telling me that you know that is the case  that actually there's jurisdiction in the US which is which is strange to me but I don't  know the details of other I don't I never really worked on it and I kind of read it  as a technologist and kind of you know heavily concerned citizen but I think the issue of  the leakage is definitely there and I think people have pointed to this but again as I  was saying about Nanda Nilakani he said yes we need robust infrastructures we need laws  to kind of govern the fact that there will be security breaches and there are security  breaches happening all over the place so he's also sort of calling to that but I think  the issue is that's not being articulated is that we have a country of such disparities  and sort of active persecution of marginalized communities and minorities and just this huge  database of you know everybody with a certain kind of name for example you know being on  that database is really worrying that's the conversation that's not happening.  I think the issues of privacy and security are sort of very well known and everybody  who's involved in the system is talking about it and the need for it but I think that civil  society pushback is not there.  Yeah it's definitely a concern so it's not something that people are not aware of it  or they're like you know okay let's leave it it's not something that sort of but then  okay so coming back to Adhar Adhar is kind of a thing which we are as like Indian government  is trying to make it like you know one sort one kind of identification method and with  that he actually can trace in even a person living in far beyond Himalayas in India so  it's kind of like when I say I think somewhere it's again coming back to the awareness because  when I say when I'm actually connecting to a person who is living somewhere out there  and he doesn't know anything about this so my first concern becomes is how can I bring  this person into my system.  And also with informed consent because this person living in the back of beyond it's not  just about getting into the database and knowing what that means.  It's kind of like India is a country with the 28 states and 7 union territories so you  can understand the kind of diversity we go through every day.  Within 100 of kilometers you change your language, you change your cuisine, you change your attire,  you change your everything so it's kind of I mean you know.  And I think we have to end it there.  I'm sorry but we're getting indications that we need to move on to the next one.  Yeah?  Oh okay so we can.  Oh we do have to move on okay.  Okay thank you very much.  Sorry this was so sort of abbreviated but thanks so much Sree Oshi.  Thank you.  And all the best and I hope we continue this conversation.  Sure, sure.  Thanks for coming.  Anyone if you want to check in our website please log into that and check out what all  solutions and things we are doing.  It would be great to connect with you.  Thank you.  My pleasure.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.
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