Empowering Emerging Economies

India, Egypt, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Africa, Algeria-we call them emerging economies and rapid growth markets. We get excited at their projected GDP growth rates. Many large organizations dream of increasing revenues there at a steep curve. However, when I look at the systemic problems that these economies face, Ifind that there is a great risk and this rosy picture may not come to pass.

In India alone, the mortality rate of children under five years of age is eight times that of the US, the number of doctors per person is one sixth that of the US, and the number of universities for a population of 1.2 bn is a meager 650. These are alarming data points.

OPPORTUNITY FOR TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES

Now, where am I going with this? I think that there is a real opportunity for technology companies to develop insights, be a thought leader, and find solutions to transform areas like education and healthcare. Take education for example. Conventional methods like building more schools and training more teachers do not scale. Early indicators like the success of Khan academy, point to technology as a savior especially in underserved regions (rural and semi-urban) in rapid growth markets. The rapid adoption of mobile phones and the availability of tablets at lower price points (Aakash Tablet) are encouraging trends. If end-user devices are available and affordable to the population at large, then the right portfolio to have impact on education should be as outlined below:

• A cloud platform that can deliver educational content to remote devices and classrooms.
• „„A search and management platform that can bring a wide variety of educational content under one umbrella „.
• Edge devices that can serve to accelerate the user experience as well as insulate the students from disruptions in connectivity.
• Analytics to push the right content to the right people at the right time.

KEY AREAS TO EXPLORE

Healthcare is an another key area that's ripe for technology. Monitoring of health service delivery, disease tracking, and preventive healthcare do not exist in most of these markets. This is where cloud computing and big data can step in. Using big data tools to incorporate social media data into existing health records will complement traditional forms of disease surveillance, allowing officials to better predict public health emergencies, be more prepared to treat the ill and more accurately staff hospitals and ERs (emergency rooms) to respond to an outbreak.

And with regards to cloud, the healthcare industry and technology providers are currently working to ensure that cloud computing offerings are secure and meet the regulations of the HITECH Act (The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) in the way data is stored and accessed in the cloud. As those assurances emerge, over the next three to five years, we'll see more providers embracing the benefits of cloud and big data.