2024 JFIPP Research Fellow - Titli Basu

Project Summary

Notwithstanding the risks, rewards and resilience, today the pace and scale of digital transformation is redefining productivity, resource management, competitive advantage and socio-economic development across the Indo-Pacific. However, one of the monumental challenges for policymakers today is digital dividends are not distributed equitably across geography, gender, demography and literacy gaps leading to deep digital divides. The disparity is becoming sharper within and across the key sub-regions of the Indo-Pacific.

Policymakers are not just navigating the challenge of building smart digital infrastructure in economically unviable remote pockets but more importantly ensuing affordability and adoption of transformative technologies, with the goal of poverty alleviation. As digital transformation is anchored both on technology and talent, this study will focus on 2 S’s: (a) role of start-ups since they are often the incubators of innovation and (b) skill development through the lens of age, gender, rural/urban divide, and education as we work towards an equitable digital future. The key goal is to create value by harnessing innovation and enterprise and advancing inclusive development while safeguarding from the dangers of cybercrime and threats to data privacy.

Amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Indo-Pacific democracies are adopting policies empowering digital transformation and governance models. While the US is retaining its edge as a global technology leader and norm setter, Japan is leading by the example of Society 5.0 amid the colossal challenge of aging population, and Australia features in top five amongst the OECD-DGI 2023. Meanwhile, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is expected to drive India towards $1 trillion digital economy and an overall $8 trillion economy by 2030. While each Quad nation leverage their strengths and maneuver weaknesses, there are enormous scope to synergize efforts and draw from each other’s best practices on digital transformation.

The purpose of this research is to make important contribution by (a) critically analyzing the interlinkages between digital transformation, innovation and inclusive socio-economic development across the Indo-Pacific (b) take a deeper dive at some of the best policy practices from across the Quad countries, weigh similarities and differences in their policy toolkits and explore practical opportunities of cooperation with regard to leveraging digital innovation for inclusive development in the Indo-Pacific (c) generate lessons for the least developed countries, and design practical policy recommendations which can be customized aligning with their national development objectives as well as UN Sustainable Development Goals.