Locking the entire global population in four wall houses, the Novel Corona Virus pandemic seem to have the potential to beat down the ‘Great Depression’ of 1929. With every 4th working person in the US filing for unemployment benefits, we can understand the economic depression this Pandemic is pushing us to. And as we are moving towards unlock phases, the major concern of every country in the globe is to cope up with the losses happened and open up doors for a better future while the fight with the virus is still going on. As global travel and trade is a matter of concern until we have a vaccine of Covid-19 injected in our body, Indian government is observed encouraging local entrepreneurship to maintain local demands and supplies with campaigns like ‘Aatmanirbhar’ (self-dependent). Global trade being on pause for months, it is high time that local entrepreneurs can meet customer demands efficiently and give competition to big MNCs. So, what can be the role of entrepreneurship in stabilizing the economy in present scenario? We have observed, in the past, the amount of economic influence Ford as a company had when it was founded by Henry Ford back in the initial period of 20th century. From the working hour policies it introduced to the employee benefits it provided, Ford had a big impact in job creation. Ford turned it into a big company which allowed it to make such moves. But can we expect rise of such big companies during this time of recession to pull us out of the recession? May be not. Instead we can have mass small scale entrepreneurs who can focus on local problems more efficiently. Let it be a local online grocery store that can help you avoid mass gatherings in super markets or a local e-commerce that can deliver from your favourite coloured top to the iPhone SE. The Amazons and the Flipkarts are always there for you to explore but local options make it easier to prevent infection as the virus is still around. So local entrepreneurship means local jobs and it can result in filling the potholes of the recession. And when we discuss about local entrepreneurship, how can we avoid local manufacturing and farming? Local manufacturing does not mean in town manufacturing of the Macbook, but stands for keeping up with needs and requirements with local resources. A good example of this would be local people of Assam manufacturing ‘facemasks’ from ‘Gamosa’ instead of depending on outside supplies for raw material or end product (face masks). Local resource + local demand + local supply + local customers = successful support local campaign And if you have some relatively free space in your backyard, congratulations as you can have bigger contribution to ‘support local’. Because, there is high possibility that some entrepreneur in your township will set up a local supply chain of vegetables to help you keep up with food supplies. So you can help such entrepreneurs with some backyard farming or a kitchen-garden and yourself as well with some cash flow and a hobby during this lockdown. As economic development is highly related to active supply chain and cash flow, the smoother and easier the supply chain is higher the chances of economic uplift. And as big corporate are observed cutting jobs to avoid economic losses during the pandemic, entrepreneurship is the need of the hour to solve socio-economic issues we are facing right now. Entrepreneurs can be the support system of governments reducing the load of unemployment, poverty and other correlated issues. World governments right now are bound to spend majority of their fund reserve in fighting against the virus which is making the governments poorer day by day as there is very limited sources of revenue generation and the expenditures are only increasing. Starting from unemployment relief funds to PPE kits, ventilator and other necessary medical equipment, the government funds are required everywhere. So, a wave of new age entrepreneurs or existing entrepreneurs expanding their product and service base, just as Swiggy (food delivery app/service) turned into a grocery supply chain, will not only solve economic problems but will also add to the government fund reserve to fight the virus. And by solving the problem of unemployment, entrepreneurs will help the economy in different ways. And history has enough evidence that support from entrepreneurs help governments to come up with plans and policies which enhance economic development via mutual benefits for both the parties. Let it be loosening up business laws or governments helping in setting up manufacturing units or tax benefits to boost up productivity. World governments have also understood that start-ups are the new age socio-economic problem solver. We can take, for example, Samsung and LG, the economic back bones of South Korea or Alibaba, the e-commerce booster for China. Start-ups are solution to cash flow, money creation, unemployment, poverty, infrastructure and many other problems. Though a government job can solve the unemployment problem it again doesn’t bring positive economic value in return. And as we do not know when and how effectively international supply chain will reopen, the entrepreneurs also have a positive opportunity to meet customer demands locally. Or if there is a demand for a digital product or service, congratulations to you as an entrepreneur, you can provide your internet service throughout the globe from your backyard office. Stay safe, stay healthy. See you in my next blog.

There has been this discussion of human immortality since days humanity cannot remember. From the stories of Gods to the stories of Super Heroes, there has always been the dream of immortality within ourselves. And as humanity is undergoing better and efficient technological improvements, this dream of immortality is being persevered even strongly. Well, technology has made our lives easier, better and has enabled us to achieve things that we could not dream of earlier. From going to Moon to planning human trips and colonization in Mars, technology has made us believe in possibilities that seemed impossible a few decades back. And now, technology is becoming so advanced that it has made us believe in human immortality. The ‘2045 Initiative’ founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov believes the same and has taken a step ahead. “The main science mega-project of the 2045 initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of an individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality” reads their website. An ‘Avatar’ as they call it. Humans have always lived in a biological form, and it is very hard to imagine what kind of technological form our bodies will take. We may live in the form of nano-robots and may be capable of taking any form we want. Or we won’t have any physical presence at all? The crises humanity is facing in the 21st century are the causes for demand of such revolutionary transition from biological to technological form. And one very powerful tool that definitely will help us achieve this transition is AI. It has been very long that humanity discovered AI, but its evolution and adaptation has been very controversial throughout the history. But many entrepreneurs believe that AI has high potential to overcome problems we human could not solve. And the 2045 initiative is no different. They call it the “Avatar”, the technological form of humanity in which we will continue living even after death. The integration of human brain and personality with this ‘Avatar’ is expected to be achieved by 2045. They have categorized this avatar as per technological advancements and is building co-operative relationships among different organisations ad individuals to achieve the common goal. The ‘Avatar A’ is supposed to be the robotic copy of human body controlled by Brain Computer Interface (BCI) aimed to get developed between 2015 and 2020. And the ‘Avatar B’ is the form where human brain is to be transplanted at the end of one’s life, which is planned to be achieved by 2025. And between 2030 and 2035, the Avatar C is planned to be formed with an artificial brain in which human personality is transferred at the end of one’s life. And at the last stage that is 2040-2045, a hologram like avatar is expected which will mark the human transition to non-biological form and a new era of humanity with holographic bodies will be experienced. So, are we gonna beat the nature in the game of evolution and create a system of our own or going to lose to the challenges like climate change, asteroid fall or some other random natural destruction? Well, only time will tell where human efforts and technological revolution take us. Now we need to see if Humanity experiences "AVATAR" by 2045 or we need to wait longer.

Wikipedia defines ‘Intelligence’ as the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving. And more generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context. And creating it artificially means giving all these qualities to someone with very high efficiency. We as human beings have attained these qualities through evolution of thousands and millions of years. And whereas we seem to be very much conservative with all the materials we have, we don’t seem to be that much conservative with our intelligence and we are very much willing to share it with others. Earlier this sharing used to be with the younger ones of our community. But since last few decades, we seem to be much more open or much more willing to break the barriers of our community. In this era of technology, we are much more willing to share our intelligence with creatures that did not evolve naturally. These creatures are products of our intelligence only, whom we see as a future dream coming true. But, when you share your secret with your friends, you always have the fear of getting that secret disclosed. And you don’t seem to be very comfortable if everybody comes to know your secret. The same goes with AI. We have been dreaming about AI powered robots and other items since our childhood. We were in love with the character of Arnold in the movie ‘Terminator’. We have always thought of something like this character whenever we think of AI. But possibility are there for the ‘Skynet’ to be the winner. What if ‘Machines’ take over ‘human beings’ one day. I am not declaring ‘Skynet’ as the clear winner, at least at this moment. But we can not guarantee that the ‘Terminator’ scenario will not take place in near future. Can we? We need technology and we need advancements. But are we really ready to adapt AI? Aren’t we trying to lighten up the black shadow of AI? Are we prepared?