Problem of matching people - talent with work opportunity - importance of a universal solution

People matching is one of the most exciting problems to solve. What can be more important to anyone than finding interesting work, or a job if one is unemployed, or a person with the right talent to do a task or shortlist for a job? Other subsets are matching benefactors and worthy causes or finding partners. Information & Communications Technology of today and a smart program can expand the search horizon manifold or find talent within a pool much more reliably and sensibly.

Automation and knowledge driven operations, changing life styles, rising aspirations and increasing mobility of people, apart from the enabling ICT are compelling motivators for building a smart people matching program and making it accessible for universal use. At Systems Dynamics, we have built such a program, that is TOTALLY INCLUSIVE (demographics agnostic) and SCALABLE. Called PEMS (People Expertise Matching System), it is configured and deployed for five models. Few use cases:

1.   Employee seeks interesting work opportunities within one’s organisation; Manager (or a co-worker) seeks the right talent (expert) to solve an urgent problem, work on a project or short assignment or fill a particular position.

2. Recruiter wants to hire candidate(s) to fill a new/vacant position.

3. Placement officer wants to place graduating students or find internships.

4. Empower Employment Facilitation Centres (EFC) to be located in Industrial Clusters where Work Seekers (WS) and Work Providers (WP) can walk in to register their profiles and requirements for receiving short-lists of matching opportunities or candidates.

5. Empower State or National level Employment Exchanges where WS and WP can register their profiles and requirements and expect to receive short-lists of matching opportunities or candidates (through SMS and email, as opted) and Government functionaries can obtain real time demand supply gap snapshots – region wise sector wise and receive data analytics that can inform their formulation of schemes, steer investments and resource to bridge the current and emerging gaps in the job market, upgrade skills, assist affirmative action groups or assist entrepreneurial ventures. In India today, ~ 1K Employment Exchanges (run by State Government’s Labour Departments) have ~ 40 million “unemployed WS” registrants but annually less than 1% get placed. With our solution, the successful placement rate can be easily quadrupled and registrants targeted to 400+ million “WS” within three years (“Work” is different from a “Job”). The social benefits are non-trivial enough, for justifying a national public sector project. Even a private venture could monetise some benefits and earn good ROI: The potential EVA (Economic Value Addition) could exceed 100 billion rupees p.a. (400 M WS registrants x 4% placement x average 6.5K monthly wage). The capital investment in empowering 1K employment exchanges and 100K Common Services Centres (existing in rural India), including training cost, will be less than 2 billion rupees! Operational cost will be mostly publicity and HelpDesk support. Low hanging fruit it is for Government or an Entrepreneur.

I will be happy to discuss the USP of PEMS (underlying system and method is patent pending) with people interested in evaluating its usage; or how to make PEMS universally accessible which is THE challenge – not if you happen to be Bill Gates or Larry Page or Anand Mahindra or Azim Premji ;) 

                                                                                                                                                    

                 

Note for Satya Nadella :)

LinkedIn has steadily improved in capturing human expertise and connecting people. Testimony is its growing popularity. However, it lacks the fine grained expertise mapping needed in today’s world to do automated matching. Enumerations in dynamic drop down lists, provided in current version of LinkedIn, do help the users escape the tyranny of “Key word matching” (as both WS and WP select from the same list) but more intelligence, greater precision and matching of attributes of preferences (other than expertise) are needed for sensible short-listing! It requires an ontology (parent-child relationship between expertise attributes) rather than linear drop down lists because the WS and WP may refer to skills in the same branch at different levels (for e.g.  SN’s project manager wants a developer in “.NET Framework” and the work seeker has mentioned her expertise as “LINQ” or let’s say, BG Foundation’s Manager wants to hire vaccination assistants and the work seeker has claimed experience in public health programs with a relevant healthcare certificate from National Council of Vocational Training).   

Note for Sundar Pichai ;)

Google’s mission is not just finding information on the web but information in the world! “People finding” is too alluring a problem to pass up for applying AI or Machine Learning which Google is brilliantly applying in its multiple products. But over here, this approach is NOT inclusive. In India 80% of workforce is not on web at all. Significant workers across the planet aren’t on the web. After Google and Google Earth it ought to be the turn of Google Mankind and not Google Web folks!

How to rein in terrorists using modern ICT

The trick is to build and deploy "loudly", systems which are visible deterrents for terrorists acts. The system described here can be implemented in any country because the solution is scalable.

Every resident in the country, and even a visitor to the country, should have a record created in a "REFERRALS DATABASE". This database can have millions or billion records (so even China and India are not excluded).

Referrals are people who have vouched for the subject (resident or the visitor). Each referee should provide a confidence score of the subject's probability of being or becoming a potential terrorist.

Each subject would be given a label in the database through an algorithm which would analyse the scores given by the referees and the missing data of the subject. The label instances would be:

Safe (not a likely terrorist)
Suspect (could be radicalised and become a terrorist)
Tag (is radicalised and a potential terrorist or has vital missing data and therefore in need of tagging)

Those labeled as "Tag" should be tagged (using active RFID non-removable bracelets) and subjected to tight surveillance, including geo fencing. Such people should be allowed to move only in designated areas or routes, and any deviation should alert security forces and trigger an arrest.

Those labeled "Suspect" should be asked to refresh referrals scores periodically (every 6 months or 2 years or some interval in-between depending upon the country's budget and propensity to rein in terrorists).


1. First the RESIDENTS' database:

1.1 The identifier in each RESIDENT'S record should be biometrics linked. So the Aadhar id qualifies in India. If the id does not have biometrics already linked, the country must collect that data of the subject (all fingerprints at least, both iris images desirable).

1.2 The subject's attributes should include - name, date of birth, place of birth, mobile number and email id (which have been authenticated with the identifier, for e.g. these should be consistent with the same data provided in Aadhar database - I am not suggesting stealing, or borrowing, this data from Aadhar database). A person who does not have either a mobile or email should be marked to "Tag".

1.3 REFEREE's scores - there should be 3 to 10 sets and each set of data should include identifier of the referee and his/her score on a 0 to 100 scale - 0 would indicate the referee's full confidence that the subject is not a potential terrorist at all, and a score of 100 would indicate the subject is radicalised, and is a terrorist, or a sure potential terrorist. There should be three to ten referees' scores, who are NOT themselves "Tag" type, depending upon the country's propensity to rein in terrorists and the budget allocated for building this system. The referee ids and scores would be initially provided by the subject himself or herself. The system would then authenticate those by obtaining confirmations from each referee by any convenient method - SMS, email or online.

2. The VISITOR'S database:

2.1 The identifier in each VISITOR's record will be Passport + Country issuing the passport.

2.2 Same as the data in item 1.2

2.3 Same as the data in item 1.3

The algorithm that delivers the verdict, Safe, Suspect or Tag, would evaluate the average scores of confidence by assigning weights to referees.

The above system would utilise advanced machine learning and communications technologies. Referees would be sent SMS and asked to confirm the scores input by the subject on their behalf.

Referees would be held responsible for patently wrong scores. Under a new legislation, a subject caught in an act of terrorism and assigned a score of less than 10 by any referee would automatically result in arraignment of the referee. Such a policy will be a deterrent to referees giving liberal scores. It would also act as a deterrent to would be terrorists, to indulge in terrorist acts which would bring harm to their friends and relatives. A terrorist is not afraid to lose his/her life but what about his/her friends' and relatives' lives?

The cost of the above system could be dropped by excluding such people who are considered "Safe". However, the drawback is that such categorisation attempts could get politicised easily. A centralised database of profiles of past terrorists could be built and analysed to determine common characteristics and any resident with matching characteristics would be required to register on the above REFERRALS DATABASE. For e.g. {all muslims or all those who have visited certain countries} AND {who are above 18 years but less than 80 years of age} could be considered "not safe" and ordered to register with REFERRALS DATABASE.

Demonetization - a bungle if not a scam and now, an opportunity being squandered

Few problematic questions:
Q1. Why did PM not get enough Rs.500 notes printed three to six months before November 8, 2016 Demonetization announcement and get all ATM's ready beforehand?
Q2. Why did he not order banks to become compliant with UPI and USSD or AEPS technologies three months earlier?
Q3. Why did he not (or does he not) launch a training campaign and mobilise all teachers (in schools and colleges) and even bank staff to learn and then teach others making digital transactions?

What was he aiming for, really?

It would appear that PM was driven by the urgency of dealing a coup de grace (surgical strike) to the opposition parties in U.P. elections and he couldn't care less for other consequences (like during 2002 riots). TOI's chief cartoonist captured the situation strikingly accurately (10-Dec-2016 Page 9 of TOI A'bad).



Demonetisation is estimated to have cost India Rs.1.25 to 1.5 lac crores. Additionally demonetization is costing lives. It has already cost many lives and the way things are panning out and the utter callousness of the government in not tweaking rules in favour of the helpless and the poor, many more will die in queues, hospitals or even homes without access to their own money!

Only a very powerful Prime Minister can commit such an expensive project without consulting experts or the cabinet. Apart from the human distress and hit on economy, the humongous monetary cost may well exceed the tax on "black money" expected to be recovered or extinguished until the amnesty scheme (PMJKY) runs out on 31st March 2017. 

 
Modi and team have no understanding of how large scale transformative systems (like Aadhar) are rolled out. For making India go from 98% cash transactions to even 50% digital (mobile) transactions, it would take much more than exhortations by PM or enthusiasm of Niti Ayog's Amitabh Kant (he declared lucky prizes to promote digital transactions). Migration from cash to mobile money transactions could easily be justified to be scaled up and formulated as an all-time biggest project. Instead Modi is squandering this opportunity of transforming India on an important dimension. Due to a ham handed campaign, and no training resources deployed, the available technology and resources remain grossly underutilised; sadly people prefer to queue up for cash when most of them could have switched to mobile (digital money) in less time! The  bank staff could have been deployed for opening bank accounts and teaching those in the queue to learn the use of UPI or USSD enabled mobile transactions - technology and infrastructure already exist to include both smart phone users (with Internet connectivity) and feature phone users (without Internet connectivity). Queues for cash would reduce dramatically. Constraints in going digital are not mobile coverage or transactions technology coverage. In India we have over 1 billion mobile users (may be 600 million unique subscribers - i.e. practically every household).

Constraints are

1) awareness ; training and
2) individual bank accounts (practically 99% of households have bank accounts) and linking them to Aadhar (particularly important for the less literate because biometrics security enabled transactions are desirable for them).

Modi and team have bungled on estimating the gains of demonetizing on the economic front. Almost all the demonetized currency is going to get back into banking system before expiry of the deadline. Modi and team are now expecting the tax base will expand. Millions of notices will be sent out to depositors to explain their income which the Income Tax officials will want to tax or confiscate! This will be the biggest opportunity for the I-T Department, one of the most corrupt departments of the government, of milking innocent (gullible) citizens who have been lured by the Modi team to deposit funds below Rs.2. lacs by telling them that no questions will be asked.

Many individuals and political parties can deposit cash they are holding in 500 and 1,000 rupee currency without inviting any questions - for e.g. all political donations - election funds collected by parties and agricultural income are tax exempt. No wonder folks declare agricultural income which is bogus or political parties collect fictitious donations below Rs. 20,000, where source need not be declared, to launder or hoard black money (hoarding black money also helps in making expenses below the table). Since cash withdrawals have been controlled by RBI (at the behest of Modi government), in the U.P. elections, the BJP is expected to have an advantage. Due to insider knowledge, ruling party and their friends, would have had enough time ahead of November 8, 2016 to park cash properly. Bank deposits in September and October 2016 had spiked like never before! Will these be investigated?

It would seem very unlikely that Congress would not have dug up evidence of insider machinations of the Demonetizing project engineers. After all this is not a small size project. If one party chooses not to expose another party, it can only be due to a quid pro quo.

What will Modi Government do with the surge in bank deposits? The politically smart idea of demonetization, of impairing the financial muscle of opponents, could boomerang soon with cash starved people getting restless in North India. Modi government needs to recapitalise banks due to mounting NPAs. Also the ruling party bosses may want to make good their promise to masses to recover back black money and gift the poor people some (or part of the Rs.15 lacs promised to each). BJP strategists may also favour meeting many other political demands prior to elections (Niti Ayog team talks of big data but the cash distribution to 1.25 bank branches, 1.5 lac ATMs and 1.6 lac Post-offices is hardly being informed and guided by a coherent policy). Meanwhile, Congress has preempted one populist gimmick of loan waiver to farmers. One needs to wait and see what BJP decides to do with (temporarily) bloated bank deposits.

India's freedom from black money and corruption will not come from demonetization. It may not even come from converting cash dominated economy to digital transactions dominated economy, although that is a great opportunity and it must not be foregone due to lack of energy or ham handed execution. Freedom from corruption will not come without reforms in political funding rules and utterly unrealistic caps on election expenses that force out honest and meritorious aspirants and reward candidates who are crooked or who give in to crooked practises :(
 

Does India value contracts or they are not important?

They say that in India we don’t honour contracts. We seem to neither value the importance of contracts nor do we have a system to enforce the contracts – one could also argue that because contracts can’t be enforced, we don’t value them.

This Op Ed in today’s ET mentions how the “government’s actions” (here by “government”, I mean the legislature + judiciary) have run afoul of big deals / contracts resulting in a slew of international arbitration cases being filed against INDIA.

Modi and Jaitley team is hardly displaying the calibre or sensitivity to mending India’s image on an aspect which influences FDI decisions and India’s pathetic ranking on the index of ease of doing business. Indian companies and parties, unlike foreign entities, cannot appeal beyond the Supreme Court so they must quietly submit to expropriation of their earnings and assets by mindless claims of taxes and duties, sometimes decades old.

http://goo.gl/jtmDF2

Babus are known to introduce ambiguity and complexity in rules and laws to preserve their rent seeking rights. Is software package a product or a service? Courts in India have given conflicting ruling so most companies (we too) charge both VAT (which is a tax applicable only on goods) and Service tax on it. Today’s paper has a story that Telecom companies face a similar dilemma on Spectrum cross sales (recently Telcos have been allowed to trade excess spectrum so that resource utilisation improves and “call drop” problem is mitigated). 

What is the remedy?

For one, the legislators (and particularly, the members of the drafting committees) should undergo training in top class law Universities – the language in our laws is ambiguous and incomprehensible. Secondly, the politicians are either not qualified or they don’t have any concern for the consequences people suffer due to bad or complex laws. Thirdly we need to introduce a new subject, “Transaction Cost” and this must be taught to all legislators. The transaction cost is incurred by the person(s) being asked to comply with a law and also by the law enforcers – this must be estimated in monetary terms as well as non-monetary terms – like what are the chances the law will induce the concerned people to break the law AND getaway. We have made many laws which have forced “relatively” honest persons to break the law (like 97.5% income tax on the highest slab, during Indira Gandhi’s time).

What after RTE (Right to Education) Act? Spreading education and pulling up quality of education

Right to Education Act that enjoins all states in the country to provide free and compulsory education to every child between age 6 and 14 came into effect in 2010. Unfortunately RTE has resulted in education standards to fall reveal surveys and studies done recently. Teachers' salaries have increased quite a bit and the infrastructure has marginally improved due to the emphasis placed in RTE.

Today's TOI editorial on Falling Education Standards -  and another article in TOI of 13th March 2013 (Ref: Study done by Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Ford Foundation International professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the director of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab) talk about the quality issue and what is wrong with the policy and implementation. [For e.g. to honour the policy, we have implemented the rule - Children are not required to pass annual exams, everyone gets promoted until Standard VIII).

Without repeating the problems afflicting the education system, here are few prescriptions.

Small things with big impact:

1) Bring automation and transparency in processes of hiring teachers
2) Employment terms of teachers to change - salary, promotion, transfers and leaves linked to performance and attendance record which must both be monitored through ICT enabled systems
3) Teachers eligibility and performance assessments tests to be created and updated regularly by a central body of experts - of very high repute
4) Minimum infrastructure in schools to include - clean toilets, safe drinking water, ventilated class rooms, black boards, electricity, broadband internet and computers / tablets
5) Teachers' and students' online database - profile, expectations, assessment notes (this should be a central system capable of storing hundreds of millions profiles - this system should be hosted by GOI and not any state - this system should have the capability of administering online surveys - with both open ended and close ended answers) [I can create such a system for less that Rs.100 crores]

Big things with big impact:

1) Remove education from the "Concurrent List or List III" (item no.25. "Education, including technical education, medical education and universities, subject to the provisions of Entries 63, 64, 65 and 66 of List I; vocational and technical training of labour.") and shift it to "Union List or List I - this means the education standards - PRIMARY as well as higher education, syllabus, courseware; budgetary support to educational and training schools, colleges and institutes will become Central Govt responsibility
2) Develop and update regularly the syllabus, courseware, teaching notes and aids through a central organisation that would employ experts of very high repute - these people would be world class experts and they would have the right to form special task groups comprising experts from anywhere in the world [the work of this body of experts will have the greatest influence on the quality of education in the country, therefore, no costs should be spared to get the best talent to contribute]
3) Schools and colleges should be made to buy the courseware and teaching aids from the central organisation - there can be different "levels" for the same class or qualification, depending upon the capacity of the school or college to procure - there can be additional support at a cost for adaptation and modifications by the central experts; Govt. can decide to reimburse schools and institutes for such expenses depending upon affirmative action priorities (for e.g. schools admitting poor students would get proportionately higher reimbursements from the Central Govt.)
4) Highly automated system for teacher's recruitment and appraisal could be designed and offered by the Central Organisation to all schools and colleges & institutes in the country - "National Teachers & Faculty Exchange" could support all requisitions for teachers and faculty from anywhere in the country
5) All students' profiles, expectations could be managed in a central database through a "National Students Exchange"
6) Any work provider could submit work opportunity details to the "National Students Exchange" and find the best candidates for interviewing and further assessments

 

The idea of justice - retribution and restitution - a governance issue

The rape of a 23 year old girl in a Delhi (public) bus has outraged the whole nation. People are seen to be clamouring for capital punishment of those convicted of rape.  Actually this incident should have been seen right away as much more than a mere rape case. Belatedly, the police realised their mistake and charged the "gang" with IPC sections applicable to "attempt to murder". The girl was inhumanly brutalised and thrown out of the moving bus along with her companion who was also badly beaten. The girl with a lot of grit is on maximum life support systems and battling for survival at a Singapore hospital where she was shifted from Delhi's Safdar Jung Hospital after 12 days. In this case of rape and abject violence, any punishment would seem to be too little. 

As the whole country protests and due to 24 x 7 spot light across dozens of TV channels, the girl and her family will receive no-costs-barred support from the government which is only fair. This blog is about retribution (subject of criminal law) and restitution (subject of civil law). i am no student of law, however, i think our laws are in need of urgent reforms and sadly the legislators need to be far more sensitive to the situation than they are. In this particular case, the popular sentiments also need to be understood and managed (guided?).

Laws need to be designed with a more evolved sense of justice than seems to be conveyed by the agitators and protesters - to the extent it is possible to gauge from the placards displayed and the interviews seen in TV and Press.

Rape, like any other offense, must be understood in terms of its consequences - the impact has to be assessed over all possible dimensions, including psychological injury, physical injury, monetary loss and injury to victim's reputation (at least rape should not be viewed as an episode that dents victim's reputation and robs her ability to live her life with respect and self-esteem)*. Impact may be temporary or permanent, i.e. irreversible. The severity of the impact must also be distinguished by the cost and time required to recover from the injury, if at all. Rape is a very coloured term - one should not design a law which ignores differing severity of impact along different dimensions and pronounces a fixed punishment for any act which qualifies to be called a "rape". Punishment of the perpetrator takes care of retribution envisaged in the sense of justice. But this is not sufficient. More important in the idea of justice is restitution of the victim - and whether the society, i.e. the State should accept responsibility in many such cases. 
 

While applying the above logic we will find many pointers to improving ourselves and our laws.

1) Bhopal gas case - victims were short-changed by defective justice delivery - a) compensation claimed from plant owners was inadequate and b) State was not held accountable  and it was not obligated to contribute to restitution of victims - first was the mistake of the judge and second was faulty design of the law itself.

2) Nuclear power suppliers' liability law - suffers from defective design. It puts zero liability on state and it puts huge liability on supplier and tries to create an impression that this will be necessary and sufficient for restitution of victims of a nuclear power plant disaster.

3) Delhi Public Bus gang rape case - here we have a set of perpetrators who committed heinous sexual and physical violence. Restitution of victims (the girl and the boy too) is needed by the State as commuters' "physical safety" in public buses is avowedly a State responsibility, to the extent that the bus driver and the conductor are not supposed to be "lunatics or deranged rapists" - and in the incidence of the Delhi Public bus, the driver and conductor can only be described as such - the state patently failed in this guarantee - State must accept responsibility for not failing such bus crew. Therefore, merely asking for capital punishment of perpetrators is NOT sufficient justice meted out to victims.

CONCLUSION - a more evolved and civilised sense of justice would value restitution higher over retribution in dealing with the victims and perpetrators. So laws must speak of punitive action as well as restitution of the victim - compensation by the perpetrator AND the community or society at large. Maximum punishment of perpetrators is not the most import thing to ask for. More important things to ask for are a) reforms in our systems and laws so that the State becomes liable to compensate the victim or the family if the victim does not survive - in those cases where the State's employees or State licensed persons are involved and b) changing societal norms to reduce the psychological trauma suffered by victims, particularly female victims in rape cases and c) Speedy delivery of justice - with better trained and equipped police and judiciary. 

In the aftermath of case nos.1 and 3, i didn't notice any placard or hear any protester demanding compensation from the State that failed in its guarantee to provide a safe factory in the neighborhood or a safe public transport in the country's capital. In both these cases people who were licensed by the State behaved in a way that caused huge injuries to victims. As a civilised society, should we not expect the State to accept responsibility in such cases and help in the restitution of the innocent victims? The State should have recourse to recover damages from the owners or employers who are indirectly held liable (vicarious liability) - this should be an independent action and not linked to the restitution of the victim by the Sate.

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* Examples of people who believe rape renders the victim's life useless and by their behaviour reinforce a mindset that drives female rape victims to commit suicide (never does the male victim in "reverse" rape cases get driven to suicide):


1) Shushma Swaraj, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, cited the Delhi bus gang rape case in a session of the Parliament and said that even if the girl survives she will live rest of her life as a living corpse.

2) Today Times of India reported that Gujarat High Court has ruled on an appeal filed by the convicted persons in the Bijal Joshi’s gang rape case. Bijal Joshi had suffered a gang rape in a New Year party in 2003. "The incident destroyed dignity of life of the victim," the bench said.

The judges also observed that the injury sustained by the victim was a result of "barbarous act" and the mental agony led the victim to commit suicide.

3) Bijal Joshi - the gang rape victim committed suicide after few days of the incident though she had not suffered any grievous physical injury - she was driven to suicide due to psychological trauma and an unjustified sense of shame and worries of what others may think about her.

Interesting reference for those who are die-hard followers of traditions (e.g. patriarchical mindset):

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/games-primates-play/201203/what-monkeys-can-teach-us-about-human-behavior-facts-fiction