Ola Founder Bhavish Aggarwal Talks About ‘Techno-Colonialism’ and India’s Data Future

New Delhi, July 7: Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of Ola, has introduced the term ‘techno-colonialism’ to describe how India’s data is exported, processed abroad, and then sold back to India. He compared this to the historical exploitation by the British East India Company.

Aggarwal highlighted that while India generates a significant portion of the world’s data, most of it is stored and processed in global data centers owned by foreign tech giants. He emphasized the need for India to build its own technology based on its values, citing examples like UPI and ONDC.

He pointed out that India produces 20% of the world’s data and that this data should be owned by its creators. He stressed the importance of sharing data in a privacy-preserving way and attributing original content to its creators.

Aggarwal also mentioned Krutrim, a project he initiated, which generates text with Indian cultural relevance and supports all 22 Indian scheduled languages. Krutrim has been available in beta since February 2024.

Bhavish Aggarwal co-founded Ola Cabs in 2011 and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2018. He graduated from IIT Bombay in 2008.