I have always looked at my country and thought, 'What a unique nation!' Seriously. So many changes in and around its neighboring nations and yet, the blend of good fortune and wise leadership has always dealt with the inevitability of change with utmost intelligence and in this process, we have been able to preserve what is most important to a small nation in a large world: our distinct national identity. Who would have thought that was possible when we opened our doors to modernization? All through this journey, Bhutan has been nothing but smart, and prudent and has always managed to balance and co-exist in all aspects.

Over this past year, we have seen how the unprecedented times brought about by Covid-19 forced and tested us, our government, and institutions to re-examine the way things were done and delivered. Starting from one's daily jobs to how the government interacted with its citizens to how we kept our country functioning during this pandemic. Of all the lessons taught by this pandemic, the most prominent was how a tiny Himalayan kingdom felt the need to have robust digital solutions in areas such as government services, education, the media, communication systems, and the economy. The only thing that worked during this time was the internet and whether we liked it or not we had to resort to it for continuity in day-to-day life.

Such a lesson was a blessing in disguise to let us know that it is time to make this paradigm shift from the traditional way of life and embrace this huge potential technology has for Bhutan. His majesty rightfully guides us through his words of wisdom and aspiration shared during his address at the 14th Convocation of the Royal University of Bhutan 2019 and I quote, 'As a small country, unencumbered by the complexities faced by much larger countries, we can do things faster and better than others. Our institutions can be smart, flexible, responsive, dynamic and efficient.' We may not talk of inventing flying cars or of teleportation but Bhutan can always start small but smart. Goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely for Bhutan to maneuver things to its course and suitability in this age of technology.  

The World Bank's 2016 World Development Report on Digital Dividend details out how nations with digital technologies have boosted growth, expanded opportunities, and improved service delivery. Not only that it also states that it reduces economic isolation, lessens trade barriers, promotes tourism, and improves mobility. These messages are highly relevant to Bhutan today and we have witnessed how the digitalization of certain services has made our work much easier. We need to re-imagine how to expand this digitalization of public sectors to enhance the citizen's end-to-end experience of public service, improving service quality, promoting transparent and efficient interaction, with effective accountability of service providers. 

Digitalizing public services such as improved and robust e-payment services, enhanced use of digital signatures can help the public avail the services with much less bureaucracy, less confusion, and practically no paperwork. Digital governance in a way can become a solution to improving transparency of governmental organizations, reducing nepotism and corruption. Not only in the public sector, but digitalization could also play a vital role in supporting and enabling economies struggling with physically distant commerce through accelerated online commerce.

Technologies such as big data are widely used by corporations and agencies in other countries to store data. Currently, our country lacks a centralized database be it be for research or analysis of social development. Bhutan today needs to build a centralized database system, storing our data and statistics to a proper storage system. Which can be referred to for making reasonable, suitable, and statistic-driven social development decisions and policies. 

Technology in education is also one area that can't be ignored because instructors are using it and students are demanding it. It is time the planners and administrators are aware of tailoring their technological plans to strategize to embrace this new generation of learning to digital in terms of resources, going online in terms of managing these resources, and switching to virtual classrooms in terms of delivering instruction beyond our capacity. Bhutan today needs an improved education system that teaches the true essence of science, which grants the learner with opportunities to pursue a career in this field. An education system that goes beyond memorizing chemistry or physics formulas to finding explanations to one's theories and asking questions, discovering the unknown, and eventually being able to find one's very own answers. 

Some of the ways through which we can achieve this would be equipping the education system with tools and background knowledge to build their experiments. Students taking up initiatives to perform research, communities initiating and creating science-related opportunities for younger generations, such as learning of robotics, codings, artificial intelligence, and big data. One way could be incorporating interning systems of students to technology-driven projects from school days to learn things through the first-hand experience. 

 

Smart infrastructure can be one area that Bhutan can adopt in this age of technology. Today's most fundamental challenges of urbanization, pollution, water shortages, and climate changes can be reduced with the introduction of smart infrastructure developments such as the promotion of electric and autonomous vehicles, smart power grids, energy-efficient buildings, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Smart infrastructures will offer ways for Bhutan to harness the latest technologies that will be resilient and sustainable. These are only a few areas I can talk about right now, an ocean of technology-driven ideas awaits to be explored and brought into Bhutan.

But, how are we going to achieve all these? What is the way forward? For all these to be possible, we require our government to encourage this thriving digital economy by taking the policy and regulatory lead. Modification in the laws in place, having specific technology laws and legal frameworks, and a special agency to monitor and regulate the new technology system will lay the foundation for this journey. 

Achieving the above ICT-driven and digital-driven dreams would require expanding our access to affordable, reliable, and secure broadband connectivity first. Which is very expensive as of now. Building and planning successful initiatives to address these challenges will bring Bhutan to the next stage of development. For that, a collaboration of the government and private businesses nationally and internationally to provide enhanced 4G and forthcoming 5G networks, data centers, and creating uninterrupted access to the internet will be an important way forward. Other major works we need to do would be the creation of digital literacy among citizens, equipping them with digital skills through various technology-driven projects such as blockchain projects, or coding projects, basically creating opportunities for people to learn at various levels. At the same time giving utmost importance to digital inclusion, and creating better and safer data security systems are some of the ways Bhutan can start.

For a tiny nation like Bhutan, among the fast-changing age of technology, digital-divide could become a major challenge to this journey of leveraging technology. Therefore, digital inclusion should be given the utmost importance. Someone somewhere always finds a way to create smart cities, improving its services but mostly it is the villages that are left behind creating a huge division. Rural Bhutan today, feels so inadequate that they feel separated from our nation at times. Most, for this reason, they come looking for opportunities, for better education, better health, better lifestyles, into the cities and get indulged and get caught in this long tiring dream of keeping oneself alive leaving no or very little time to think of one's culture, traditions, closeness, and values. It will be one of my dreams and earnest hope that maybe for once this time, we adopt an equity-driven approach and focus more on creating smart villages and not leave them behind as we progress towards this age of technology. This will be one challenge Bhutan must address collectively. 

For instance, the vision a citizen initiative group called Digital Tshe-Thar have of collecting the electronic devices from those who have many, mend these devices if required, give a new life to these devices, and then distribute to those who need and to far-flung communities are some of the remarkable ways through which the widening gap of digital divide could be solved. Encouraging and supporting such initiatives could be one of our first collective steps towards becoming an ICT-driven society. Once these things are put in place, e-participation tools in a way will encourage and pave the way for greater collaboration with citizens by involving them in decision making, policy setting, budget prioritization, problem-solving, and the co-design of services.

Amidst all these, we must not forget that no matter how much we think and work towards becoming a technology-driven nation, our roots, our cultures, our values, and our beliefs are what makes us Bhutanese and what makes our country Bhutan. Whatever we aim for in this age of technology, the goal should be to achieve all the above and make our place among so many nations yet at the same time, towards the end of the day's hard work, be it be a farmer, a working man, a school going kid or a wife at home must be able to sit down, relax and start thinking about our values, traditions, culture, and histories. Developmental progress should never compromise this very true nature of a Bhutanese. Our Gross National Happiness has been nothing but what our majesty has always said it to be, 'a development with values'. This is what Bhutan as a nation in the age of technology must progress with. At the end of the day, what are developments and progress without values?

As we progress, I wish technology to be viewed as a result of human inventiveness and not as an invasion of human intelligence. Just as much as our cultures and traditions reflect our origin, the journey of technology should also reflect our evolutionary heritage. Through this process, we have to remember the true vision of our majesty that we don't have to equal others, but we must be intelligent enough to harmonize things to our needs. In this fast-changing world of technology and digital revolution, Bhutan can never outgrow other nation's economic or military, or nuclear mightiness but we can always outwit them in bringing things that cater to Bhutanese needs.

As we prepare to dive into this world of technology, obviously everyone will have their doubts and concerns about the impact technology will bring into their lives but eventually it boils down to how we make use of it. The same accusations were probably raised when the printing press, radio, and television first came into our country. But we can't ignore the fact that all of them have given humanity unlimited access to information, knowledge, convenience, and progress in life. Anything that is appropriately used, interactively with guidance has and will become tools for the development of higher-order thinking skills. Somebody has rightly put and we have equally witnessed that history has always taught us that technology can equally be used to make a nuclear bomb that kills millions or generate electricity that lights up a million homes. The choice is in our clean safe hands.

 

By Sonam Yangchen

Class of 2022

Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law