印度的创新仍在改变世界 | 盖茨笔记

自上世纪90年代以来，我一直在不断访问印度，本周我也将再次到访。这些年来，我了解了印度丰富的历史，参观了包括泰姬陵在内的一些令人惊叹的古迹。

但是，当我想到印度对世界最重要的贡献时，首先进入脑海的却并不是那些历史与名胜古迹。印度最伟大的天赋是它的创新能力。

这个国家有着悠久的重大突破历程，古印度的数学家就被广泛认为发明了十进制计数法。近年来，印度在挽救和改善其国内及全世界数百万人的生命方面取得了长足的进步。盖茨基金会一直是这其中一些进步的合作伙伴，在本周对印度的访问过程中，我也将了解我们如何继续与印度合作，帮助印度的创意和发明惠及每一个需要它们的人，无论他们生活在哪里。这将是我本周会见莫迪总理时的一个主要议题。

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健康是印度大有作为的一个领域。印度是世界上最大的疫苗生产国——它供应了全球疫苗免疫联盟（Gavi）分发的60%以上的疫苗，该组织已帮助低收入国家超过10亿的儿童接种了疫苗。印度公司率先开发了高质量、低成本的疫苗和药物，在生产买得起的艾滋病毒/艾滋病等疾病治疗药物以及轮状病毒、肺炎球菌性肺炎和新冠疫苗方面也处于世界领先地位。印度政府已经帮助向本国人民和其它中低收入国家提供了大量疫苗，现在它正寻求在医疗设备和诊断方面也这样做。

在很大程度上得益于印度，发展中国家现在获得新药和疫苗的速度比过去快得多。我将这些努力看作有史以来最重要的健康领域成就之一。我们已经取得了进展，但我们还没有达成最终目标。世界仍需做出更多努力，以缩小一种药物或疫苗从富裕国家到低收入国家的上市时间的间隔与差距。

我钦佩印度创新精神的另一个领域是所谓的数字公共基础设施（DPI），即那些有助于提供各种服务的数字平台和工具。印度的生物身份识别计划“Aadhaar”覆盖了超过14亿人，让他们无需带照片的身份证件就能享受各种政府服务。UPI是一个数字支付系统，可确保跟你做生意的对象就是他们所说的那个人，该系统每月处理超过120亿笔交易。

访问期间，我还将亲眼见证印度DPI的实际应用。我将参观奥里萨邦的一个农业监测中心，那里的政府官员利用DPI为农民提供实时指导。由于有了Aadhaar，该中心能够对750万农民——即使他们并不拥有土地——及其农作物进行登记，这样官员们就能追踪掌握谁在种植什么（因此也就知道他们需要什么样的耕作建议）。它还开发了一个聊天机器人，利用人工智能根据农民的特殊需求，用他们的本地语言为其量身定制内容，让农民可以轻松获得有关他们作物的最新信息。

这项服务的病虫害管理计划目前已覆盖400多万农民，自2018年启动以来，参与计划的农民每年因病虫害损失的农作物数量下降了90%。现在，包括印度其它邦以及埃塞俄比亚、斯里兰卡和世界银行都希望学习奥里萨邦在这项服务以及生物身份识别和数字支付系统方面的经验。

我还期待能更多地了解印度如何解决城市贫困问题，尤其是妇女群体的。印度是世界上城市人口增长最快的国家之一，却有超过1亿人生活在贫民窟中，他们难以或经常无法获得医疗、教育和清洁水源等基本服务。妇女的处境尤其脆弱，因为她们还要面对歧视和暴力的问题。

本周，我将访问奥里萨邦的一个低收入社区，那里的一个政府项目正在帮助妇女获得完成政府建筑合同所需的技能。自2018年以来，该项目已帮助22,000个妇女团体完成了超过52,000个项目，包括建设道路、排水沟和厕所。

该计划可以为面临类似挑战的其它国家树立榜样。那些参与该计划的妇女同时也是项目创建过程中的合作伙伴：她们接受工程、会计、合同谈判等技能的培训，并参与项目规划、预算编制、施工和维护。我非常期待与几位参与此项目的妇女会面，这样我就能听到她们所面临的挑战和取得的成功。

印度的创新能力对于阻止气候变化也将变得越来越重要。印度人已经受到气温升高和天气变化无常的影响，而消除造成这一问题的温室气体是一项巨大的科学挑战。因此，印度正在加大力度提升其发明、制造和部署气候突破性成果的能力，这非常好。印度政府正在投资研究，以提高农作物和牲畜在更温暖气候下的生产力，并且正在扩大其清洁能源计划。

这些仅仅是印度创新正在改变世界的些许方式。我还可以列出更多例子，而且我确信在访问期间我会了解到一些新的创新。我期待着与推动印度创新的那些政府领导人、首席执行官和学生进行交流。这个国家可以提供很多东西，我对它将继续引领创造一个更加公平的世界充满乐观。

I’ve been visiting India since the 1990s, and I’m on my way to visit again this week. Over the years, I’ve learned about its rich history and visited some of its stunning monuments, including the Taj Mahal.

But when I think about India’s most important contributions to the world, these are not the first things that come to mind. India’s greatest gift is its ability to innovate.

This country has a long history of important breakthroughs. (Mathematicians in ancient India are widely credited with introducing the decimal system for numbers.) More recently, India has made advances that are saving and improving millions of lives in India and around the world. The Gates Foundation has been a partner in some of these efforts, and I’m visiting this week to learn about how we can continue working with India to help its ideas and inventions reach everyone who needs them, no matter where they live. This will be a main topic when I meet with Prime Minister Modi this week.

Health is one area where India is making a big difference. This country is the world's largest producer of vaccines—it supplies more than 60 percent of all vaccines distributed by Gavi, the organization that has helped vaccinate more than 1 billion children in lower-income countries. Indian companies pioneered the creation of high-quality, low-cost vaccines and drugs, leading the world in making affordable treatments for diseases like HIV/AIDS as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal pneumonia, and COVID. The government has helped deliver huge supplies of vaccines to its own people and to other low- and middle-income countries, and now it’s looking to do the same for medical devices and diagnostics.

Thanks in large part to India, developing countries now get new medicines and vaccines much faster than they used to. I rank these efforts as one of the most important health achievements ever. (We’ve made progress, but we’re not done. The world should still do more to shrink the gap between when a drug or vaccine becomes available in rich countries and when it reaches lower-income ones.)

Another area where I admire India’s innovative spirit is what’s known as digital public infrastructure, or DPI. In short, DPI refers to the digital platforms and tools that help deliver various services. India’s biometric identity program, Aadhaar, covers more than 1.4 billion people, allowing them to take advantage of all kinds of government services without needing a photo ID. UPI, a digital payment system that ensures that the person you’re doing business with is who they say they are, processes more than 12 billion transactions a month.

During my trip I’ll get to see India’s DPI in action. I’ll visit an agricultural monitoring center in the state of Odisha where government officials use DPI to give farmers real-time guidance. Thanks to Aadhaar, this center is able to maintain a registry of 7.5 million farmers—even if they don’t own land—and their crops, so officials can keep track of who is growing what (and, therefore, what kind of farming advice they need). It has also developed a chatbot that makes it easy for farmers to get the latest information about their crops, using AI to tailor content to their particular needs and in their local language.

This service’s pest-management program now reaches more than 4 million farmers, and since it began in 2018, the volume of crops that participating farmers lose to pests every year has dropped by 90 percent. Now others—including other states in India as well as Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, and the World Bank—are looking to learn from Odisha’s experience with this service as well as its biometric ID and digital payments systems.

I'm also looking forward to learning more about how India is addressing urban poverty, especially among women. It has one of the fastest-growing urban populations in the world, and more than 100 million people there live in slums, where it’s hard and often impossible to get even basic services like health, education, and clean water. Women are particularly vulnerable because they face discrimination and violence.

This week, I’ll visit a low-income community in Odisha where a government program is helping women get the skills to fulfill government construction contracts. Since 2018, this program has helped 22,000 groups of women deliver on more than 52,000 projects including building roads, drains, and toilets.

This program could be a model for other countries that are facing similar challenges. The women who participate in it are partners in creating the projects: They get training in engineering, accounting, negotiating contracts, and other skills, and they’re involved in planning the project, making a budget, doing the construction, and doing maintenance on whatever they build. I'm looking forward to meeting a few women who are part of this program so I can hear about the challenges they face and the successes they’ve had.

India’s capacity to innovate will also become increasingly important to stopping climate change. Indians are already being affected by higher temperatures and less-predictable weather, and eliminating the greenhouse gases that are causing the problem is a huge scientific challenge. So it’s great that India is ramping up its ability to invent, manufacture, and deploy climate breakthroughs. The government is investing in research to raise the productivity of crops and livestock even in a warmer climate, and it’s expanding its plans for clean energy.

These are just a few of the ways in which India's innovations are changing the world. I could list many more, and I’m sure I’ll learn about a few new ones during my visit. I’m looking forward to speaking with government leaders, CEOs, and students who will drive innovation in India. This country has a lot to offer, and I'm optimistic that it will continue to lead the way in creating a more equitable world.