A Key To Success
In today’s business world, the ability to manage projects, and get them done on time (at least for the most part) is a major key to success today. There are countless number of books and literature written on this subject matter (and believe me, I do know of what I speak on this one, as I experience it on an almost daily basis on my job). But in the end, where is the best place to learn about effective project management skills??? Of course, no where else but the real world. And yes, we turn to the world of Biometrics in this regard.
Remember I had written about a gargantuan Biometrics project taking place in India??? Well, today I came across an update in which this project is well ahead of schedule. Here are some of the details: “The UIDIA's Aadhaar project, the world's largest scale biometric identification initiative, is off to a fast start. In a country where 500 million people don't have a reliable form of identification, it might seem like the 4 million registrations in the first 6 months of a 5 year project is a failure, but this number surpasses initial milestones by quite a bit. As of July 2009, chairman Nandan M. Nilekani's goal was to initially issue the first million IDs within 12-18 months, but the UIDAI hit that mark by January 2011. When one considers that the United Kingdom's universal ID program, was hindered due to costs and privacy concerns, it's clear that India is on its way to becoming a biometric identity management trailblazer . . . Much of this can be attributed to the early success of the program. In avoiding the pitfalls of previous projects, chosing sensors which can enroll up to 50 people per day, and piggybacking on existing government infrastructure, the Aadhar project has scaled up quite quickly.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/articles/i/9041/).
Final Thoughts On Today’s Posting
As I have discussed previously, this is deemed to be the world’s largest Biometric project of its kind and magnitude. No need to rehash the details, you can search easily for the content in the search box on the blog site. Based on from what I can gather, the first 1,000,000,000 Biometric Templates were collected about 6 months ahead of schedule. Now, whether if this is a true gauge of statistical success or not depends upon what analysis is done on it, but in my view, as an outsider looking in, if you can get one million people to enroll into a Biometric system in a place like India, and is actually ahead of schedule, it is excellent news.
The ultimate aim of this world’s largest Biometric project is to assure that the poorest of the poor in India (especially those living out in the villages and extreme desolate areas) have some sort of ability to be recognized 100% in the eyes of the Indian Government, in order to claim their fair share of entitlements and benefits. In terms of the technical details, each Indian citizen registering into this Biometric database will have a unique set of Fingerprint Biometric Templates, Iris Recognition Templates, and even Facial Recognition Templates. The technical team who got the initial part of the project underway spent about 6 months coming up with the design and specs, and to also ensure that the Biometric System has strong capacities for data and information interchange, so the use of proprietary technology should not pose a problem.
It should also be noted that this Biometric System being used in India, also comes under various Federal Government guidelines, including NIST, and the FBI. Despite this project management success, there has been some criticism, and that includes that a primary focus seems to be on the quantity of Biometric Templates which are collected, rather than the quality (in other words, accuracy, with Failure to Accept, and the Failure to Reject being most important metrics here) of the Templates. Perhaps this is a reason why this project is further ahead of schedule. Btu if anything, there is one thing I gleaned from this Press Release which I thought was most important. A similar program was launched in the United Kingdom, but was frought with hindrances and difficulties, primarily because of Privacy Rights Issues. Now, here is a place like India in which such a Biometric System is being readily embraced and accepted.
To me, this is a huge and stark contrast between a developed nation versus a developing nation. Even without the most modern infrastructures, it appears to be that the developing nations are far more quicker to embrace the use of Biometrics than their Western counterparts. Why is this so??? Well, in my opinion, in these developing nations, the citizens do not have the luxury nor the time to be worried about Privacy Rights Issues. That is because these people are so poor, that they will welcome any type or kind of technology which will give them a better lifestyle. This clearly demonstrates one of the strongest societal impacts Biometrics has upon a people in a particular country. In the end, watch for the pace of developing nations to adopt the use of Biometric Technology to far outstrip the developed nations, especially here in the United States.
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