Infosys founder Narayana Murthy believes technology plays an important role in breaking class barriers in society and increasing confidence among human beings. In a recent podcast with former CFO and board member at Infosys Mohandas Pai, Murthy shared an incident that cemented this belief.
It was in 1995 when ICICI installed its first ATM on the Infosys office campus. Murthy and Pai were both waiting in a queue at the office canteen when the former struck up a conversation with a janitor.
"You know, we all stood in the same queue in the first canteen. And whether you are, a janitor or the CEO, or the CFO all in the same line. I was standing. It was 1995, you installed the first ATM from ICICI Bank in our place. So I just struck up a conversation with the person in front of me, the janitor," Narayana Murthy said in the first episode of The Record.
When he asked the janitor about how he had been, the man apparently had a big smile on his face and said that he was very happy after the ATM was installed on the campus. On being asked how it made him happy, Murthy recollected him saying, "He said, 'Sir, when we had the bank branch, the clerk would not give me the same attention as they give to the suited-booted software engineers. But when I go to this machine, whether you go or I go because it will give me the same amount of money, it would take the same time, no issue.' So in other words, technology is a great leveller."
Elaborating on this, Narayana Murthy added that technology doesn't create barriers among human beings as long as one knows how to use it. "It doesn't care whether you are rich or poor, whether you are educated, or not so well educated, as long as you can use the machine, whether you are from urban India, a rural India, whether you are a powerful man or a weak person, doesn't matter. So technology has to be embraced by everybody," he concluded.
Read more: When Narayana Murthy made his cook order his diabetes atta on Amazon at 10pm
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