Industry 4.0 and Sustainability- Leveraging Community Engagement for Achieving Partnership for Common Goals

Abstract

While the notions of Industry 4.0 are often conceptualized through strict disciplinary prisms, its ramifications however are trans-disciplinary. The follies from containing nuisances related to Industry 4.0 as matters of esoteric conundrums has already started surfacing in the academic discourses, as it has been widely acknowledged that the impact of Industry 4.0 reaches far beyond its disciplinary corridors to the grassroots communities. There have been increased scholarly researches arguing about the linkages between sustainability and Industry 4.0 especially in terms of its socio-economic implications. Further the fourth industrial revolution coupled with the onset of COVID 19 pandemic has routinized paradigmatic changes in everyday life of individuals that reestablishes the extended impact of Industry 4.0 on communities. The upcoming technological revolution that forms the foundational frame for Industry 4.0 contains countless opportunities and immense potential towards sustainable development of communities. Nevertheless, despite all the altruistic intentions there are evident loopholes wherein the benefits arising from the technological advancements in the domain of Industry 4.0 couldn’t percolate to the grass-root level to provide aid to those already distressed. This paper asserts that the essential reason for this is the dominance of private corporates in the Industry 4.0 processes whose Benthamanian principles of cost benefit analyses often results in excluding of community aspirations from the present technological development in Industry 4.0 framework. The paper thus argues that in order to ensure sustainability of Industry 4.0 it then becomes indispensable to make community not just mere beneficiaries but partners in process. In such backdrop, the paper discusses that the renewed role of Technological institutes of higher education as that of a catalyst. The institutes by embracing deeper engagements with the community can assume the role of critical public institutions and therefore can become a kingpin between industry and communities. Such partnerships for common goals (SDG -17) between industry, community through academia can lead towards mutually beneficial results for all the stakeholders and simultaneously ensuring sustainability.