Revealing the story behind how Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio) was conceived, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said that the idea was first seeded by his daughter Isha seven years ago. The inspiration came in after Isha complained of slow internet speed in the country.

“The idea of Jio was first seeded by my daughter, Isha, in 2011. She was a student at Yale and was home for holidays. She wanted to submit some coursework, and she said, ‘Dad, the internet in our house sucks’,” Ambani said in his acceptance speech an award function in London.

RIL was presented with the ‘Drivers of Change’ award at the Financial Times ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business Awards.

“My son Akash said, ‘Dad, your generation doesn’t get it. In the old world, telecom was voice – and you only make money when one person calls and other answers. In our new world, everything is digital. We can do a lot more with a digital network than just talk,” Ambani added.

Ambani, who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said Isha and Akash belong to India’s young generation that is “far more creative, far more ambitious and far more impatient to become the best in the world”.

Poor connectivity

At that time, India was suffering from poor connectivity and severe scarcity of the most critical digital resource, “data”, which is the oxygen of digital life. “Data was not only scarce, but it was priced artificially high to make it unaffordable to a majority of Indians…,” he said, adding “these young Indians convinced me that broadband internet is the defining technology of our age and India cannot be left behind”. Later in 2016, RJio, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIL, launched its services.

RJio is making data abundant and affordable and available in every part of the country – from big cities to remote villages, he said.

While the US pioneered 1G mobile network, Europe ushered in 2G and China leapfrogged with 3G, RJio has created the largest greenfield 4G LTE network in the world.

“This will make India a leader in 4G in 2019,” he said, adding, with super-abundant youthful talent, India is poised to become the third largest economy in the world by 2028, “within just a single decade”.

Ambani also said that as the internet becomes accessible to all Indians, “we will be among the first to graduate to the Internet of Everything”.

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