An independent Research, Media and Technology organisation exploring technology, AI and engineering capabilities to understand and solve strategically important problems for India.
There is a particular kind of research that has become very easy to produce. You pick a subject, collect a pile of papers, speak to a few people, add some charts, write a 40-page report and, if you're feeling ambitious, call it a framework. But that leads to one critical question, "What happens after you understand the research problem?".
At TIES, that question has increasingly changed the way we approach research. We work on problems that are strategically important to India, and many of those problems are usually inseparable from technology. Artificial intelligence, computing, data, digital infrastructure, automation, emerging technologies and engineering capabilities are no longer just “technology topics”. They increasingly determine what a country can build, what it can depend on, and what it can do for itself.
That means researching technology cannot always mean researching about technology. Sometimes we need to understand a technology. Sometimes we need to understand whether a capability exists in India. Sometimes we need to figure out why a particular technical dependency exists, whether it can realistically be reduced, or whether something entirely new needs to be built. And sometimes the research itself leads us towards an engineering problem.
This is where TIES' Research-Media-Technology model becomes useful. Our engineers are not brought in after a 50-page research report has already been written. They are involved early, while the problem is still being understood. They can question assumptions, examine technical feasibility, identify existing capabilities, estimate what would actually be required and, when there is a real opportunity, propose an MVP.
The point is not to turn every research project into a software product. Sometimes the most useful conclusion is that we shouldn't build anything. What matters is that we leave the problem better understood than we found it and, where there is something worth building, have enough understanding to make a serious attempt at building it. Our research outputs can therefore range from policy recommendation to analytical studies to datasets to technical assessments, and even to AI systems, automation pipelines, prototypes and eventually larger technological interventions.
This is also why we are increasingly interested and investing in AI research and applied AI efforts. Not simply using the latest model or ai products because everyone else is, but understanding what these systems can actually do, where they fail, how they can be adapted to specific problems, and what new capabilities become possible when research and engineering happen together, eventually leading to creation of sovereign capabilities for India.
We also believe the research should not just merely exist to produce more knowledge. Knowledge is the starting point for us, the more interesting quest is what becomes possible once you have it. For TIES Research, that increasingly means asking what can actually be built, changed or made possible because we now understand the problem better.
There’s a lot we want to build. Expect some big technology announcements from TIES Research in the future. Until then, we’ll keep our heads down, stay grounded in the research, and keep building with intent.
Tiesverse — India's youth-led research, media and technology organisation.