The United Nations has predicted that the world’s fertility would fall below replacement level by 2025 and the elderly population will live more. Four out of nine people are going to be elderly. In Japan, the workforce will shrink by a fifth in the next decade — leading to a considerable loss of knowledge and skill.

The baby boomers in Japan drove economic transformation of the 1970s and 80s. They are a reservoir of talent and managerial skills. Demographers predict that, in Japan, there would be just two working age people for one retired. The elderly population in India will be at least 100 million out of a billion population.

A large number of professionals are retiring in India from the corporate sector, the academics, the public sector and the all pervading bureaucracy — the Indian Administrative Service. Only a few retirees get active in national development, including Indian politics.

In retirement an important concern is how to live with dignity. Commonly accepted principles of dignified living are, not dependent on anybody — ability to live on one’s own means, enjoying fairly good health, trying to be helpful to others, sharing one’s own experience and wisdom for the good of the society and the unfortunate ones, etc.

With more and more corporate executives and professionals retiring every year and some quitting early to start their own ventures, the concept of dignified living by the retirees  becomes even more crucial in the years to come.

Some retirees in the government end up as freelance consultants by “using” their “contacts” in the “government”, particularly through their erstwhile chambers of Udyog  Bhavan and other bhavans of New Delhi. 

But these are the days of “domain knowledge” and “niche” areas and the generalist knowledge of “know all” cannot help much in this fast changing globalised world.

The Institute of Directors, New Delhi and the World Council for Corporate Governance, London have launched a programme called APEX60 to tap the talent of the elderly (the retirees). It is a group of advisors, professionals, executives — all above 60.

The biggest challenge for APEX60 is how to identify and locate — around the country of this size and heterogeneity — professionals, policy makers and executives  above 60, who are willing to travel and do the handholding for those in need.

The first task of APEX60 is to engage in a countrywide hunt for “Talented Elderly” (TEs). Once identified,  sorting out the knowledge profile of the elderly, their skills’ set, their strengths and weaknesses, their ability to do fruitful conversation and to help clients, whether government or industry or civil society, to strengthen their operations or organisations — are all going to be uphill tasks for APEX60.

The biggest emerging challenge for the founders of  APEX60 is how to use TEs in tackling the two most dangerous trends emerging in India and the world viz climate change and inclusive growth. The corporates, in their restlessness to increase their bottomlines, have created these two biggest threats to the people of the world.

There is a big divide between the thinking of the corporate, the civil society and the government — whether it is the SEZ policy, nuclear energy, rural development or micro-finance to help the farm sector. Each of these groups have their own strengths and weaknesses.

The challenge before the APEX 60 is how to bring out the synergy between all these three for the common good of our countrymen. Can APEX60 locate and create a band of TEs, who can find solutions to the many problems faced by millions of our countrymen in rice fields and farms, factories, in urban slums and the marginalised people.

Some TEs are good as doctors, some as able judges, some as efficient chartered accountants, some as knowledge givers, as media celebrities, conservationists and inspirers for the emerging leaders in local governance. Why can’t the APEX60 get into the areas where the corporates have never entered viz local governance of urban and rural areas.

Many members of the APEX60 will have ego problems and there is nothing wrong in that as long as that does not ruin the relationship building between TEs and the clients/customers, wherever they are placed in relationship building and organisational development or finding client solutions.

The first task is to get the website of the APEX60 and encourage TEs to go online and file their professional background, filter them and build a countrywide inventory. There should be a nominal membership fee so that there is involvement and continuous dialogue between patrons of APEX60 and TEs.

There has to be continuous sharing of experiences of TEs on how they have managed the assignments given by APEX60 secretariat through online news letters and the experience of those who have been benefited by the advice of TEs.