NEW DELHI : If you are a techie, your future can be more exciting than writing code for a labour-arbitrage company that sells your skills cheap to the western world. Now you can even fight for your country while not moving an inch away from your keyboard.A number of tech startups, as well as big companies, are now providing intelligent solutions to soldiers guarding the borders. The demand for such solutions has increased after rising hostilities with Pakistan last year and the Doklam standoff with China this year.Speaking at the second edition of the ‘Smart Border Management’ conference organised by FICCI in New Delhi on Monday, BSF director-general KK Sharma said technology was required to reinforce the efficiency of soldiers guarding borders.Border management has emerged as a crucial area in need of smart solutions for armed forces. Most of India 's borders are difficult to guard due to mountains, rivers and other diverse geographical features That's where Indian techies come into picture. A techie sitting in his Bangalore office with loads of data can devise smart solutions for soldiers guarding the borders. And a lot of them are already working on what has come to be called defence analytics.With the help of artificial intelligence and Big Data , soldiers patrolling the border know when and where terrorists are likely to cross over into Indian soil. A smart solution devised by a techie can be as precise as predicting the day and time of the next incursion and how it would occur."We have more than 20 terabytes of data on border movement which earlier used to be recorded in physical logbooks of soldiers. These include thermal images, instances of people going near the fence from across the border, activity at late night, etc,” says Tushar Chhabra, co-founder of Gurgaon-based driverless truck company CRON systems, which helps the army in predicting border-infiltration patterns.For instance, terrorists on the other side of the border usually send a herd of cattle to check for mines that the armed forces have placed on the border. Analysis of past data has shown that typically an incursion follows 12 days later.Nyokas, a Kochi-based startup, has developed a smart jacket for armed forces. When a solider gets injured during an operation, the smart jacket sends signals to other soldiers.Delhi-based Innefu Labs provides analytics services to BSF, CRPF and police departments across the country. The firm’s data analytics predicted that incidents of cross-border infiltration and narcotic smuggling increase on cloudy and foggy days. Tata Power SED and Dat Con are running a pilot project of the Ministry of Home Affairs to install an integrated border-guarding system to test technology for preventing infiltration, especially by detecting cross-border tunnels as well as possible entries through aerial and underwater routes. Called the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS), it is a major counter-infiltration measure to prevent cross-border terror attacks.CIBMS will establish a seamless multi-tier security ring at the border using a variety of sensors such as thermal imager, radar, aerostat with EO payload, optical fibre intrusion detection system, unattended ground sensor and underwater sensor.Just a decade ago, artificial intelligence and Big Data were part of arcane lingo of nerds. Today, they have become buzzwords. They are used by entities as diverse as tax sleuths and stock traders.As ITBP DG RK Pachnanda said at the FICCI conference, the armed forces need technology as a force multiplier. This opnes up vast space for techies. Globally, defence analytics is a $2-billion market but is still taking off in India. While DRDO has a dedicated lab, the Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAIR), to develop defence technology such as robots, the scope for private data analytics companies is also increasing by the day.