{"id":77294,"date":"2019-04-28T14:17:27","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T21:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=77294"},"modified":"2019-04-29T13:44:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T20:44:16","slug":"siliconeer-business-emerging-entrepreneurs-future-of-indian-technology-vivek-wadhwa-april-2011-celebrating-12-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/siliconeer-business-emerging-entrepreneurs-future-of-indian-technology-vivek-wadhwa-april-2011-celebrating-12-years\/","title":{"rendered":"ARCHIVES: Business: Emerging Entrepreneurs: Future of Indian Technology – Vivek Wadhwa | Siliconeer | April 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From low-level IT work to more sophisticated research and development in the last decade, India’s tech sector has come a long way. Now a new transition and the rising entrepreneurship in the tech area has set the ball rolling again for Indian tech industry, writes Vivek Wadhwa.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Indian technology industry got its start running call centers and doing low-level IT work for western firms. Then, in the 2000s, it started taking on higher-level IT tasks, offering management consulting services, and performing sophisticated R&D. Now there is another transition happening, one far more significant \u2014 a transition to development of innovative technology products.<\/p>\n

Instead of providing IT services as the big outsourcing companies do, a new breed of startups is developing high-value products based on intellectual property. The Indian industry group NASSCOM estimates that in 2008, the country\u2019s software product revenues grossed $1.64 billion. It forecasts that this will grow to $11 billion per year by 2015.<\/p>\n

I attended the NASSCOM Product Enclave in Bangalore last year and gave several talks to the 1000+ entrepreneurs in attendance. I was surprised at the changes that are powering the new transition: its tech workers are leaving high-paying jobs in IT services, and kids out of school are ignoring social taboos against failure and defying marriage customs to become entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

A few Americans are also joining the fray, starting their ventures in India rather than in Silicon Valley. Though in China, returnees from the U.S. are fuelling the entrepreneurship boom, they aren\u2019t as important in India. Sadly for my Indian friends in Silicon Valley who are looking to return home, returnees \u2014 formerly in high demand and treated like \u2018rock stars\u2019 \u2014 are out of vogue and now treated like \u2018rocks\u2019.<\/p>\n

Why are highly paid workers in an industry that does lucrative contract work for multinationals jumping ship?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same dynamic as you observe in the United States. \u00a0Entrepreneurs start their companies when they are, on average, 39 years of age. They have 10 to 15 years of work experience and ideas for products that solve real customer problems; they get tired of working for \u2018jerk\u2019 bosses; and they want to build wealth before they retire. So they defy their fear of failure and take the plunge into entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s outsourcing industry is about 20 years old and has hundreds of thousands of workers with 10 to 15 years of experience and ideas for innovative products.<\/p>\n

At the NASSCOM event, I met dozens of tech-service industry workers who had become entrepreneurs. A surprisingly high proportion weren\u2019t developing products for their former customers, but were instead looking inward to solve India\u2019s problems. The one who impressed me the most was K. Chandrasekhar, of Forus Health.<\/p>\n

Chandrasekhar learned that that the vast majority of the 12 million people in India who are blind could have maintained their sight if only their problems had been diagnosed and treated on time. The diagnostic equipment for a single hospital cost at least U.S. $60,000 \u2014 which put it out of the reach of most regional clinics \u2014 and required ophthalmologists to perform the diagnosis. Chandrasekhar and Forus cofounder Shyam Vasudev decided to leave their jobs as senior executives at NXP Semiconductor (an offshoot of Philips) to create an affordable, all-in-one intelligent pre-screening device that is non-invasive and can be used by minimally trained technicians in rural India. The device provides an indicative report in 10 minutes for five major eye-related problems, including diabetic retina. This frees the doctor up to treat patients rather than administer tests. The product costs less than $15,000, and Forus expects the price to drop to half that in volume production.<\/p>\n

Another impressive entrepreneur at the NASSCOM event was Vishal Gondal. In youth entrepreneurship, Gondal is the Bill Gates of India. He dropped out of college to start his first company when he was 16, and launched his big success \u2014 Indiagames \u2014 when he was 23. He sold part of his company for a multi-million dollar sum in 2005. He now mentors young entrepreneurs and invests in startups via his fund called \u2018Sweat & Blood Venture Group.\u2019<\/p>\n

But college-dropout tech entrepreneurs like Gondal are extremely rare in India. Most make the wise choice to complete their education before joining a startup. So far,\u00a0the biggest inhibitor of youth entrepreneurship in India has been the social stigma associated with failure and the low social esteem bestowed on startups.<\/p>\n

In the arranged-marriage system \u2014 which is still the norm in India \u2014 a young male who joined a company such as Infosys or IBM would command the best marriage proposals, and those who took the startup path risked trading down. No longer.\u00a0 All of the young entrepreneurs I met said either that they had told their parents that they would find their own partners, or that their parents supported their decision.<\/p>\n

It also used to be that nearly all the graduates of India\u2019s prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) would join investment banks or take senior positions in the outsourcing industry. Given the huge salaries these workers commanded, entrepreneurship was out of the question. Yet I met dozens of entrepreneurs who had left these institutions and were now risking it all on entrepreneurship. Two such are Pavan Thatha and Rakesh Thatha.<\/p>\n

After completing his MBA from IIT-Bombay and working in the outsourcing industry for four years, Pavan Thatha persuaded his brother\u00a0Rakesh, an IIT-Madras graduate, to leave his job at Computer Associates India and start a security-software firm called Arrayshield.<\/p>\n

That was in May 2010. By October 2010, they had hired two more IITans who left new jobs at Oracle India and John Deere. The new recruits took 75% paycuts. The recruits received intense pressure from their family not to take the risk\u2014their parents couldn\u2019t understand why they would leave prestigious, high-paying jobs to risk it all.\u00a0 But they were determined to be part of the journey of the brothers, to do something to make a difference and change the world.<\/p>\n

And it isn\u2019t just the Indians who are seeing opportunity in India.<\/p>\n

Valerie Rozycki had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and was keenly interested in emerging markets while a student at Stanford University. She believed India\u2019s growing economy would provide great opportunities for someone like her.\u00a0She had an idea to build a mobile engagement platform based on dialing numbers or \u201cmissed calls\u201d (most Americans are not familiar with the concept of \u201cmissed calls\u201d, but in the developing world, they are a common way of sending a short message: \u201cI\u2019m on my way home\u201d, \u201cpick me up\u201d, \u201cI love you\u201d, etc.). So, in February 2010 she started a company called ZipDial, in Bangalore. The company leverages \u201cmissed calls\u201d in marketing campaigns\u2014to log votes.<\/p>\n

Valerie clearly has many great opportunities in Silicon Valley. When I asked her what a (white) gal like her was doing in a place like Bangalore, she smiled and said,\u00a0\u201cwhen all of the action is in Bangalore, who needs Silicon Valley?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur-turned academic. He is a visiting scholar at UC-Berkeley, senior research associate at Harvard Law School and director of research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University. Readers can find his research at www.wadhwa.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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From low-level IT work to more sophisticated research and development in the last decade, India’s tech sector has come a long way. Now a new transition and the rising entrepreneurship in the tech area has set the ball rolling again for Indian tech industry, writes Vivek Wadhwa. The Indian technology industry got its start running…<\/p>\n

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