India’s 4th Technology Wave

Vivek Wadhwa has written a very interesting article in the BusinessWeek about the Fourth Technology Wave in India. He describes Indian IT’s 20 year journey from “nothing to a $73 billion industry”. If you’ve watched any of his talks – on the web/or in attendance – about India, you’ve probably heard some of his points before. But for those who haven’t they make for some interesting reading. And for those who haven’t heard of him – he’s an entrepreneur turned academic, who is now involved in different capacities in Duke University, Harvard Law School and UC – Berkley. Over the years he’s done hard hitting research on the state of Engineering, Entrepreneurship across various Countries. So, in this article he talks about to shift in Indian Technology from Service based solutions to Research And Development. According to Nasscom, India’s R&D services industry has grown from a revenues of $1.4 billion in 2004 to $10 billion in 2010 and they predict that it will reach $24 billion and $45 billion by 2015, 2020. In fact, at a session in Bangalore recently he highlighted that fears of India’s high attrition rates in the technology space were largely unfounded. Western countries like America experience a much higher rate than the average 11-13% that Indian Technology companies face. He puts it down to a new breed of Entrepreneurs emerging India : Contrary to popular belief an entrepreneur is not a College drop out with a billion dollar business. Even though these guys are the stories that make the news. Majority of entrepreneurs are people who have worked in the industry for years and then decide to go out on their own to either satisfy their itch to build a business, wealth or both. Being a 20 year old industry, Indian Technology has plenty of such people starting companies and their rich industry experience has helped them solve genuine customer problems. With the largest youth population in the world, decreasing stigma associated with failure youth entrepreneurship is on the rise. He once humorously remarked that Indians could start a company virtually for free because they can live with their parents – rent free – and generally have something called a ‘Chaha-Mama’ fund available as seed capital. Of course not everyone has this luxury. But look around at the activity of various Entrepreneurship cells in India’s leading engineering institutes and you know that there is a genuine buzz among a lot of college students. It might take a few years before students start turning down the fat pay cheques though. And with technological advancement, cloud services and massive drop in the cost of technology – compared to the early days of tech entrepreneurship when all companies needed to have all their own technology infrastructure. Hardware/Software costs were massive and required plenty of investment. Today, we can use infrastructure around the world for a very reasonable amount of money. Thus starting up and innovating become cheaper and easier. The renewed focus to solve problems at home rather than cater to the western world is also very important. With an an ever expanding mobile user base and cheap usage the improving connectivity will see an explosion in the Indian Software Products industry. Another interesting aspect that he didn’t mention, but has written about previously, is the reverse brain drain thats happening. And for those of you skeptical about India’s ability to innovate – The Kindle was designed in New Delhi, and a lot of the early development of touch screen technology happened here. And 14% of WIPO patents in the US have Indian authors – that’s approximately 0.6% of the population authoring/co authoring patents. And if you still have doubts – 1 word – Jugaad (not the cutting corners kind, but the genuinely innovative kind) Looking For A Social Media Agency?? TRY US! Related Posts Shifts in the Internet: Rajesh Jain Speaks @ Proto.in Managing Web Innovation: Product & Design India – The Technology Leader Sitagita Launches India’s First Online Home Business Directory For Women ACi Coming Up With Low-Priced Laptops For Laptop Lovers In 2008!

[via WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India]