I encourage Indian entrepreneurs experienced in the IT outsourcing industry, and alarmed by my Death of Indian Outsourcing piece to read Sudhakar Ram’s Wave 3 of Indian Outsourcing. Other related pieces on the topic are: India’s Labor Arbitrage Strategy, Indian IT: The Next 8 Years, and Silicon Valley’s Unknown Indian.
Also, here are my related Forbes columns on the topic.
And finally, here is my Open Letter to IIT Students written in response to a student’s email from IIT Kharagpur, in which I request students to start looking outside IT for entrepreneurial opportunities. As examples, I would like to cite the story of ERI, a water desalination company that is about to go public soon, and SunPower, a solar energy company that has had a successful run in the public market. I want to also highlight a different style of entrepreneurship that comes from Harish Hande, CEO of SELCO, bringing solar electricity to the poor.
As always, comments and discussions are very welcome.
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Sramana,
If what Rohit said briefly had been your point, wonder why did you post all those links? Please spare readers of all too mediocre stuff.
That’s right, thanks Rohit, for chiming in and making the “point”.
Samir,
I work with IIT, heading the incubation centre there, and as part of the job, you come across a lot of govt agencies. I used to be furious at them first, “how could you be even saying that this is the level of security we can afford in the banking sector?” “Is this all we could do with geographical mapping?” etc etc.
Then I met a man, a man wisened by the years, aged well, who sat me down and asked me. We are paid central govt salary. 11k per month, while all our counterparts, in the private sector are probably eyeing lavish six or seven digit incomes per year, we are barely qualifying for the “taxable” range. The smart ones are either abroad, or in the private sector. The young and vibrant, do have the urge to make a change, but are they willing to get involved, make a sacrifice, and change things from within?
I couldnt answer that question. I know I work with a central govt. scale. But can i ask everyone to do that? I dont know. I had the commitment and the passion to do something, and also had worked a bank balance that can sustain me through this lifetime, as it is.
The simple truth is that, we dont have smart people working for the govt. If they were, why would they be working for such low a salary. And unless they were, who would be the right person to judge “merit”?
What could be the reason for such terrible security in your opinion?
Not exactly out of thin air, but I am talking about after my
experience working with various state govts. on how business is
given out. Noted the question mark there? I have extensive
experience for instance dealing with another state where a Turkish hacker recently defaced a website. Tell me if you have experience
otherwise — that in most govt.s today in India, one can bag
contracts purely based on ability or merit!
It is not a rocket science to secure servers. And MEA making statements such that “servers can get hacked again” in my opinion is really awful; really doesnt fit the “IT power” tag!
samir
Samir, do you have anything concrete on the security of our servers being an issue of it being granted to “favored” parties? I hope you are not pulling one out of thin air.