One of my all time favorite speeches is that of John F Kennedy in the height of the Cold War (USA vs. Russia – also the period that had that triggered the deadly race of who would be the more technologically advanced nation in the world).
JFK decided to send a message to the world by simply being the first Country in the World to put Man on the Moon. In his speech ( at Rice University in Houston, Texas) he said:
‘Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, “Because it is there.”
In the same spirit, on deciding what will be the most appropriate technological challenge for America, Kennedy said – ‘We choose to go to the moon’!!
I think, its time we Indians wake up and also PROVE what we are capable of to the world!
Its been decades since we have been literally auctioning our minds (software services) for ‘hour per use’. To accomplish this, we ‘body shopped’ young people (engineers lured to go to the USA just becoz its exotic) and actually shipped the sharpest minds of the nation to the location they were supposed to be rented in.
It became worse a few years ago when we started auctioning our ears and voice (BPO business) and became the official Operator Junkyard of the World. Our young enthusiastic teens and young adults were trained to handle angry calls at 3 am in the morning, talk about the weather in a city they had never heard of and speak in an accent that changed their personality forever. Meet some of these ‘BPO folks’ today and see how badly they are burnt out.
I say STOP THIS CRAP.
Its time Indian began creating content, software, ideas, services, media, industry, product, anything that WE SELL at our OWN TERMS.
It cant be renting our organs anymore – it has to be LICENSING OUR MINDS – NOT SELLING OUR MINDS.
Its all about confidence, the ability to transcend markets and surely understand the end consumer. But given the amazing talent we have, the relatively inexpensive costs structures we operate in, and the fact that the world has become one small oyster – I say YES WE CAN.
Case example:
In April 2010, we decided to create a Kids Online Destination that would compete with the best of breed global content out there. We benchmarked ourselves to none other than Club Penguin – a DISNEY property that was started out in 2002 and acquired by Disney in 2008 for 350 MILLION US$!! We were competing against a property that had a 8 year head start ahead of us..
8 months later – review https://clubpenguin.com and https://chimpoo.com and tell me what you think.
Additional proof of concept? This month alone – the biggest global media properties in the world in the kids space – Discovery.com and Viacom’s addictinggames.com have partnered Chimpoo.com and promoted them on their sites. And no visitor on these sites can ever make it that Chimpoo.com is a product made in Tardeo – Mumbai!
Its time we Indians packed our brains and set the controls for Pluto now.
Aditya Singh
We need to scale up manufacturing as well….. And we need to find out ways to make our products competitive outside India.
I was sitting with a businessman today who is into import business. He told me that, they had a 350people facility to manufacture cooler motors. They closed it down 2 years back. Now they just get it from china, brand it here and sell it here.
Hardik Khanna
Great thoughts! Truly agree that we Indians need to stop doing jobs that add little or no value to us and to our country. Its time we take up bigger challenges….all we need is to trust ourselves.
Vishwas Patel
There is this 24 year old kid from Bangalore, who has designed and created a tablet, which I believe is the best in the world. Check this site out a https://www.notionink.com/features.php . If he can scale it up, all the other tablets in the world including Apple’s iPad and Samsung galaxy will have to be phased out! He started pre-order for this product and his best models are already sold out in three days flat!
Vishwas Patel
Watch this video of Rohan’s Adam tablet. A must watch…a 24 year old Bangalore kid …with so little resources …can design this master piece Adam Tablet! iPads, Galaxys are soo passe!
Alok, we Indians are just NOT auctioning our ears and voice….we are doing much more than that! Watch the tablet video and check it yourself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQvefuCHZds
Aditya Singh
We need 1000 such examples.
We can’t boast on few things.
Koshy T
Alok I agree with you completer. Even in software space the major part of our revenue is from cyber koolies (pardon such a strong word) WE just code for somebodies design and spec. WE have to graduate upwards and be the solution designer and provider.
Best of luck with ur chimpoo
Abey John
Another great India story is Zoho. True they are “incorporated” in the US but their entire dev team is located in Chennai. And Alok its not Pluto we should aim for – Alpha Centauri at least!
Koshy T
i clicked bot the sites clubP and chimpoo. chimpoo is quite good.
Only one thought I have is that the games are taking too long to load??
Nishant Agrawal
Zoho is a true success story. Made in india and globally competitive. Cant think of other companies thst have achieved a similar feat. They are giving shivers to salesfore. We need to overcome our patriotic obsession with Infosys and Wipro and create truly valuable companies. Even today I see newspapers filled with ‘success’ stories where founders have made millions renting out coders and providing support service. Why am I not impressed.