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.
