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Sanjib.Acharya
I would like to know how many of those ideas did Catamaran consider worth ...
‘Ideas’ could be India’s next growth industry
Sufia Tippu
10/10/2010 1:46 AM EDT
BANGALORE — If eyes roll when talk turns to India’s promise as a high-tech innovation hub, it’s understandable; certainly, that promise remains unrealized. Still, there are signs everywhere of an emerging entrepreneurial class, and potentially game-changing ideas are being hatched not only among the country’s IT establishment, but also in the humblest corners of a land where 70 percent of the population of 1.2 billion still scrapes by on half a dollar a day.
“We get literally 30 to 40 ideas from entrepreneurs every week. Not all are great, but there is a lot of confidence and enthusiasm,” said N.R. Narayana Murthy, chief mentor and co-founder of Infosys Technologies and the founder of $129 million venture capital firm Catamaran, symbolically named for the light, nimble craft used by local fishermen. India’s 8.5 percent GDP growth has engendered “tremendous confidence in the country among the younger generation,” Murthy said. “A lot of them are willing to take risk; they have understood the power of entrepreneurship and wealth creation.”
If you’re wondering how India might go about reinventing itself as a country known for its inventions, cast a glance at some of its prosperous Asian neighbors. “India has to move away from the me-too mindset. If a product or service comes out of the U.S. or elsewhere, there is a tendency to think that it should be copied here, probably tweaked a bit to fit into the Indian environment,” said Bob Kondamoori, managing director of venture capitalist firm Sandalwood Partners. But Japan, too, “was into the copy act” before its engineers and entrepreneurs became innovators, Kondamoori noted. “Then came China. [Now] you see a tremendous amount of innovation coming from these two countries, as well as from Taiwan.
“It’s just a matter of time before India emerges from its cocoon.”
India watchers note that world-changing innovations like the transistor, the PC, the cell phone and the Internet didn’t spring from arid soil but were nurtured in rich R&D environments where the supporting ecosystem was already well established. In contrast, India’s infrastructure buildout began in earnest only three decades ago.
Next: IT and beyond
“We get literally 30 to 40 ideas from entrepreneurs every week. Not all are great, but there is a lot of confidence and enthusiasm,” said N.R. Narayana Murthy, chief mentor and co-founder of Infosys Technologies and the founder of $129 million venture capital firm Catamaran, symbolically named for the light, nimble craft used by local fishermen. India’s 8.5 percent GDP growth has engendered “tremendous confidence in the country among the younger generation,” Murthy said. “A lot of them are willing to take risk; they have understood the power of entrepreneurship and wealth creation.”
If you’re wondering how India might go about reinventing itself as a country known for its inventions, cast a glance at some of its prosperous Asian neighbors. “India has to move away from the me-too mindset. If a product or service comes out of the U.S. or elsewhere, there is a tendency to think that it should be copied here, probably tweaked a bit to fit into the Indian environment,” said Bob Kondamoori, managing director of venture capitalist firm Sandalwood Partners. But Japan, too, “was into the copy act” before its engineers and entrepreneurs became innovators, Kondamoori noted. “Then came China. [Now] you see a tremendous amount of innovation coming from these two countries, as well as from Taiwan.
“It’s just a matter of time before India emerges from its cocoon.”
India watchers note that world-changing innovations like the transistor, the PC, the cell phone and the Internet didn’t spring from arid soil but were nurtured in rich R&D environments where the supporting ecosystem was already well established. In contrast, India’s infrastructure buildout began in earnest only three decades ago.
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Dave.Dykstra
10/11/2010 12:45 PM EDT
It seems reasonable and only a matter of time until we see many new and innovative solutions from India. Probably there will be a mixture of ideas with some aimed at consumers in the rest of the world (US, Europe, China, Japan, etc.), and some aimed specifically at the consumer in India. This will depend on the mindset of the individual/company and their particular focus. Of course, there will be many ideas that will apply to both, although in many instances they will probably require a different implementation due to factors such as infrastructure differences, etc.
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MangoAndApple
10/11/2010 4:31 PM EDT
thoughtful article.
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Luis Sanchez
10/11/2010 5:01 PM EDT
I just had a talk with Ramesh (good guy) and he showed me how the indian government played a strong role in the empowerment of the Indian nation as the where to go for software development.
Today, the way things are in the IT industry show that it has all been brewed since years ago, "we learned programming since 8 grade..." he mentioned... perhaps if the government continues on the track to innovation, in some years from now we will surely see the creation of wealth lean to the that side of the globe. What do you think?
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Sheetal.Pandey
10/13/2010 4:43 PM EDT
Well you are correct. The government does support software growth. But I guess the diversities are too much to concentrate on few things. But with so many diversities still things are shaping up very well.
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Charles.Desassure
10/11/2010 8:48 PM EDT
Thank you for your article. Hats off to India and its engineers for wanting to be creative and branch off with their own technology. That’s good! India’s need to know that we support them and any great idea to enhance technology. If there’s a market, people will buy their product.
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kari
10/11/2010 11:24 PM EDT
Venture guys, if you want both the brain and cheap intelligent labor force to realize your financial dreams, just go over the Himalayas to realize your dream. This is the high time to invest there.
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hm
10/12/2010 12:26 AM EDT
Indian firms may be very effective in modifying and adapting to the proven ideas from developed countries. However, we are yet to see many major conceptual products or basic ideas from India. Second aspect is quality and reliability of this new ideas and concept in successful products. It takes very hard work and long time to create quality product from basic conceptual idea. We are yet to see them from India. India has very hard work to do make their name in world market for new ideas.
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Chak K
10/12/2010 12:26 AM EDT
"70 percent of the population of 1.2 billion still scrapes by on half a dollar a day" looks hard to belive, especially considering that more than 20% of population is in tier1 and tier2 cities. Is this information latest? Can you quote the source?
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hareesh_asic
10/12/2010 12:29 AM EDT
Thank you for your article. i agree with Mr.Kondamoori. The Innoations in high-end technologies like VLSI are remain unrealized due to the lack of Manufacturing units.
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prabhakar_deosthali
10/12/2010 1:49 AM EDT
Just imitating west cannot bring out the real innovations from Indian minds. For centuries the Indian mind set has been following west be it a new technology, literature, art, theater or movies. Even in IT where Indian manpower has now spread across the world, it is only helping those American, German or Japanese companies in developing their innovative ideas into products. So the India IT industry has become service-centric and not product centric. All those design houses in Bangalore and hyderabad and Pune are also helping those giants like Oracle, Microsoft, TI, Intel to convert their original ideas into products. The day will written with golden letters when Indians will develop original products out of their own innovative ideas which could be in a radically different application domain, not just a cheap PC but may be a radically different medicines to fight all these new viral diseases. not just a super computer doing the same binary arithmetic faster but may be a new mathematical model .For these Indian minds need to go deep into their own age old knowledge base hidden in Vedas and such other literature and use their innovative minds to marry the old with the technology available from west
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Dr Raman
10/12/2010 5:27 AM EDT
Innovations in India are not a new phenomenon and, it only lacks due recognition. Despite 800 years of oppressive foreign rule, India progressed very well in the last 63 years since Independence and is not a minor achievement. However, the mistake India is doing now is to repeat the same mistakes that west has done in the past. All the developed countries are on the forefront damaging the environment despite having few environmental policies, now India & China are also trying to harm the environment more in the name of development. They must tread a different path in terms of technology (eco-friendly), economic model (not greedy capitalism) and Social model (based on moral values).
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Janakiram
10/12/2010 6:44 AM EDT
I agree with Dr.Raman. There is immense potential in India for innovation. Need of the hour is to focus more on sustainable, both locally & internationally relevant innovation. These need to be followed up with due recognition by Industry leaders and the Government.
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nicolas.mokhoff
10/12/2010 7:33 AM EDT
It's a great update on India's development of a home-grown hi-tech industry. I wonder what the percentage of Indian engineers and entrepreneurs who received their education in the West then went back to innovative and invest in their home country. And what has been the success rate for these ex-pats. Also, are there enough university research centers in India to sustain a permanent flow of hi-tech innovations.
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CHATLIT
10/12/2010 10:31 AM EDT
This has reference to Jayant Deosthali and hm's comments.Truly,the answer lies in Indians identifying conveniences peculiar to Indian habits and finding solutions.Indians prefer to be secretive and perhaps there are several good ideas are left in somebody's computer memory.Somehow Indians at Policy making levels tend to get carried away by the products which claim to be state of art with slick presentations and are of utility to a miniscule section of society.
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elctrnx_lyf
10/12/2010 1:06 PM EDT
@Nic_Mchoff --- There is not even 10% of engineers coming back to India after completeing their master degree in west. This is mainly due to majority of people in India are brought up with poor facilities around them and made to think to have a better luxurious life as the only ambition. Certainly there will be people with good ambitions and they will thin little more than me too attitude and many enterprenures.
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elctrnx_lyf
10/12/2010 1:07 PM EDT
cond ... will be there to take risk and think the future.
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iniewski
10/12/2010 3:23 PM EDT
I will be a little contrarian here...why bother with innovation when you can make billions by copying and doing stuff cheaper??? Worked for Taiwan, now is working for China...Kris
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Sheetal.Pandey
10/13/2010 4:47 PM EDT
well then one can be only one part of the business. When you innovate, you bring more business options.
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goafrit
10/12/2010 4:16 PM EDT
India has the brains and as Economist said this week, they will overtake China. That nation has good the education right, innovation will follow.
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goafrit
10/12/2010 4:26 PM EDT
Developing nations like India must find a spot on this planet by moving into technology areas where they can differentiate. Frugal engineering, alternative sources of energy where local raw materials are available, etc, will make all the differences. Going to compete with IBM on the fastest computer will not work. Great article.
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Sheetal.Pandey
10/13/2010 4:50 PM EDT
Almost all mutinational comapnies have there presence in India. Due to the growing market. But I guess India has to work with diversities issues and make development the only goal. Which is easier to say but difficult to achieve. But yes the article brings out the innovations in minds of young Indians. And surely there are many more but could not see the light because they cannot reach the mainstream media.
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Sanjib.Acharya
10/23/2010 2:40 PM EDT
I would like to know how many of those ideas did Catamaran consider worth investing in? Great to know about "lot of confidence and enthusiasm" to generate ideas. I had a feeling that in India many brilliant students don't get a chance to choose their career based on what they love to do, but rather it depends on what opportunity they get. There are lots of opportunities in IT. I've seen many students good in electronics choosing IT as their career not because they love IT as their profession, but because they got recruited by one of many IT farms visiting their institute. I think better ideas could get generated by the engineers who love their domain of work. India is doing good in IT but I doubt about other sectors including electronics. Indian Govt. needs to help supporting those sectors. Also India must have better infrastructure (better manufacturing facilities) to support implementation of good ideas.
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videoguru
11/23/2010 2:32 AM EST
Your article is without merit
Who does your legal due diligence on Sandalwood Partners and Bob Kondamoori
the fella is a fake with "NO FUND" in India, check with the SEBI here and has duped investors millions in India. His CFO (Ajay Jalan) and him are embroiled in an internal rape charge here in Bangalore, India
make your queries and do not believe a word this crook has to say
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/94600/company-cfo-rapes-woman-two.html
previously duped investor
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