Here is a recent presentation I've given to the Institute For The Future in Palo Alto and the Alliance of CEOs. The focus was to share learnings from the White House delegation in September that helped prepare for President Obama's visit this week.
2. AGENDA
My Journey in US
Background US/India
Historical context, since independence, SV, and
Presidential visits
Preparation for Obama Visit: White House delegation
to India in September
What was the focus: Renewable Energy, IT infrastructure,
Education
What did we see: Some examples
Continued impact of SV
Roadmap for future: Next decade
3. MY PERSONAL JOURNEY
BS in India
Came to Berkeley in 1966 with $ 8: MS,
MBA
Seventies: Proved as professional
Eighties as Managers, Executives, CIO
Nineties as Entrepreneurs; Created Versata
as public company which reached $ 1 Billion
Valuation
Now; very actively involved citizen making a
difference in adopted country as well as in
the Country of birth
2010: Great honor and privilege to be asked
by White House to represent US interests in
India
4. BACKGROUND US/INDIA: HISTORICAL
Columbus Voyage
British heritage, US independence
India Independence: Parliamentary, Secular
democracy
Questionable start: Would democracy survive?
Illiterate population, was not a united country for 2 millennium
Diverse in every dimensions: Languages, religions, races,
income, education, culture, etc., etc.,
Has only survived due to democracy! Deep rooted now
Sikh prime minister, Women president, Muslim vice
president, Roman catholic women from Italy is heading
the ruling congress party
5. BACKGROUND US/INDIA: SINCE
INDEPENDENCE
Bad start with India’s division: Blamed UK for this.
Nehru wanted non-alignment and socialism
Cold war and Kashmir drove India to USSR
But, Kennedy was very inspiring and opening
happened for immigration in 1960’s
From few Indians in 60’s to now 3 Million Indo-
Americans in US
Major contributions to US and opened the channel
of communications and collaborations
6. BACKGROUND US/INDIA: SILICON VALLEY
AND ITS IMPACT
Silicon Valley has had deep impact around the world to
promote innovation and merit based, inclusive culture:
Inspires people around the world
TiE: Created in SV in 1992 to Foster Entrepreneurship
around the World: now in 13 countries with 55 chapters.
In India TiE
help create Bangalore as SV of India
Helped in Opening Telecom, VC, and Economic Freedom (
Free trade)
Tremendous continued opportunities to impact the
world:
Two way flow of capital, trade, human capital
Bottom of Pyramid innovation
7. BACKGROUND US/INDIA: PRESIDENTIAL
VISITS
Eisenhower 59, Nixon 69, Carter 78
Clinton was a big hit: Big PR impact
Bush made a big impact:
Decouple relations equality between
Pakistan and India: Pushed Pakistan to
fight terrorism
Pushed for Nuclear treaty
Deeper trade : Trade Policy Forum
Was highly accepted in India
Obama continues the push for synergy
Separate AF/Pak team from India team
Visiting India and not Pakistan
Looking for deepening synergistic
relations within the democratic framework
8. WHITE HOUSE DELEGATION: SEPT., 2010
US/India view bilateral relations to be
highest importance: What can be done
besides Defense, Terrorism/Foreign Policy
to boost synergy?
1. Identify highest leverage opportunities that
are going to be perceived good for both
countries
2. Narrowed down Focus to Education,
Renewable Energy, and IT during this visit
3. Selected team of six US business leaders
along with White House CTO, Hillary
Clinton Senior Advisor, and Embassy
leaders
4. Visited many projects and had discussions
with the highest levels of Indian leaders (
Government, Political and Business)
5. Identify specific projects: Some examples,
and work in progress
Aneesh Chopra
First CTO of US
Promoting technology,
Innovation,
Connectivity to SV
9. RENEWABLE ENERGY IN VILLAGES: TILONIYA
BAREFOOT COLLEGE
The entire village is solar powered
All work is being done by village
people
Educate rural children
Preservation and accessibility for
water
Run their own Radio network to teach
in local languages
Producing solar lanterns in the village
all by women with no college
education
Training women from 6 countries in
Africa
10. AADHAR, UNIQUE ID PROJECT: IT/E-
GOVERNANCE
Unique ID Project ($ 6-30 Billion Project) :
Far reaching implications on use of IT
Impact 1.2 Billion people database, unique in
the world
Bio-metric state of the arts, cloud computing,
easy to use, multi language, highly secure
Impact on broadest set of services for all
citizens, social, political impact
Provides for large scale business and
technological opportunities
Entrepreneurial volunteer lead the work
Success will have role model effect around the
world!
Nandan Nilekani, co-
Founder of Infosys
and lots of volunteers
from SV
11. E-PANCHAYAT: IT/ E-GOVERNANCE
Connecting 230,000 villages
Technologies: Most modern mostly from
US: Fiber, Wi-Max, SAN, Large scale
data bases, open architecture, Linux,
Oracle, IBM servers
Large opportunities for Entrepreneurs in
US and India
Multi-layer: Village, District, State, and
Central
Services: Administration, Taxes, Welfare,
Civic, Disaster support, education,
entertainment and communications
Tremendous social, and political impact:
Transparent and open government
Delegation Visit:
Kanpura Village
12. IT INFRASTRUCTURE : AFFORDABLE
INNOVATION FOR NEXT 2 BILLION
Many attempts to reach the bottom 2 Billion with
affordable computing and communication
In India Cell Phone has reached masses bypassing
land lines: 670 million phones
lower cost and higher quality
core technology is US, manufacturing China but
application innovation in India with global
Many attempts to bring the cost of computing
device to below US 100 essential to reach masses
Novatium as one example
US VC Funded company
Using Cloud computing thin client, SaaS concept
Much easier to use
Proven and now funded by Ericsson for global expansion
13. EDUCATION REVOLUTION IN BOTH
COUNTRIES NEEDED
Paradigm shift from teacher centric rigid learning
paradigm to Learner centric flexible 24x7 paradigm with
life long learning
Web 2.0 applications in learning: YouTube,
collaborative, peer to peer,
Open content initiative : eg., Khan Academy, MIT,
Curriwiki
Major Structural issues in both countries
Accountability, Unions, rigidity, teacher training, standards?,
employability, decentralized decision making ( 15000 school
districts)
US; motivation for STEM
Not reaching bottom of the pyramid
Technology must play a more important role for quality,
accessibility and costs
14. SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR MASSES:
EXAMPLE: RKCL
Trained 150,000 people at the Bottom of
Pyramid in 2 years through 1200 centers
through entrepreneurial model at $ 70 per
student with no subsidy or brick and
mortar infrastructure
Using MKCL, Cambridge and other
partners
E-learning, video on demand, testing,
certification, administration all on line
Employability skills: Computer literacy,
retail, financial, accounting, English, and
even soft skills
Local languages
15. EXAMPLE OF A NEW START UP : EDUBRITE
Started in SV by highly qualified IT
team
Focus: Next generation of Social
collaborative learning platform
Have audacity to challenge likes of
Kaplan, Princeton review, Blackboard
Creating Universally accessible
assessment platform for teachers and
students
Experimenting in both in India and US
with early customers: Where would be
early success first?
Running a community site
Tenplustwo.com for test preparation in
India being experimented
Who would be investors: US based
VC’s in SV or US based VC’s in India
or Indian angels?
16. TIE RAJASTHAN: IMPACT OF
ENTREPRENEURS ON ECOSYSTEM
Started in 2002 with inspiration from SV
From 7 IT companies to 250 with
presence of many large companies like
Infosys, Genpect, Wipro, Deutsche Bank
with large impact on professional jobs
Impact of IT on all traditional industries
including jewelry, carpets, handicrafts,
mining, tourism, healthcare
Big increase in IT sales with US
companies like Cisco, Intel, Microsoft as
beneficiaries
Connectivity of Entrepreneurs with Valley
White House Delegation
Town Hall meeting
with Entrepreneurs
17. OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEXT DECADE
Much stronger collaboration would have taken place
Many US Universities and companies will be in India
Many more joint ventures between US/India companies will be serving in
the emerging and underdeveloped World
Many more US people and businesses will be in India
India would become much larger trade partner with many more
reforms in India: Five fold increase in 10 years to $ 45 Billion
Technology: US will remain leader in core technologies with India
focused on affordable innovations
Mobile computing and Tablets would be everywhere
Serious breakthroughs in Renewable energy
Biotech, and healthcare breakthroughs with Eastern medicine
Further flattening of the world with crowd-sourcing, telemedicine,
health and wellness initiatives
India would have more clearly emerge as the South Asian
regional power with new UN and IMF structures in place helping
ease situation for US