Creating a New Paradigm

It’s a paradigm shift. Traditionally, IT research labs of multinational
corporations in India have addressed technology issues of the North American and
European markets. It was natural—these are not only the most developed
markets, but also the biggest ones. Hewlett Packard broke the mold however, with
the inauguration of HP Labs India with a mission that is centered on emerging
economies.

Outside of Palo Alto, HP has five labs worldwide each with its own mission—at
Bristol in the UK,Cambridge, Massachusetts, Grenoble, France, Haifa, Israel and
Tokyo, Japan. What is unique about the India Lab, says Per-Kristian Halvorsen,
director, solutions and services technology center, is that "the focus is
how world class technologies can be brought to bear into local conditions."

“This is not a philanthropic effort. We’re putting in investment up front”

Debra Dunn, senior VP, strategy and corporate operations, HP

"For instance, more than a million dollars have been put into language
issues but precious little has been done about local language here. The India
Lab will focus on this," informs Halvorsen. The second area of focus will
be communication and a significant amount of work here will relate to designing,
exploring and prototyping low cost access devices. The lab’s initial work will
be India-centric though the company hopes that the technologies and solutions
developed here can then be deployed in other emerging markets.

Dealing with anti-globalization

The immediate reason is of course obvious–emerging economies are large
markets that have not yet been penetrated to any significant extent due to
issues of language, cost and connectivity. There is also however, a larger,
global context to HP’s efforts in this direction. As Debra Dunn, HP’s senior
VP, strategy and corporate operations explained, "The global context in
which this comes, is the widening economic and opportunity gaps worldwide, an
anti-globalization movement in recent years, the aftermath of September 11 and
Enron."

According to Dunn, HP is well aware of the ramifications of
anti-globalization movements around the world. "At the time the World
Economic Forum was going on, there was a World Social Forum organized at Brazil
with 50,000 people participating in it. Added to that is the trustworthiness of
large corporations that has come into question since the collapse of Enron.

Hewlett Packard plans to deal with it in the only way a technology company
really can—explore if an agenda of economic development through technology is
feasible. According to Dunn, the company, with efforts like HP Labs India,
"plans to close the gap between the technology-empowered and the technology—excluded
communities. We hope to invent, pilot and evolve useful and significant IT
solutions and business models that create value in these markets."
According to Halvorsen, the mission of the India Labs will be to understand how
to innovate for emerging economies. "So we will have teams of people who
are a blend of anthropologists and technologists."

Local language, low-costs

The labs are headed by Dr Srinivasan Ramani who is also the executive vice
president of the International Council of Computer Communication and serves on
the United Nations high-level panel of advisors in Information and Communication
Technologies. According to Dr Ramani, the lab will focus five key areas :
language technology, including speech communication interfaces for computers;
appropriate access devices to provide Internet access at low cost and
communication concepts and techniques relevant to the environment of small towns
and rural areas in developing countries. The lab is planning a ' four-for-one'
product with one CPU, four monitors, four keyboards, four mouse, will cost about
Rs 8000 per work position and will run Indian languages.

HP’s e-inclusion initiative to which HP India Labs will contribute, already
has a project kicked of in Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh. If the Kuppam model works,
the company hopes to quickly replicate it in different districts in the country.
But will this really work in the long run? Says Dunn, "This is not a
philanthropic effort. We’re putting in investment up front. But we hope to
benefit from that." It’s a remarkably honest statement in an age where
businesses have developed a social conscience and capitalists have developed
compassion. It’s also probably why the project is more likely to work out—
business propositions usually succeed where charitable efforts cannot.

Sarita Rani in Bangalore