Foundation: 50 Years

We celebrate 50 years of Indian IT this month. It's five

decades since the first computers reached India. The Hollerith HEC-2M from

England was installed at Kolkata's Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in 1956.

Two years later, the ISI got the Russian URAL, with a UN grant.

History is not black and white: there are shades of gray about

the exact firsts. The ISI had itself built a machine in 1953 that could be

called a simple analog computer. A decade later it built the ISIJU, along with

Jadavpur University, probably the first indigenous electronic computer. But

around the same time, in the Department of Atomic Energy, under the severe

technology transfer strictures of the cold war era, the 12-bit TDC-12 was built

from discrete transistors: the first Indian digital computer.

Through the shades of gray, what is clear is that the

mid-fifties and the decade that followed saw the beginnings of the first

foundation of the Indian infotech industry. The next decade saw the foundation

firm up, with a lot more computing activity, IBM active in the country (ISI got

an IBM 1401 in 1964), and the Department of Atomic Energy forming ECIL in 1967,

with the creators of the TDC-12.

In the first 20 of these 50 years, there was little impact of

infotech outside the labs, research centers, and academia.

In the next ten years, the businesses bought computers, IBM

exited India, the first Indian tech companies were formed, and the second

foundation of Indian infotech was laid.

The third foundation, from year 30, saw the lift off: India's

journey as a global tech services hub had begun. The software tech parks (STP),

the Indian services players, the early MNC believers like TI who set up base

here.

The fourth foundation has been laid from year 40: the mid-1990s

onward. The real adoption of IT by enterprises. The beginnings of the SME boom.

The first e-governance projects. The early steps by an infant BPO industry.

In the last decade of these 50 years of the IT industry, India

has found its calling, and it is in technology and technology-enabled services.

It started from cost, build up quality, and then a brand. But it's a small

player in the global market, compared to China in manufacturing, or Japan in

consumer electronics or automobiles.

And we have at least two more foundations to lay:

infrastructure, and large scale HR development, before infotech can transform

the two things it promises to: the economy of India, and the lives of the

people.

We stand firm-more or less-on the four foundations built up

in the past five decades. But today, 50 years down, we are just beginning our

journey.