Netch@kra and Beyond

The tragedy of our industry is that there are so few writers of substance who take the time and the effort to chronicle our many stupendous achievements. The dream of one man, Fakir Chand Kohli, which achieved fruition in the form of Tata Consultancy Services and set off a series of events in government and industry that spawned a $60 bn knowledge exports industry; the creation of the BPO sector that has grown to global dominance in little over a decade; and the amazing contribution of stalwarts like Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji who have built Indian acorns into mighty global oakseach of these and more should be researched and written to inspire a million youth, in India and every part of the developing world.

One worthy effort that has recently been published is Netch@kra, an excellent compilation of retrospectives and roadmaps edited by young evangelistsMadanmohan Rao and Osama Manzar. The book makes a noble attempt to trace the progress of the internet in India in the last 15 years. It raises questions as well as provide answers to the future directions for the industry and the country in a web enabled world. As N Ravi Shankar, the CEO of the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) rightly points out in his prologthe IT led growth of major metros like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune has been one of the heartening features of the outsourcing boom, but with an internet population of less than a 100 mn, the internet penetration is still low and needs special focus for an inclusive India to emerge.

The need for IT in education to create a comprehensive and connected framework for best in class content in a wide array of content areas has been written and discussed in many fora including this book. While laudable initiatives like the National Knowledge Network, the National Mission of Education through ICT and the National Skills Development Corporation are beginning to make their impact. It is hoped that skills czar Ramadorai, with his enormous wisdom and experience in scalable models of growth will lead the country to a new light.

As Rao, a true digital nomad of our times, points out, there has been progress in all areas from urban and rural development, healthcare, governance, agriculture, and business with some benefits accruing to the early movers. But a national movement with proliferation of broadband needs to happen before we are able to move our countrys status from an intermediate information society to maturity. The joy of delving into all the new opportunity areas that the internet presents, from social networks to cloud solutions for business is that there is a place in the sun for every entrepreneur and every business leader who aspires and demonstrates the courage to build and sustain a different point of view. More power to the new internet generation!