Being a native of Bengaluru and a current resident of US, I could not agree more with plinkplonk.
These are fluff pieces written by visiting western journalists after visiting the shiny campuses of SWITCH (satyam, wipro, infy, ..).
This piece is nothing different than the ones that gets printed often in local english media (esp. ToI). It is tiring to listen to the "phoren" returnees living in their gated communities, complaining daily about the traffic and power-outages. Bah!
After having studied in what is arguably the best undergraduate tech campus in Bangalore, I know what goes around for "research" and "high tech" in computer science departments.
All the undergraduate schools are solely focussed on getting you into one of the SWITCH companies. Woe be you if you had an independent mind and tried to join a more hacker friendly company like Google/Thoughtworks etc.. The immediate family will start distressing over you not making it to the holy shrines of Infy, Wipro etc.,
Of course all is not doom and gloom. The hacker scene is quite vibrant with Python/Ruby/FOSS communities being as active as anywhere in the world. Quite a few youngsters are getting into the startup mode. Even if a lot of them are testing the waters by attending startup events, reading and blogging about it, being on HN and boot strapping their ideas while living with their parents (not many basements in Bangalore, I'm afraid :).
Going forward, I strongly believe that these independent hackers will do more for the startup scene than the "bill-by-the-hour" Goliaths.
Thanks for the link. To me, this is a very interesting topic area. You, the linked post & the many follow up articles seem to rely on two quite different reasons for this issue.
The big outsource companies making up such a large section of the IT market have ugly business models. They get the kind of work where quality & innovation are not actually real competitive advantages & the bill by the hour on a cost+ basis. They're poisoning the industry everywhere from Universities to corporate culture.
Indian culture is creating problems. I've heard variations on this theme. Mostly they centre around family expectations & such pushing young individuals towards being risk averse.
The former, I think might not really be a 'problem' as it seems. The availability of secure jobs (especially places where parents have a memory of this not being the case) will bring in employees. They would have been Accountants or hairdressers if that is where good solid careers lay.
But, maybe they also make this career path accessible to those that otherwise would have been accountants or whatever.
Sure, these companies may not be the best possible for creating a thriving startup/innovation city. Maybe a Lenova or a Google would have been better. But that doesn't mean that these companies are a net loss.
These are fluff pieces written by visiting western journalists after visiting the shiny campuses of SWITCH (satyam, wipro, infy, ..).
This piece is nothing different than the ones that gets printed often in local english media (esp. ToI). It is tiring to listen to the "phoren" returnees living in their gated communities, complaining daily about the traffic and power-outages. Bah!
After having studied in what is arguably the best undergraduate tech campus in Bangalore, I know what goes around for "research" and "high tech" in computer science departments.
All the undergraduate schools are solely focussed on getting you into one of the SWITCH companies. Woe be you if you had an independent mind and tried to join a more hacker friendly company like Google/Thoughtworks etc.. The immediate family will start distressing over you not making it to the holy shrines of Infy, Wipro etc.,
Some interesting discussion here: http://www.pluggd.in/entrepreneurship/why-wipro-infosys-and-...
Of course all is not doom and gloom. The hacker scene is quite vibrant with Python/Ruby/FOSS communities being as active as anywhere in the world. Quite a few youngsters are getting into the startup mode. Even if a lot of them are testing the waters by attending startup events, reading and blogging about it, being on HN and boot strapping their ideas while living with their parents (not many basements in Bangalore, I'm afraid :).
Going forward, I strongly believe that these independent hackers will do more for the startup scene than the "bill-by-the-hour" Goliaths.