The Fall member meeting of Internet2 is underway this week in New Orleans. Tulane President Scott Cowen is giving the keynote address. Catch the conference netcasts here. HD video is supported as well.
Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, fiber, globalization, trends
Tectonic Economics? Robyn Meredith has written a must read book, The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us. Take a look at Wall Street lately? Then think about oil, the environment and the post cold war shift in the global economy. Its time for business and education to take note…and fast.
Tectonic Economics is about the impact of the two fastest growing economies who have embraced capitalism AND globalization at the same time.
And by the way America and Europe have been left out of this economic growth spurt since 9/11.
Actually at the rate China and India are rising you just need to look at both countries since 9/11 to see their immediate impact.
Meredith has done a great job of helping understand these two transformations. There is no more waiting for a new generation they have arrived and instituted global change in less than a decade. For most Americans they still do not see changes occurring at this speed affecting the global economy.
Meredith makes the hard salary figures easy to understand why companies around the globe have jumped to China and India. But this will not be easy for IT professionals in America. India’s InfoSys hires computer science graduates (some also have an MBA) to be a VoIP specialist in Bangalore with an annual salary of $5,000. Yes, five grand a year for a VoIP specialist. This similar type job in California via InfoSys pays $120,000.
This should be really easy to understand why hundreds of tech companies including Cisco, Apple, IBM and HP have moved operations (some larger than others) to Bangalore. Remember you have to please your stockholders. The changes already underway (and under the radar) will continue to add stress to America’s middle class.
Y2K. Remember the rush to fix computer software that was programmed to stop working on January 1 2000? Many Americans probably did not realize their software fix was coming from Indian companies including WiPro located in Bangalore India. Today American business is filled with examples of India’s outsourcing success.
Bangalore Tiger is a must read for everyone working in Information Technology. Organizational leaders will learn how one of the larger tech companies in India is changing the rules of business competition in today’s globalized marketplace. If you read
The World Is Flat then you already know about all the success coming from India’s technology outsourcing giants in Bangalore.
If you want to learn how a company located in the heart of India’s globalization capital can thrive this book is really for you. The early chapters focus on how Wipro is taking on the West (and winning) as a new breed of tech company.
Sugar is a great little OS for little learners around the world. Its the way an OS and laptop should be introduced to children. Engineered for Children…what a concept.
Tags: OLPC, Sugar Labs, Amazon, XO, open source, globalization, trends
I have begun reading a really good book called Bangalore Tiger and have become very impressed with the closing of the fifth chapter and second section called People Principals to Lead By.
This book is about Wipro, one of India’s great IT companies. This chapter concluded with an overview to their companies’ social responsibility initiatives and volunteer efforts in India called Wipro Cares:
The education program provides training for teachers, administrators, and parents –with the goal of fostering more creative and analytical curricula in pubic schools, rather than rote learning. In an effort that targets underprivileged children, Wipro volunteers spend two hour every Saturday tutoring and encouraging these kids…..The Azin Premji Foundation is an attempt to help transform Indian society through improving public education. Premiji established the foundation in 2000 and it became operational in 2001. To date [Azim Premji] has contributed $125 million in Wipro stock –and has pledged to keep replenishing as money is spent.
The main focus is on convincing education that they need to retool their approach to education and on giving them the tools to do it. So far, one Indian sate has agreed to switch to analytical learning……”What we’re focused on is quality education,” says Dileep Ranjekar, a former head of HR who is now CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation. Premji’s charity. Unless India fundamentally addressed the quality issue and the shifts from rote learning to analytical learning, it can’t realize its dream of becoming one of the world economic superpowers.”
There’s obviously a crucial side benefit for Wipro. Unless the Indian public education system improves dramatically, Wipro won’t be able to fulfill what it sees as its destiny – becoming one of the world’s great companies by offering up India’s brainpower to the world.
America needs this type of innovative company that can lead change in our education system. As Intel’s CEO has stated many times America will continue to graduate more masseuses than engineers. At some point this will catch up with us. And by the looks of it when that time arrives India will be prepared to step in.
Tags: India, Wipro, Bangalore Tiger, globalization, education, technology, reading, trends