The other day I watched with amusement the ICICI Prudential ad on TV where a school girl asks her father if he could buy her a laptop and her father replies ‘yes’ explaining to his reticent wife that their daughter would have higher education and invent something like Facebook or YouTube when she grows up. Here brand ambassador Big B interjects the father and explains that higher education costs money and therefore it is important to take the Children’s Education Policy.
Internet is an immensely powerful and versatile medium and I guess there are many more innovations waiting to be discovered. We need some great innovations to fall back on when our cost advantage disappears. If our Indian software guys just start thinking out-of-the-box, they might as well hit upon quite a few really great ideas. That would be the day when a parent, like the dad in the ad, would find buying a laptop for a school-going son or daughter worthwhile.
It's like any other persuasive ad you get to see on TV every day and I do not wish to go into the merits or demerits of having or not having a policy for children's education. What really got me thinking is the father’s fond hope that his daughter would invent something like Facebook or YouTube after completing her studies. How many Indian software guys have invented something like Google, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter till date? Isn’t it surprising that after being a software superpower for about two decades, Indians have not been able to come up with anything like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter and the like? (Probably the only exception being Sabeer Bhatia’s ‘Hotmail’, which was a joint effort between Sabeer and his American colleague Jack Smith).
So, why are our software guys doing the routine things they have been doing all these years instead of doing something creative? Has the routine work sapped their creativity or have they become complacent, wallowing in their ‘success’ (measured in fat bank balances, swanky cars and plush houses in upmarket localities) and remaining content with writing codes day in and day out for their companies? If so, I think India’s success as a software powerhouse is just a mirage which will disappear when the labour cost advantage vanishes as more and more cheaper destinations become available to American companies and the dollar deluge becomes a trickle.
Internet is an immensely powerful and versatile medium and I guess there are many more innovations waiting to be discovered. We need some great innovations to fall back on when our cost advantage disappears. If our Indian software guys just start thinking out-of-the-box, they might as well hit upon quite a few really great ideas. That would be the day when a parent, like the dad in the ad, would find buying a laptop for a school-going son or daughter worthwhile.
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