Q Isa Daudpota June 19, 2000

Tags: IT-revolution , economics

Pakistan can learn much from India’s progress in IT. For a start, it can pay attention to uplifting its education, and encourage ex-pat Pakistani to contribute to the new effort to re-vitalize science and technology in the country.

href="/tag/revolution">revolution of the early

80's, the trend has changed dramatically; today most of the bright students

head for studies in computer science.


Thanks to the foresight of Nehru and his science planners, a handful of

Indian Institutes of Technologies (IIT) were set up around the country to

join the prestigious Institute of Science founded in Bangalore in 1933, by

the country's first Nobel laureate in Physics, C. V. Raman. These knowledge

factories developed brains at a time when there was a large demand for them

around the world. [Last year, IIT, Delhi, had 130,000 applicants for 2000

places, and entry into the Inst. of Science is even tougher.] With GRE

scores for US graduate school entrance, in the top 99 percentile, these

bright people headed for the top technical institution, often with full

scholarships. Today's success of India in the IT arena owes a great deal to

these home institutions.


How real is India's performance?

Of the 22,000 graduates from IIT, Bombay, 6000 are working outside India --

mostly in the US. Nearly 750 high-tech companies in Silicon Valley are led

by executives of Indian origin. Time magazine honored the brightest by

showing the top 5 on its recent cover. Clinton during his Indian trip

highlighted the work of superstars such as Vinod Khosla, who was

instrumental in the rise of Sun Microsystems, and of Ramalinga Raju, who was

behind Intel's Pentium chip. Not only are Indians present at all levels of

computer industry, they are closely knit, and human networking comes

naturally to these first generation expatriates. Their links with the home

country remain strong, and they project the advantage of investment in

India, building up confidence in the country of adoption about the country

of origin.


In India the young view their country's reputation as the world's software

leader as changing their own futures. The change however is presently

confined to the 200 million-strong middle class, but according to some

observers is expected to spread to the urban poor. Not so, according to

Praful Bidwai, who points out the hype behind the big Indian show-and-tell

about their progress.


The Indians have done such a fine job at projecting their standing in the

world of software engineering that we have all come to accept their claims.

Perhaps it is only right that an Indian correct our exaggerated sense of

their prowess. According to Bidwai, " India. ranked 54th of 55 countries in

an IT survey by International Data Corp. Its score is 871, compared with

China's 915, or the US's 5041. (The highest is Sweden's 5062, the lowest

Pakistan's 719.) The penetration of Indian households by PCs is under

one-fifth the world average. Today, it stands at three machines per 1000

people." I trust you registered Pakistan's standing -- 55th. The point

to remember, though, is that Indians, through significant successes, have

generated a feeling of overall confidence within themselves and outsiders.

They can now move forward successfully to eventually match the strongest

players in the games in the decades to come.


The country's software export rose from $150 million in 1990 to $4 billion

currently, which is impressive. The government expects software export

earning by 2008 to be $85 billion. Internet connections are now up 4 fold

to 800 thousand in just four years. (Current estimate of Pakistan's

Internet users stands around 160 thousand.) Microsoft, Oracle, Lucent and

Sun Microsystems have set up shop in Hyderabad, now called Cyberabad and

HiTec City (an acronym for Hyderabad Information Technology-Engineering

Consul tancy) The hardware market is now one million per year, and there are

signs of increasing entrepreneurship, as described by a recently returned

friend from Bombay. He is an expert educational technologist.


Report from Bombay

I will let Zaheer Kidvai describe it in his inimitable style: " The first

knockout punch ... and one that showed up throughout the stay ... was caused

by the billboards. Hundreds of them. All announcing some Internet related

business. I do not refer to regular businesses advertising or announcing

their web presence; I mean businesses that are intrinsically part of the Web

explosion. Other than billboards for some ISPs and a Trade Directory

company, one doesn't come across anything of that nature in Pakistan ...

since no such businesses abound."


"What businesses? For starters, there are the local counterparts of

Amazon.com and Yahoo.com; specialist bookshops and jobseek centers.

BuyAsOne.com is gaining popularity by offering price reductions on any and

everything if more than one independent buyer decides to purchase the same

product (with the price falling near-wholesale prices as more people sign

on)." .


"Finding that NIIT (India's largest network of IT Training Centres) was

setting up a Rs 30-crore ( $8 million) venture for developing online

learning materials aimed at school kids was a jolt! The project will employ

300 teachers, and an equal number of illustrators/designers. Almost 500

programmers with an understanding of Education Applications Development will

interact with educators and children to develop stuff that will be piped to

remote areas where 'bricks-and-mortar' schools seem to suffer the same fate

as they do here."


India now has a $300 M software training industry that is expanding at 30

percent annually. In 1999, the public sector universities, colleges and

polytechnics trained 68,000 people, and the private sector put out an

additional 100 thousand. Software centers once confined to big cities are

now being set up in small towns. Some states are committed to providing

computers to schools, and that too in villages. It is here that the

Pakistan will have to begin -- in education. Our country must ensure that

the educational opportunities are available in the far-flung areas of the

country and to the most disadvantaged.


Expats investing in India

Expatriate Indians, encouraged by their government, have cemented close ties

with India. Being in such large numbers the link between the ones who have

made it good abroad and those back home has been largely automatic and

without state support. Take the 43-year-old graduate from IIT, Bombay,

Rakesh Mathur, who sold off his comparison-shopping service called Junglee

to Amazon in 1998 for $241 million and his links with India. He could be a

role model for Pakistanis overseas wanting to help the old country.


Mathur is busy investing in IT economy back in India. He has set up an IT

incubator at his alma mater, and a venture capital for Indian companies. In

a recent interview with Wired magazine, he explained his investment using

the Silicon valley and Stanford University as the metaphor: "A lot of

economic growth comes out of nuclei. Silicon Valley, for example, is a

nucleus, and the heart of that nucleus is Stanford. A lot of.companies have

been born out of Stanford. It is literally a trillion dollar market

capitalization. The entire Indian economy is probably $200-300 billion. So

you have a nucleus with a very short history, and very much tied to an

institution of academic excellence. My vision is to replicate that in IIT."


When asked whether his work in India has a broader vision, he carried on:

"Yes absolutely. Let's say in 20 years, there are a billion jobs in

information technology. And we fine-tune India to focus only on IT -- which

will take a lot of doing, especially in the field of literacy. Let's say we

are able to focus India on just one thing. It should be possible, given our

advantage in this field, that 4 million of those jobs should be occupied by

India.This is the fastest chance for India to become a super power." Such a

single-minded approach may not be feasible and one can reject it for its

extreme prescription, but it does points to immense opportunities for

developing countries to catch up with the big players. Hear what National

Science Foundation's Director Rita Colwell's, who accompanied Clinton to

India had to say at her talk in Hyderabad: "We can envisage a time when

young scientists from our country and other countries will pursue research

and advanced training at centers of excellence throughout India." In a

saner South Asia of the future, Pakistanis should be the first to take

advantage of the knowledge base established next door.


Pakistan's road ahead

India has come far in IT through hard work and by laying a solid foundation

for growth. These are essentials for progress in our country too. Our IT

policy document is almost in place and its vision and mission statements lay

our succinctly what is important in the policy:


Vision

Harnes s the potential of Information Technology for sustainable development.


Mission

Rapidly develop the infrastructure in synchrony with the creation of

excellently trained individuals and teams. Direct these at transforming our

society into a prosperous and dynamic one-one that values and benefits from

the creation and free flow of information and knowledge. Encourage and

assist the entrepreneurial spirit, and make the fruits of this technology

available to every citizen.


For the successful implementation of Pakistan's IT policy in general, and

for IT education particularly, proper monitoring and evaluation of its

implementation is essential. This will allow mid-course corrections and

thereby avoid expensive mistakes that have plagued previous large projects

in Pakistan. Plans need to be closely tied to the national and

international market demands, which will then largely determine the varying

curriculum and duration of training and apprenticeship required. The draft

IT plan for Pakistan does provide for about Rs 2.5 billion ($50 million) to

be spend on human resource development in the next financial year,

2000-2001.


The government will need to support this effort fully -- in spirit and with

generous funds. Carried forward by a team of dedicated and competent

experts, backed by advice from ex-patriots, there is a good chance of

catching up with the IT world.