Bangalore, 3 - 4 March 2003

The Indian development experience

Thirty-five worldwide leaders in academia and business debated these questions,ac- companying issues and solutions for three days,March 3-5,at the workshop,“Learn- ing from the Indian Development Expe- rience ” in Bangalore..Co-sponsored by the School of Public Policy of George Mason University of Fairfax,Virginia,USA,and the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Science,the workshop sought to determine how Indian ICT has developed,what the consequences – in-- tended and unintended – are,,and what implications for the future may be.

The prevailing question throughout the workshop was:“What must happen next to keep India on a trajectory toward de- velopment?” Results of the research and workshop discussions will be far-reaching, affecting business strategy,evaluation of social programs,public policy and educa- tional planning.

Discussion Themes of the Workshop

• India ’s Development in ICT Sector.
• Labor Market implications and Insti- tutionalist arguments.
• Making a Technopolis and utilizing immigration regulations as competitive advantage.
• ICT &Decoupled Development,In- dia ’s service economy &role of IT.
• IT clusters,role of FDI &Challenges of Digital Capitalism.
• Export-driven entrepreneurship & knowledge replication.
• Software Industry development &In- imitability of Network Resources.
• Determinants of organizational found- ing rates &opportunities for competi- tiveness.
• Organisational Externalities,Perils of export-oriented growth strategy of ICTs &the social economy.
• IP in the Indian Software industry,rep- licability of software success to biotech- nology &bioinformatics.
• ICT:A means to a developed end,e- government.
• IPR approach to protect Indian ICT, IT diffusion.
• Factors of growth of IT sector,Institu- tional support for investment in new technologies.

Recommendations
Some of the recommendations made during the workshop

• An optimal blend of simple and com- plex technologies needed.
• India is strong in software but it needs to focus in hardware.
• Need to reconcile the shift in skill sets demanded by IT industry and the re- sponse by the country ’s educational infrastructure.
• Government has a pivotal role to play as an active promoter of ICT and should take up strategic entrepreneur- ial leadership.

• Bring in sustainable competitive ad- vantage through innovation,self-re- liance and dispersion.
• Immigration regulation can be used as a business advantage.
• Conscious and well-concerted effort to develop India ’s ICT is the need of the hour.
• Need to create more IT clusters – to improve productivity,to expediate and direct innovation and to stimu- late new venture formation.
• Participative learning,innovation and adaptation critical for creation of knowledge communities and easy ac- cess to networks (Capability replica- tion).
• A clear-cut ICT diffusion policy is re- quired.
• ICT needs to be integrated with all sectors of economy.
• ICT needs encouragement of public- private partnerships.

Key Learning
The theme of India ’s development in ICT Sector highlighted that there is a need for an optimal blend of simple & complex technologies,India is strong in software,but weak in in hardware and India ’s balanced &independent ap- proach is a critical success factor.

Business Strategies
India ’s software and services industry has developed quickly with a model that is repeatable by companies and worthy of replication.But India ’s future success in ICT lies at a crossroad – of maintain-- ing excellent business services for mul- tinational companies or moving up the value chain through innovation and en- trepreneurship.In order to sustain growth,innovation in the Indian ICT industry is a must.

Social Programs
Computers – providing long--distance healthcare for rural villages,methods of registering complaints and a means of sharing agricultural information from one village to another – are having an effect on India ’s rural populations.In- formation technology is reducing cor- ruption,improving quality of life and proving to be a worthy investment.

Public Policy
According to researchers,government must take the role of active promoter of ICT,and establishing policies conducive to investment,playing the role of incu- bator.

Education Planning
As educators seek to ensure the neces- sary talent for sustained growth and de- velopment they need to focus on providing students with more than just skills and subject matter.Social capital -the networks,relationships and trust to gain clients,investors and business partners -must be present for compa- nies to move up the value chain and to take leadership roles worldwide.