Enterprising Enterprises

 I am not fluent in Oriya language, and yet, last week, I found myself tuned in to a series of bilingual interviews titled "Startup Story".

The key to my interest in these interviews was one person - Subroto Bagchi. For the past 20 odd years, I have been keeping track of this remarkable entrepreneur and public-spirited leader, who is perhaps best known as one of the founders of Mindtree. 

In the mid 2000s he had made a commencement speech titled, "Go Kiss the World", at IIMB which had become something of a phenomenon, and one of the first 'viral' forwards I had seen on the internet. It describes his own humble beginnings in Khoraput, a remote district in Odisha where his father served as a government employee. A quote from this speech that stayed with me was this - “You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it”. A simple lesson he had learnt from his father about showing consideration to others. 

Over the years Bagchi moved on from Mindtree to become the Chairperson of the Odisha Skill Development Authority (OSDA), an organisation focussed on the issue of livelihoods - providing skill training to children who are unable to continue their schooling due to various socio-economics reasons.

This series of interviews seems to be part of that effort, to showcase success stories emerging from Odisha, to inspire a generation of youngsters to become job-creators instead of job-seekers:

1. Amarendra Sahu, NestAway Co-founder & CEO Amarendra Sahu - https://youtu.be/O4M_3e7lvEQ

2.  Amiya Samantaray , Phoenix Robotix Founder & CEO - https://youtu.be/ESFPsZPz65Y

3. Arvind Pani, Co-Founder  & CEO of Reverie - https://youtu.be/ESFPsZPz65Y

4. Nusrat Sanghamitra, CyGenica CEO & CSO - https://youtu.be/vg2xtJ8KOsM

5. Gautam Kumar, Co-Founder & COO FarEye - https://youtu.be/dJ8kl3NR_-4

6. Asish Mohapatra, Co-Founder and CEO of Business Unicorn - https://youtu.be/Z5u89fn4eJQ

7. Amit Acharya, Co-Founder and CEO of Zetwork, a Global Unicorn - https://youtu.be/JQ1ac5-hmZQ

8. Soumendra and Samarendra Mishra - Co-Founders of OVO Farms - the largest producers of eggs in Eastern India - https://youtu.be/w3NP6q8UQh0

Among the ones I have seen so far, the one I liked best is Episode 7, the interview with Amit Acharya, the founder of Zetwer, a global company that offers design and production services for manufacturing of consumer goods and precision parts.

Each interview could be considered a masterclass on how such interviews ought to be conducted - gentle, engaging, gradually drawing out the thoughts and experiences of the interviewee, rather than the agenda-driven, aggressive interviews that seem to have become the norm on news channels and the social media. 

Most of the episodes are about an hour long and in each of them the language is constantly switching between Odiya and English. While Odiya is not much of a problem for those who are familiar with Bengali. The producers of this series, OdishaLIVE could certainly improve the reach of this series by adding the option of subtitles in multiple languages. 

This is one series that needs just a little nudge to transcend the language barriers. 

----------------------------------------------

Young India - Unsatisfied, Unscrupulous, Unstoppable

"Where you stand depends on where you sit" - Mile's Law

Over the past two weeks I have come across two views on where India is headed, both seem to contradict each other but at the same time, pointing to a common direction while reiterating Mile's Law.

The first was an Explained session organised by the Indian Express at New Delhi where Manish Sabharwal, the chairman of TeamLease spoke of great business opportunities in the India, while the second one was book by Snigdha Poonam titled, "Dreamers".

Sabharwal was amazingly optimistic and eloquent on the direction in which India was headed. Where most liberals saw clouds of doom and gloom, he saw opportunties etched in the sliver linings. Sample these facts and figures -

- Good Times Ahead: 50% of India's labor force is engaged in agriculture which contributes just 13% of GDP, while 0.7% of the workforce is into ITES which contributes 9% of GDP! With more than 600 international companies setting up captive IT centres in India, the workforce of 3.5 million in ITES is set to double over the next 10 years.
- "Cascading Regime Change": We are already seeing the synergystic impact of recent reforms (GST + RERA + DeMo). Before GST there were only 7 million enterprises registered for indirect tax. Now there are 10.5 million -- a 50% increase in just eight months!

Sabharwal's optimism as the leader of one of the largest employers in India contrasted with that of the journalist Snigdha Poonam who saw the great mismatch between aspirations of millions of young Indians, and harsh ground realities.

If you saw a pop-up on your screen warning you of an IRS investigation in USA or a virus in your laptop/PC/mobile, chances are that you are about to be scammed by an Indian. It seems there are hundreds of call centers in the obscure byelanes of urban India, using desperate job-seekers to con the most vulnerable people across the world --  elderly pensioners, single mothers struggling to make ends meet and all those who are already intimidated by technology.

According to Poonam: "Like it or not, young India is what it is - unsatisfied, unscrupulous, unstoppable. Few young Indians had a clear sense of right and wrong: fewer gave a damn about it. 

The idea of personal benefit over public good isn't owned by them, however. It is at the core of India's value system. Sure, some young Indians will cheat their way to their dreams, but they don't see how they are different from anyone in the news - politicians, businessmen, celebreties..."

Sabharwal's TeamLease claims to have hired someone for every 5 minutes in the last few years and provided employment to more than 1.2 million since 2002. And yet, he also admits that his hiring funnel is very narrow - out of every hundred applicants, less than 5 are hired, trained and placed in various companies.

So there you are - the desperation and angst Poonam sees in the 95 who got rejected is quite different from the optimism of those who did. The way you look at the future depends completely on where you stand.

-------------------------------------------------------------
LINKS & REFERENCES:

* Explained by Indian Express - http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/manish-sabharwal-problem-is-wages-not-jobs-minimum-salary-unemployment-indian-gdp-5106348/

* Reviews: http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/books/hope-against-hope

https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/thane-call-centre-scam-mastermind-who-gifted-girlfriend-rs-2-5-cr-audi-arrested-in-mumbai/story-kiKLnuAVy6gNVlkPhHYEAM.html