Why India chose Bangalore- Indian IT Story

• What Happened in 200 years of British rule?
• How India lost and found its wealth?
• Why Bangalore?

From 2008 launching my own platform for helping startups (startupfreak.com) to join as an early team member of 10000 startups in 2013 and state government-sponsored biggest co-working space of that time, I was very lucky to have witnessed all the activities that were taking place to put India on the startup map of the world.

What is interesting is how it all started. Bangalore for what it is today is really a gift of Mysore. The story of how the IT revolution started in India is worth a read by every Indian.

Gift of Mysore

In 2019 for the first time, I got a great interest in history after reading Sashi Tharoor's book-

The era of darkness -A great fast-paced book to learn what happened in those 200 years of British in India. Indians loved the British in the beginning for releasing them from Kings and dynasty rule. People had a great life, no wars, no slavery, respectable life.

Then few Indians who had global exposure started understanding the damage done to the Indian economy. The book describes how the British destroyed our art, steel, rail, agriculture, forest, and education systems.

-1600 when the British came to India- Britain was producing 1.8% of the world’s GDP and India was at 23% by 1940 India was the poorest country in the world.

-1893, a 12-day sea journey from Japan to Canada sparked multiple conversations between two remarkable Indians traveling independently to attend the World Parliament of Religions and a Technology Expo. Swami Vivekananda convinced Jamsetji Tata that technology can be imported but scientific temper cannot be bought and must be built within a country.[1]

So it started with the financial leader(Jamsetji Tata) and a thought leader(Swami Vivekananda) coming together to build a better future for India.

-1896 Tata sent few people overseas to study European universities and set up a committee of the few smartest Indians to come up with a detailed plan for this grand project. Educationists, and thought leaders across the country brainstormed and convinced the British to sponsor half the fund while the rest will be borne by Jamsetji. The consensus was also reached that Bombay (Mumbai) is where this institute should be set up because of its “industrial life, wealth, and civic importance.” Bombay was also Tata’s hometown. Other potential locations for the university were: Calcutta (Kolkata), Poona (Pune), Coonoor, Nainital, Allahabad, Roorkee, and a few other smaller cities.

Bangalore was not on the list

-1899 Tata on a tour of south India met Diwan of Mysore and shared his plan of a university. Mysore king was just 10 years then, so his mother Vani Vilas Sannidhana was ruling at the time. It was her generosity that she committed to giving 300 acres of land in the outskirts of Mysore and also contribute towards the cost of building the university.

-1909 IISC was established in Banglore in spite of Bombay being the most favorite location, all because of the serious formalized commitment given by Mysore. Also, note that Gandhiji was against this idea of spending so many resources on building universities while the country was starving.

Early innovations from IISc were used to set up the Sandal factory at Mysore and during Worldwar II, IISc moved from pure research to applied research contributed to aviation research.

-1947 Soon after India got independence, Govt of India and Govt of Karnataka in collaboration started many public sector establishments related to electronics and manufacturing. HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), ITI (Indian Telephone Industries), and HMT (Hindustan Machine Times) were some of the earlier public sector start-ups of Bengaluru[3]

-1950 the 1st IIT was established as an institute of National importance.

-1967 India's IT Services industry was born Tatas started TCS

-1970 Mr. R. K. Baliga, envisioned making Bangalore the "Silicon Valley of India" and it was met with skepticism. He was made the Chairman of the Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation (Keonics) in 1976. In 1978 Keonics established?Electronics City on 332 acres near Bangalore.

-1977 the Delhi cotton mill launched India’s first microprocessor unit. Next year, the core team at DCM resigned en masse to start HCL under the leadership of Shiv Nadar.

-1980 The same happened with Patni computer who hired Narayan Murthy to manage computer systems at PCS. The team mass resigned and started Infosys in 1980? During the same time 1980 Wipro was building hardware to fill the gap left by IBM exit, but post 1984 import liberalization laws, they were forced to pivot into software services and consultancy[2].?My first job was at the Wipro VLSI division :)

-In 1988 Nasscom emerged?to build a global narrative for India's IT ecosystem. During my 4 years working with NASSCOM, I learned a lot about how the IT revolution took shape, how entrepreneurs from India were laughed at when they went to pitch tech solutions. It took many years, various efforts from different stakeholders to build a global narrative and to establish India's credibility as a solution provider.

IT services grew from $3.5m in 1980 to more than $100 billion today. The sector has increased its contribution to India's GDP from 1.2% in 1998 to 8% in 2020 (~7x growth in 20 years) Most amazing part is 0.8% of India’s workers generate 8 % of GDP

Opportunities meets only the prepared!

-In 2000 World faced the biggest problem of Y2K and India was ready with solutions. After that, every crisis ( Demonetization(Fintech), Covid( Edtech, Pharma & Digitization)?) was converted into opportunity and every problem and resistance is adding fuel to the growth.

-In 2015 Karnataka became the first state to launch a multi-sector startup Policy. Funded the biggest co-working space for startups which not only inspired other states but many countries too, who use to visit the facility from across the world. ?In 2016 startup India initiative was launched to establish more startups hubs across the country.

Today India is the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world, 3rd in no. of unicorns in the world. Bangalore has emerged as a global city.

Thought leaders like Nandan Nilekani and many others today are contributing by setting the foundation for the next wave of growth.

Inclusion as a theme for the next billion

Public Digital platforms by the government like Aadhaar, UPI, Cowin, are the world's largest public digital platforms today. What can bring the entire nation on a growth scale-

• Digital inclusion?
• Financial inclusion
• Gender inclusion
• Tech inclusion?
• Bridging the talent gap, gender gap, culture gap, Digital divide, and?streamlining the skilling ecosystem.

Raising female participation in the workforce to the same level as men can boost India’s GDP by a whopping 27 percent - IMF Chief?

Most of the history taught in school is too old to inspire today's youth to think at the macro level and identify our role in nation-building which will give all of us a higher purpose and mission for life.

The above-listed events were just a few of the events which resonated with me, please feel free to share the event that inspired you the most in history in the comments below.