Indian Techies Launch 'My Innovation For Indians' Competition

Washington: An organisation of Indian techies in the Silicon Valley has launched a competition for IT professionals to encourage them to come out with a viable and sustainable technology plan for India.

"My Innovation For Indians (MIFI)" competition was announced by the Silicon valley-based Global Indian Technology Professionals Association (GITPRO) at a conference in Palo Alto, California on Saturday.

During the conference 'Emerging Technology & Opportunities', IT professionals also decided to pilot a project to improve a quality of new engineering graduates from third tier colleges.

GITPRO, which now has seven chapters in the US and three in India, would also launched a first-ever survey for professional life, family life and community involvement of Indian Professionals in the US, said Khanderao Kand, its founder and Convener of GITPRO World 2012.

In his keynote address, Anand Deshpande, CEO of Persistent Systems, said that India Inc has evolved from offshore hub to a global player with global outlook.

There lies a huge opportunity for innovation and startups in India for next five years mainly in the market of education, healthcare, biosciences, retail and mobile, he stressed.

A legendary entrepreneurship coach teaching at Stanford and Berkley Universities, Steve Blank emphasised that entrepreneurs should avoid failures by getting out of offices to talk to customers for validating hypothesis and pivoting on idea or customer market as often and as early as possible.

More than 400 Indian technology professionals from startups to prominent companies like Cisco, IBM, Oracle, ebay, HP and Apple attended the conference.