It gives us pleasure to present to you the 5th anniversary issue of the SmartTechie.

It is indeed heartening to hear from our readers that the SmartTechie is a different kind of magazine. By design, we wanted it to be that way. We always believed that the industry needed a platform where the leaders and experts could share their wisdom and rich experiences with a larger audience. Such a shared learning will help the growth of professional development of the techies and benefit the industry at large.

As always, in this issue too we bring to you the industry wisdom from thought leaders like Sanjeev Bikchandani, founder of Naukri.com, Som Mittal, President of NASSCOM, Keshav Murugesh, CEO, Syntel, Krishnakumar Natarajan, CEO & MD of Mindtree, and many more.

Five years ago when we started the SmartTechie, the growth rate of our industry was in double digits, which has now slipped to single digit. Though the genesis of Indian IT industry dates back to the early ’70s, the tipping point came with the Y2K phenomenon; that’s exactly 10 years back when armies of our engineers travelled to the U.S. Getting a H1B visa then was a social pride indeed. The scenario has changed now, with the global players setting up their R&D centers and a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem right here in India. The technology industry in India has grown from $4 billion industry in 1999 to over $50 billion in 2009.

But are we really progressing as an industry? Progress has several other dimensions.
Technological advancements should have a direct correlation to a nation’s progress as a whole. That is possible only when technology growth influences a larger cross section of the society.