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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

May - 2007 - issue > In My Opinion

India 2.0 Rising!

Jignesh Shah
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Jignesh Shah
“The next generation of India Inc. driving India’s growth are the children of reforms, and not necessarily children of businessmen” – Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India

At 26, when I bet on whatever wealth my family had, including mortgaging our house, to raise $11000 capital for starting Financial Technologies, I hadn’t quite envisaged what it would become in future. There was no way I could have connected the dots looking forward. I simply had to trust my gut, trust that the dots would somehow connect in future. It’s only in looking back that I can connect them. And this approach has helped me take where Financial Technologies is today.

As it is, my endeavor was against the backdrop of Dr. Manmohan Singh having rolled out the economic reforms policy. The success of Financial Technologies and a host of similar ventures has been made possible by the ushering of economic reforms. Look around, and you will find that drivers of these companies are, first generation entrepreneurs like me; ones who have had no inheritance of a family business. They are what Dr. Singh calls children of reforms; ones who have embarked on a journey to redefine ‘Brand India’ form a cost arbitrage value proposition to an IP centric business model. They are what I call usherers of the India 2.0 story.

Post 1992 is the era I would like to refer as India 2.0, a time when reforms have made it possible to create global brands out of India that focus on IP (Intellectual Property) centric products or services. This is quite different from the India 1.0 period (prior to 1992) when cost or labor arbitrage drove business, especially in the IT sector.

These brands have given muscle to the Indian economy, helping it register a consistent upward growth. While the country grew at roughly 6 percent during the 1980s, the 90s (or the India 2.0 era) has seen the growth rate shoot to 8 percent, and higher.


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