'What's happening in India is mind-blowing'

Washington, Nov 26 - Despite a weak education system and big problems with infrastructure, India is racing ahead to become a major hub for research, design, and innovation, says Vivek Wadhwa, an Indian American entrepreneur-turned-academic.

With outsourcing going far beyond low level IT, innovation is increasingly happening offshore, said Delhi-born Wadhwa, a Wertheim Fellow at Harvard Law School's Labour and Worklife Programme.

But 'what's happening in India is particularly mind-blowing,' he said.

'You wouldn't expect a country with few washing machines and dryers to be designing the next generations of these for American consumers...or to be designing key components of automobiles and jetliners...or next generation retail systems...or chipsets for high definition TVs.' Wadhwa said describing this as 'just the tip of the iceberg'.

It may not be clear whether this is good or bad for the US, but what is clear is that globalisation is unstoppable, he said, asking the US, which has so far gained from globalisation, to 'be smart enough to adjust its policies to benefit and stay ahead'.

Some of the debates in the US are simply misguided, he said. For example, the anti-immigration crowd that says the best way to stop offshoring is to limit the number of green cards, permits for permanent residence in the US.

Research by his team at Duke and Harvard universities has shown that there are over one million skilled workers in the US on temporary visas waiting for permanent residence, Wadhwa said.

'If we send a few hundred thousand away we'll simply accelerate the trend and weaken the US competitive position,' he said in an e-mail interview to IANS on a seminar that he gave at Harvard recently with Pete Engardio of BusinessWeek.

Stephanie Overby of 'CIO Magazine', a periodical for chief information officers and other IT professionals, has also cited research by Wadhwa's team at Duke and Harvard to suggest that the next wave of globalisation will see offshoring of R&D to India and China.

Wadhwa, who was founder and CEO of two technology companies earlier, says the ramifications of globalisation will be much greater than the industrial revolution. 'It will impact our standard of living here in the US in the next five to 10 years.'

It's no longer just 'low-end' work like call centre positions or data entry or even midlevel programming that's being shipped to China and India. High-value research and development work also is moving offshore, says Engardio.

And while cost is still the major driver, it's also about where talent and capabilities are available, and where they are available in mass.

(c) Indo-Asian News Service

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