Why I believe India will spawn the next wave of major Tech Influencers
By: Daivik Goel
Tags: Technology, Startup, India, Globalization, Influencers

Preface: This is a collection of my opinions based on the observations I have made and the market trends that I have seen. For context, I am a Canadian of Indian ethnicity and have never actually lived in India. However I have visited the country every year and seen the change in the country with every visit. I also keep up to date with climate of the country and the socio-economic trends. Although one could generalize that all of Asia will have the growth of tech influencers, I have decided to focus on India for this piece given I can comment on it more and to be able to give more specific reasons that I have actually observed rather than just searched online .

In the last 5 years, it is amazing to see how much accessibility to the internet and the smartphone has completely transformed Asia. Specifically in India’s case, it is now has the second highest amount of smartphone users with it beating out the United States and only being second to China. This has resulted in India having its own “.com” revolution with companies local and foreign now capitalizing on the huge amount of new users entering the smartphone market. We have seen the shift of focus for companies such as Apple and other smartphone giants like Huawei and Samsung to make phones that the mass population can afford such as the iPhone XR or the Samsung A series. This market allows the growth of new innovative tech players while having older more established companies sustain their sales numbers with the North American market growth now dropping off. This coupled with the heavy competition from different telecommunications in India has made the internet access more affordable than ever to most of the country with telecommunications like Jio offering 2GB of LTE data for just 99₹ per month or roughly $2 CAD. Even accounting for the differences in salary between Canada and India, this is still very low and an acceptable amount for most.

There are an estimated 373.88 Million Indian Smartphone users in 2019. Source: Statista

Because of this change invoked by smartphones India, for the first time in its modern history, can now make products and ideas which are not only cutting edge in the country but elsewhere as well. Tech entrepreneurs can surpass just being held to just the country’s standard of innovation create products that are revolutionary worldwide. To further this, because of the internet, the general public now has access to many tools previously not easily available to them. In the software realm, anybody can build the application they want to with open source frameworks and technologies available online for free and only requiring an entry level computer to develop with them. The App Store also enables them to not only publish their application for the citizens of their own country to use but worldwide for anyone to use giving them reach that they previously could never imagine to have. In the hardware space the availability of Chinese chips and materials allows for the creation of products that allow people to push boundaries like never before. The availability of knowledge and resources ultimately is allowing the growth of many startups that are on par with their North American counterparts. This boundary pushing is very important in the creation of influential tech comapnies.

The availability of components from online retailers helps with the construction of prototypes at startups

Of course education is the driver of innovative thoughts and India is definitely well poised in this regard. With a focus on education like never before, historically poor labor families are now in touch with the value of an education and trying their hardest to put their kids through school. Of course all do not succeed due to financial hardship but in general the country is mobilizing a huge educated workforce waiting to be tapped into. This is further emphasized by the premier worldwide renowned institutes the country has such as IIT whose main campuses of Bombay, Delhi, and Madras all rank in the top 100 in the world for Engineering and Technology according to QS World University Rankings. With an estimated 3500 Engineering colleges in the country, there are millions of engineers graduating every year and the workforce is becoming bigger by the day. This is important as with the increase of engineering graduates, you should see a greater development in innovative thoughts and ideas. Also given the massive amounts of competition, individuals really have to think out of the box and try new things in order to truly be recognized from the competition. This will lead to the growth of new ideas and concepts ultimately resulting in new radical, diverse products.

Top Indian Universities provide education equal to their American Counterparts

Where China excels in the offshoring of the manufacturing of goods, India is now becoming or has already become the prime target to offshore Engineering and service work. The reason for this is because of the country’s large educated workforce being available at a much cheaper rate compared to their North American counterparts and thus enabling companies to get a similar quality of work for almost half the price. This is coupled with the fact that India actually has the second most English speakers in the world allowing companies to collaborate with offshore employees without as much of a cultural or language barrier. These two reasons lead into why I believe specifically India is poised to have more tech influencers than any other Asian country. Because work is already off-shored to India for products that will usually be sold to the North American Market and the smaller gap in language and culture, Indian companies can tailor their products to more easily enter the North American market. I for-see a rise in applications and other products created by Indian companies in North America.

In 2017, WhatsApp itself had 200 million monthly active users in India.

All of this is held up by the country’s biggest advantage which is its sheer market size. Every Asian country has a huge consumer base and any appealing product can exponentially propel its creator’s market cap. The biggest examples of this can be seen with the Ali Baba Group and Tencent with both having more than a 500 billion dollar evaluation. They are both in the top 10 most valuable companies in the world! We have also seen the influence Chinese companies are having on a global scale with the recent success of TikTok and Musical.ly. I believe Indian companies can match and surpass this success in the future because of the closer resemblance to the overall global socio-economic picture and its experience with mainstream global applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook rather than Chinese equivalents like WeChat.The market in India allows for entrepreneurs to gain a massive following for their products and ultimately gain a lot of capital if it has mass appeal like China while, in my opinion, allowing this to translate more easily to worldwide success.

These were a couple of the reasons why I think India will develop some major tech influencers in the coming years. In terms of individuals, we have already Indians such as Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella now lead two of the biggest tech companies in the world in Google and Microsoft respectively. Those two made themselves tech influencers by using their skill and experience to succeed in America and I believe soon enough Indians will be able also have significant influence on technology without having to immigrate out of the country. The world is becoming more interconnected and blockers stopping the average person from creating greatness is becoming smaller everyday. It will be interesting to see the next 20 years and what new developments and companies rise in this age of hyper-globalization.

Sundar Pichai is a former IIT Kanpur Graduate. Photo Source: CNBC

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and will stay tuned for more articles coming in the future! Please let me know what your thoughts are and if you agree or disagree!

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Thanks for reading,

Daivik Goel