原创 Western political mood could benefit India's contenders for next Silicon Valley

In the article, “The search for the next Silicon Valley”, the author Richard Wallace questions where the next Silicon Valley might appear.  Many areas in Europe have been trying to emulate the Silicon Valley experience with very few successes – for example, mainly around some of the key semiconductor companies in the south of France and Munich, Germany.  But one thing is for sure: the success of Silicon Valley in the USA did indeed occur partly due to the Asians (which includes Indians as well as those from the Far East) who had arrived to do their studies at the major institutes back in the 1950s and 1960s. They then went on and helped build some of the major corporates in the technology industry today.

However the groundswell of opinion in the major developed economies seems to be indicating a significant trend that may reverse the fortunes of Asians in the so-called developed countries. The recent European parliament elections revealed an anti-immigrant sentiment among the masses of the population. Radical parties have been elected in to power (albeit in their minority) with an anti-immigration agenda.  Coupled with tighter controls on H1B visas in the USA (see “US work visa applications dry up”), it seems that both the innovators and hard workers in the technology industry are being relegated to countries that will simply ‘tolerate’ them.

Asians have a world-wide reputation for wanting to learn and use that learning to innovate or create wealth. While they may be able to learn at institutes in the USA and Europe where the free-thinking spirit is nurtured, these talents will undoubtedly – in the current mood – be transferred back to their home countries or others where there is greater tolerance.

Bangalore has for a long time been vying for a position as the next Silicon Valley. Indeed Bangalore at conference time does feel that way – you can see large clusters of tech companies, and there is a buzz around major events that encourages interaction between entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs in the technology sector. 

Bangalore does have its challenges – for example traffic congestion is acknowledged worldwide as a major problem in Bangalore, more so than many other business cities. At a major at a press conference to mark the launch of the electronicIndia conference last September, one local newspaper journalist had blasted the organizers about the state of the infrastructure in Bangalore, and would not stop his barrage of questions – it seems he didn’t understand that the question was not really for the conference organizers but for local government; in the end the perplexed German boss of Messe Munchen International must have been wondering who invited that journalist to the launch and must also have been cursing the PR agency for doing so.

Other than Bangalore, there are many other clusters emerging in India. Bangalore happens to have attracted the major multinationals in technology as have some of the other major tech centres like Gurgaon, Noida and Hyderabad, and maybe also Pune.  But it is not the multinationals that will stimulate the growth of a Silicon Valley like environment – they are just facilitators. It is the emergence of start-ups, spinouts and ‘intrapreneurs’ from these larger organizations, and indeed the IITs, that will create these news oases of technology companies that can then nurture a new Silicon Valley.

It seems that the return of India’s brightest from the west may stimulate the growth of the next Silicon Valley in these areas. Who knows, the next Silicon Valley might comprise a number of centres.  So while the original Silicon Valley maybe losing its sparkle, the new Indian contenders are very likely to shine out of the current global recession – as long as the spirit of the new tech entrepreneurs is not dampened by problems of both infrastructure and the shock of being rejected by their counterparts in the USA and Europe.