Foreign Exchange Highschoolers

Benevolent Families hosting foreign students offers valuable Experience.

In my previous post, we touched upon Gap Year, in this post I would like to build on the concept of 'Foreign Exchange Student'. A service quiet popular amongst High Schoolers, often European students. 

Again when googling 'Foreign Exchange Student' one can see loads of advertisements, reflecting how mature this service is, and how many organizations are in the business of facilitating these processes. Most of these organizations emphasize on 'Experiential Learning' and 'Practical Development'. 

Some of my personal interactions with Host Families here in state of Arizona, have helped me learn how happy these Families are in welcoming a young stranger from other part of the world and take care of them as their own children.

This again is a cultural aspect of America, where underlying feeling of volunteerism, benevolence, and community play a critical role in establishment of such organization and their services. Being an Indian living in US, comparison with Indian community living in America comes naturally. 

Indian community and their surge is a recent phenomenon, partly attributed due to surge in IT corporations of India and partly due to increasing number of students coming for Masters especially in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) fields. Which have boosted number of Indians working in IT jobs especially in America. Majority of this community are from southern parts of India. 

Since they have arrived recently to America over last decade or two, they have often been busy holding on to their Jobs and job sponsored H1B visas. Often working diligently in the hope they may receive Green Card one day and finally realize their American Dream, for themselves and their children.  

Often Indians do imbibe cultural values of Americans such as volunteering, though the extent remains quiet variable towards the lower side, especially in regards to hosting 'Exchange Students'. Would they be interested if they knew more?

That depends, since many of them have not experienced such a program back home in India and they may not be aware what they are getting into. Also to be a host, requires committing your time towards taking care of teen from a foreign country. 

When we consider the extent of such programs Globally, we can strikingly see that India is not on the list. Is it because Indians don't like travelling to Foreign Country? Or is it because there are some fundamental gaps, culture wise, knowledge wise and institution wise? 

Can GIFT city become a hub for such innovative organizations who are dedicated in creating links of People to People Diplomacy. For India's large population especially in rural India, needs younger generations with global view. For skills acquired during their academic year abroad is far more valuable then their high school experience in nearest town. 

But the challenge is that many of the children and their parents living in rural India, want their children to learn English and have a better life. But often the parents may not be aware of such opportunities, for their children to study abroad, nor would they be having resources to fund this endeavor. 

The biggest challenge is often cultural, since there are no organizations in rural India today who are pioneering in establishing such connections and spreading the values of overseas experience. Can this be addressed by intermediary organizations financing the trip, which the children or their family can pay back in installments. 

But then the question arise why would the parents want children to take on a loan to travel and study abroad. What value will this bring to them, their family and their village. For a high school student trained in America can surely develop a world view and be able to relate with people living in America. 

Will this attribute help these rural youth become entrepreneurs, being able to attract investments and continued technical support. For many of the village youth today have a very limited world view which often hampers in growth of their personality and also diminishes availability of talent in rural India.

GIFT city based organization if they do leverage the potential that is bestowed in Knowledge and Cultural exchange, then organizations based in GIFT city can truly harness untapped rural talent pool and thus creating wealth by attracting strategic investments, that not only make the villages better, but also the villagers with global outlook. 

Gap Year

Cant wait any longer to take a Gap year?

When one googles 'Gap Year' one sees plenty of advertisements on both the top and the side. Making this a very popular service. Upon visiting some of the services, one can discover elaborate set of packages, such as volunteering, interning, teaching at different destinations in the world. 

Gap Year though continues to remain a fad for those who can either save up and set off, or for those who can afford. Often gap year is more common amongst Europeans then amongst Americans. There is some aspect of cultural values that guides this trend. 

American youth especially after graduating from high school, are expected to leave their parents house and live on their own. Those who leave, often get a job to pay their rent and expenses. Since they just graduated from high school the best job they can get is a minimum wage job working for corporations. 

For families who have been saving for their children's education end up at University, with or without student debt. But those who cant afford also end up enrolling for community college and then University, with huge student debt. This trend is somewhat cultural in America. 

Where as in European countries, the culture of travelling is very well established. It often starts from a young age. Where as in America, the concept of travelling is more of, a short period of indulgence. This trend often remains fostered due to work culture at corporate offices.

India has a growing population of youths born after 90s in the internet age who are seeking such opportunities, though venues and those pursuing these options continue to remains low. For traditional cultural expectation is emphasized on graduating and securing a job, and thus supporting the family. 

Here we can see varied opportunities in fostering a culture of travelling, though with an agenda, or say a mission. Religious missionaries have leveraged it very effectively, can an entrepreneurial mission to save the Earth be cultivated similarly. 

With the looming challenge of Global Warming, due to established industrial paradigm, brings us to a new chasm of time and space. Where on one side ideas of travelling in space and deepest oceans are being explored, on other hand millions of years worth of fossil fuel is forcing Earth into a new epoch. 

Can GIFT city establish itself to address these challenges, by harnessing young travelling entrepreneurs in creating wealth of social form. Where the ingrained consciousness of ecology in the population become a source of new products and services which these travelling entrepreneurs can develop as they go along. 

For starters, in current paradigm we all need circulating form of exchange such as National currencies, which circulates through banks in the form of debt. Can such concept of debt be employed in financing Gap Year giving birth to new forms of Network Currencies. 

For GIFT city which is currently being considered as target for financial reforms, can it become a hub for financial innovations, which would encourage activities ushering us into newer paradigm. For amenities at GIFT city have underlying potential to pull global talent, but the question is will they come and innovate?

Under Construction

Paying mortgage for a home that is still under construction?

Recently I considered investing in GIFT City, so I started looking into it. What was so interesting, were the offers being made by developers, with some of them willing to pay interest to investors instead of Banks. 

Reasons for that are understandable, since Indian banks can charge interests around 16 - 20% for Business loans, and for developers raising money from shady people, those rates can go anywhere around and above 30%. 

So a promise to pay 12% interest sounds very attractive, especially when home loans cost anywhere between 8 - 10%. Wise investor would say to themselves, how about we take out a mortgage and make the margin on interest payments. 

The challenge is that, the developers are often not trust worthy, especially when you have paid them up front, in an economic climate where supply outstrips demand. Often such projects are riddled with delays, so not only do you forgo getting your property in time, but also the interest payments. 

Recently such shady practices have emerged in Delhi NCR region, where developers have wooed buyers in issuing mortgages, with a promise to deliver their property in stipulated time. What happened in those cases is that money raised was siphoned to other projects by developers, instead of completing the project itself. 

Why is this happening? Reason is simple, developers face maximum cost at the end of the project, when they install fixtures such as windows, doors, bathrooms, painting and other amenities. Instead developers choose to complete scaffold and link the completion of scaffold to payments from buyers.

This way they raise huge capital, which they use to build another scaffold to raise further capital for other projects, instead of completing the previous ones, for which their capital has already been extinguished. 

Similarly such shady practices are evident not only in Delhi, but in other metros such as Mumbai, Bangalore. These practices are to stay, as slump in demand and huge supply of inventory, is just making situation worse. 

What are the chances that GIFT city will survive and developers operating at GIFT city, be immune to such scrupulous practices. Would the developers engaged in GIFT city project be willing to build credibility and accountability around their projects, or are they like most other developers rotating capital and doing shady practices. 

How much I would like to believe that GIFT city is immune to that, the reality remains that there is a huge surplus of space already available and very few potential tenants who are planing to move in. With many more projects getting ready the space availability is just going to be on a rise. 

Will this city manage to attract people to move in these spaces, as investors hope? Will there be appreciation in real estate in a city which is half done, and not populated? Will there only be investments in real estate but not in actual businesses operating from these spaces?

These questions raises concern at the same time hope, that investors will soon realize that investing in tangible assets such as real estate, make good financial sense, but will be unproductive if one doesn't invest in businesses and people who are going to be living and working in those spaces. 

Creative Workspace

Creative office for creative talent!

Google is one big tech giant well known for its work culture and in order to boost it further, executives at Google pay key attention to office space design. Perks like these, that companies offer to their talent, does magic in retaining them for long term.

Example given above is of a tech giant flushed with capital, but there are other multi nationals such as Uber, Expedia, Amazon investing heavily in designing office spaces for their talent. Well designed office offers space that stimulate conversations and team building among st employees leading to innovations.

Similarly smaller firms who may not have ample resources to design space are also finding venues to be part of such spaces, and these are in the form of co working spaces. Where the space is shared between multiple teams, multiple companies, which tends to crossbreed in bringing about larger impacts in growth of their business. 

Myself was part of such a space in San Francisco called 'The Hub'. The space attracted many individuals as well as small team of entrepreneurs to operate from there. What was most striking was number of opportunities to network with other people and businesses. It was like as if you could hire all possible services you need within that space itself or by leaving a post on internal social networking site that was set up for that space. 

How do these spaces become a bustling community? There is a dedicated team who manage the business of managing and programming the space. To elaborate on that, what the executives do is participate in designing the space, with shared space and resources. They are also involved in organizing events, especially networking and skill building events. 

Does GIFT city have such creative spaces? Does GIFT city have such co working spaces? Well in order for GIFT city to be a hub for attracting talent, must learn how a well designed space brings value in form of ability of individuals to network and procure services in shortest amount of time possible. 

Currently developers in GIFT city are focused in building tall building with empty spaces sold to investors. These investors are currently not lucky in attracting businesses, as GIFT city is still not livable for talent that this city envisions to be hosting.

The investment from the investors currently remain an unproductive investment since few businesses have signed leases and started their operations from GIFT. If the investor truly wishes to leverage value from the space, they could partner with designers in furnishing the space along with programming the space with events. 

This would help build traffic to the space at the same time increase potential value for the space over time. Similar approach have been taken by organizations such as 'The Hub', who have helped build traffic to the space with talents and multitude of companies, making not only the space valuable, but also their Brand. 

There are multiple learning lessons in such stories of creative spaces, GIFT city in particular needs a lot of them to attract creative talent, who can hedge an empty space, in return for well designed, furnished and programmed space, which becomes more valuable with passing time and higher talent density. 

Alternative Education Paradigm

Gurukul Parampara are they still relevant?

Indian traditions have held role of teachers equivalent to God, especially in the form of slokhas. The reason why they have been in slokhas (chants) as earlier teachings of a guru were mostly oral.

With advent of 'Education' in the west, the teaching traditions evolved in a didactic form, which involved classrooms, books and tests. It is interesting to note the root of word education are formed by combining ex meaning 'out' and ducere meaning 'to lead' sharing root with the word 'duke', when one combines them one can imagine education is a process that enables to become a leader, like a prince. 

Though when we review our current paradigm of education, we can draw corollary with factories. Since all of us are manufactured in batches, labelled educated and certificate as our proof. Ken Robinson explains this phenomenon very well in his lecture at Royal Society of Arts, check out brief animate of his lecture. 

American universities have been a jewel in eyes of young Indians planning to study abroad. Despite the costs, droves of Indian students enroll at these university for higher education. Though many of them are arriving are more concerned about graduating at the earliest, getting a job and then paying of the student loan which they borrowed at 14% interest back home.

Appeal of American universities are profound, due to sprawling beautiful campuses and an opportunity to settle abroad. Majority of students both in America and oversees are not aware of how universities have been funding themselves, and how they utilize those funds. 

These students only hear these details when controversies emerge around how low instructors are paid and how they are treated. Also when predatory practices of these universities in recruiting young people, who end up racking massive student debt without a job after graduating or getting a job which dint require degree in first place. 

Cost of attending universities especially American universities have risen 500% over last couple of decade, raising questions around how did universities cost rise exponentially? Was it because of their massive investments in building, bigger and bigger campuses with huge stadiums and arenas. 

While such practices exist at traditional universities, on the other hand Chinese investors are funding startup in tunes of multi - million dollar, to create an innovative university model, like 'Minerva'. Which is San Francisco based start up and is enrolling around 200 students. 

The student cohort at Minerva shall not have access to huge campuses or shining administrative buildings, but will be having access to online courses along with immersive programs. What is unique regarding this startup is that, the students enrolled will be doing each semester in a different city in a different country. 

Such an university model, helps bring down the cost of attending school at the same time helping children grow an international perspective. With advent of information age, skills to relate in an international settings are becoming ever more critical, and that is what this startup wishes to address.

Similarly in India, European architect student attempted at creating a start up school in back waters of state of Kerala. The architect student in his attempt to create a low cost campus, utilizing industrial shelving material to create a structure where these budding entrepreneurs will be hosted. The site he built costed him around $20000, and soon became popular amongst foreign tourist who are travelling the world, exploring, learning and experiencing new cultures. 

These ventures give an impetus to innovative experiments, in the space of education to bring down costs, while offering service of higher value. This trend in education is emerging with emergence of information technology, and need of time. 

How can GIFT city become a hub to attract students to live and study here? Can entrepreneurs leverage opportunities that exist in selecting cost effective destination such as India, which is in dire need of social entrepreneurs, be able to attract talent from world over to create their start ups? 

Inequity and Sustainable economy

Is access to water fundamental human rights?

At world economic forum this year there have been some discussions and concerns towards the plight of poor. Simultaneously there have been discussions on the future of our economy.

The current trajectory of human activities are on unsustainable path benefiting few rich heads of the corporations instead of population at large. The disparity on the rich and poor is on a rise, especially with looming climate crisis making predicament of the poor even more dearer.

Many studies suggest equitable society are prone to lesser trouble and in general a happy society. India faces enormous number of challenges and biggest of all is its demographic dividend, which is its double edged sword.

Young unemployed men are like powder keg waiting to be ignited. All it requires is a spark, which can come from terrorizing brutal images on the internet or inspiring entrepreneurial stories. Often a small tiny spark can ignite the powder keg as we have recently seen in the north east and in state of gujarat.

India faces multitude of issues, with large unemployed youth especially those who are educated. Who are desperate for opportunities to grow and make their situation better. But the challenges remain as Indias economy is unable to grow at the pace of graduating youths.

Those privileged end up climbing the ladder or migrating to another county, but those who are in the rural hinterland, continue to be there struggling with flashy images of wealth on TV. Evidence of this is more evident in Mumbai where on one side we have Ambani's multi - story residential skyscraper surrounded by shanty town.

Without addressing the inequity in wealth creation and distribution, India cannot go on path of sustainable economy. For the current largest wealth producer Ambani in India, makes most of his earning selling Carbon based product. Which ends up polluting Earth, creating massive storms and continues to fuel climate crisis.

In order for a successful transition to Green Economy or say Sustainable Economy, the trajectory of policies, decisions and social entrepreneurs need to move away from traditional industries, while creating alternative paradigm and opportunities that go along with them.

Thus this fundamentally raise a question, will India sizzling from slow down, prop up its economy by stimulating growth of more equitable society and thus on a more sustainable path. Will GIFT city with its promises help realize the goals of helping India move on a sustainable track.

Skill Gap

What is the secret to lead in Knowledge Economy?

Four critical pillars of Knowledge Economy:

• Strengthening the economic and institutional regime

 • Developing educated and skilled workers 

• Creating an efficient innovation system 

• Building a dynamic information infrastructure.

Majority of our population lives in the rural area, and the young in hinterland are often lacking access to enter the new age. Some of the challenges they face is lack of resources and awareness.

Recently even village schools have started introducing computers to children and teaching them some basics. Such as being able to start a computer, switch it off, maybe using Word and Excel. This definitely help bridge some amount of skill gap, but still there is a huge gap to cover.

Some of the gaps the young in rural India face is not having access to laptop or computer and internet. Though they do have smart phones, which they often use to communicate using free texting service whatsapp in majority cases.

Children living in villages are often enrolled for learning computers mostly located in nearby town. Where they learn basics such as Word, Excel, Tally, using a Browser and maybe creating their own Email address. Though when these children go home they have no computer or incentive to practice these skills.

On the other hand in the west, introduction of computers and such devices happen way early in life and even at their schools children are actively engaged in using these tools for doing their homework.

Why is the knowledge of how to use computer and internet so important in this age. It is because the pace of change globally is constantly rising due to integration of global economy as well as emergence of all the technology and their respective trajectories.

Innovation in this age is a key ingredient to success as disruptive currents threatening brick and mortar corporations as well as starts up, often keeping them on the edge. In pursuit of next big success, often developers are striving to out innovate their competitors.

The challenge in India are fundamental and so are the opportunities. Considering a large rural youth population in need of resources and training, there is a huge demand requiring supply of services. There are services that are emerging to address them, but the pace remains questionable.

Digital Economy

Digital Economy, is where individuals do commerce using some form of device. Currently predominant form is in the form of phone. Which has enabled billions of people to communicate. With advancements of mobile devices has made it a source of information.

At world economy forum, some very interesting themes emerged in regards to technology. There is a lot of disruption going on in the digital space, where monopoly of large companies is being threatened, at the same time new companies with accelerated valuations are emerging. 

There is possibility of bubble in the technology space on the wall street, though there are some fundamental trends in regards to technological disruptions that are affecting society. Will this lead to a new form of sharing economy with new applications allowing communities to participate in their growth. 

The need of the time is for paradigm shifting, where old traditional industries are being threatened with advancements and emergence of newer industries, which in turn are facing their own challenges in terms of regulatory structures that have been laid out in the past. 

At Davos, there was a discussion around liberalizing and utilizing UHF radio spectrum band, which is also called white space in between two television channels. The idea is to leverage this underutilized spectrum for providing internet services.  

Especially western companies such as Google, Facebook are taking large strides in developing their own mechanism for delivering internet services. Despite that they continue to face challenges due to lack of digital infrastructure, required for communicating with their servers. 

Advances in eCommerce and internet primarily happened in the West, allowing western companies to make enormous strides in shaping the paradigm with large pool of content on the internet being in English. These companies fear for regional innovations, which would lead to fragmentation of internet and subsequently their business. 

If we analyze internet and its fundamental structure comprises of html language, run over TCP:IP a protocol to identify devices on the network so that they can communicate with servers located by their DNS. These developments have been nested on a digital paradigm with CPUs running digital codes. 

In order for a new paradigm to emerge, new sets of devices will have to emerge with an ability to communicate with each other. How can GIFT city participate in such a process? Can it be stimulated by creation of LABS or say electronic hardware Maker Space. 

In todays world established technology corporations, flushed with capital compete with each other to retain their dominance with large user base to whom they provide multitude of services, in return the users allow these companies to use their data to further their services. 

In order to stimulate the process of disruptive innovations, there needs to be support in the form of financial reforms which shall promote capital support for innovative ventures. But ultimately it is harnessing of local talent that shall bring growth in shaping the new paradigm.

Indigenous Innovations

Can a computer run on Sanskrit instead of C C++??

Recently in last week there were some new developments announced by media outlet The Hindu. What was so interesting was that, this announcement brought to my notice expanding influence of corporate in selling new services at the same time bunch of young students making new products. 

India offers enormous potential to expand services. There is enormous need for financing too. Can the world of finance and services blend to expand the potential pool of talent and technology. 

Can GIFT City become hub for such talent and technology to conglomerate at such a venue? Currently liquidity of investors continue to get trapped in development projects causing developers to slow down commencements of new projects. 

Though spaces have started becoming available here at GIFT, but are also available in Ahmadabad and Gandhinagar. Could this encourage such big corporate to sponsor and develop talent skill centers here, such that future of services can be shaped. 

Would this help transform India's economy in lines with Chinese economy which is moving towards consumption led economy with large service sector instead of manufacturing. China has started a process of financial reforms would India follow such a suite. 

In order to ensure India can perform in global changing environment, can entrepreneurial teams operating globally can develop new modality of production and consumption. Can such entrepreneurs bring about creation of new indigenous product from concept, design, prototyping, and production. 

Looking at the recent development of Infosys Information Platform securing a deal to pool information (about Tennis) and then be used for visualization and analytic purpose. Could such kinds of platform developers emerge in smaller groups?

Though on the other hand young engineering students are developing Gesture Vocalizer technology. Could such innovation and spirit of making be cultivated en masse!

Real Estate Woes

Liquidity Trap

Current global economic woes are multi fold and inter connected. At one end some of the developed economies of the world have leveraged capital to such a large extent raising concerns about ability of the Governments to repay the sum. 

On the other hand Indian economy which is struggling due to fundamental stress continues to suffer, due to poor planning, policy paralysis, and corruption. Though in context to real estate in large metros has been driven by investors, with slowing in demand from consumers. Meanwhile, real estate sector is looking at Government and in turn at RBI to bring down interest rates, which would  help boost sector as home loans will get cheaper for consumers. 

With prices remaining in unaffordable range, consumers are shying away. India needs more houses, but of affordable types for the consumers. The current economic situation across India remains uncertain due to poor monsoon and global woes. The investors are seeing diminishing real estate returns, with individual foreign investors shying away due to possible currency devaluations and policy changes.  

At such a time GIFT city master plan seems far away from realization. Currently with many office spaces available for leasing and more spaces becoming available in the future, only adds to the inventories without the ability to attract businesses. Businesses are looking for great economic environment, along with access to qualified talent who can operate in global marketplace. 

Currently GIFT cannot position itself as an international hub attracting talent nor can it claim the title of city. Though the real estate and global woes arent helping it either for now. 

Algorithm based Circulation

Bitcoin is an example of Algorithm based Circulation, where algorithms are circulating amongst peers, in this example peers who are mining bitcoins are actually playing role of 'servers' for these algorithms. It is an interesting game if you look at it carefully. 

Similarly telecom service providers offer their own version of Algorithm based Circulation. Let me explain further, for example a telecom operator who receives subscriber paying for Call Credits, which can either be used for Call Credits or say make modest payments. In the background such service providers have their own applications running algorithms to account for how credits are being used, at the same time telecom service provider have mechanism of collecting cash from their service agents.

Expanding this concept further we see Retail Stores also offer some version of Algorithm based Circulation. For example, stores allow consumer with good credit or proof of income to open an account with the store and thus make payments in installments electronically.

Though in India there are such Financing Service providers, but the market maturity for such product is limited to Metros, Tier 1 and 2 cities. The reason behind this modest growth is that Financing is a Service, which requires appropriate investment on the part of companies in their customer service mechanisms.

For telecom service provider its an extension and complimentary to their existing service, where as for retailers its more of allowing consumer to buy more from their store, while taking on modest risk.

Considering need for financing in a country like India is huge as Capital remains limited and Cost of Capital remains all time high compared to Global markets, thus there remains a huge potential in Indian market for such Financing Services.

Financial Revolution and Computing

Did Terminator use Algorithmic Trading to get Rich and Mean

Advent of computers and their subsequent adoption in the world of Finance changed the game. Today instead of book keeping being done on books are being done through large clusters of data centers crunching quadrillion operations and more in a day. 

Role of computation in world of Finance remains very essential task, especially when we are trying to determine who owes how much at what rate of interest. On the other hand technological breakthrough such as Computers and now AI helped human advance their ability to record historical information, to make super complex calculations and more, all by employing magnetization of Magnets and algorithms. 

Financial corporations operating globally invest heavily in their Digital Infrastructure, to get a picture one can see that Banks in Manhattan New York, hire developers with starting salaries anywhere from 80K - 120K dollars per annum.

Inorder to truly harness the potential, all Financial Corporations to a large extent have adopted Information Technology and are progressing towards adopting Artificial Intelligence to further enhance their competitiveness. Example of such innovations are in the area of Algorithm based Trading. 

Recently in India as well as Globally there have been emergence of "Algo Trade". Which has led to job loss amongst traders at the same time replacing them with sophisticated systems to manage our Financial Obligations and IOUs.

For today no where in world a National Currency exists which is backed by any form of resource but by word of God, per se Central Banks. Though one can truly see over last 5 - 6 decades since the world wars, world has entered a state of Peace and Stability, with minor exertions. This allowed world and its citizens to be in state of consumption, starting with America, where Citizens rejoicing their Victory and home coming jumped right onto consumptive culture, promoted by emerging Mass Media such as Television.

During this period we saw scrapping of Gold Standard followed by American Dollar starting the process of being a Fiat currency, and world following America's cue. This move allowed Nations to do away from Capital Restrictions to Unrestricted Capitalism, leading to consumptive boost of which Globalization was just an outcome. 

We should note that this all was made possible by computers and sophisticated programs running on those servers. If those servers would have not been there then such an undertaking would have been humanely impossible. If those innovations were not there, then internet would have not been there. 

In conclusion, what came first Chicken or the Egg...??

Computer Revolution

Magic began with "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"

It was almost half a century ago when Claude Shannon published his famous paper, leading the way to digital revolution. His proposed idea was to encode information in the form of bits, which would minimize the amount of noise that can impact the message within a channel.

The revolutionary idea of representing information in simple units such as bits, or more simply put On or Off has laid foundation stone to the Computing revolution, which in the most part took place in America.

At that time America had just emerged from World War and was one of the bank rollers to break the Nazi code of the Enigma Machine. It was soon after the war during the peace time, America successfully attracted the scientist who worked on countering Nazi. This led to birth of Transistors and all those fascinating computing devices we see today.

Bringing this discourse to the realm of GIFT city we see that the vision was to create a hub for such activities to take place. Though in present time India struggles to do away from its dependence on the instruments invented and designed in America, manufactured in China.

Entrepreneurs say from DAI-ICT who may share the streak of genius that Claude Shannon did, then we may just have a chance. Though what made Claude most successful was the environment ecosystem in which he flourished both at MIT as well as Bells Laboratory.

GIFT City if it does manage to attract entrepreneurs, who can design indigenous computing platform, one can surely see as technology develops and matures so shall its ability to attract more talent and financing for the same.

Though concluding at this note: for last 50 years we have been using Digital Computers can the next 50 years be of Analog Computing or say Quantum Computing? Would GIFT city be able to nurture and supply such talent?