Keynote Speaker Azim Premji Accorded near Rock Star welcome by Techies
  Santa Clara, Calif.:  When Azim Premji speaks, everybody listens. This was true on Saturday October 28^th at the Silicon Valley India Professionals Association (SIPA) conference called “Coping in the Flat World” at the Santa Clara Marriot Hotel.

While accolades for Premji are many including named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world - Time, 2004  and recruited as a member of India’s Prime Minister’s Committee for Trade and Industry and also conferred with 'Padma Bhushan' award – last year etc- one does not obviously reach these heights without having something substantial to say. 

And he did not disappoint the 325 strong audience of up and coming entrepreneurs and professionals, who were lucky enough to get a seat in the packed to capacity conference room, where organizers had to turn away at least two dozen more at the gate. Premji, Chairman & Managing Director, WIPRO who has been ranked as the world’s 6th richest IT Titan in the Forbes List, gave the keynote address titled “Innovation in the Flat World”  < style="font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif;">

Premji spoke plainly on the theme of current and future of India and also fielded questions ranging from technical prowess of India in the near term and long term future as well as the ‘situation on the ground’ in terms of governmental policy, restrictions, outlook and also potential for doing business both in India as well as in a global way, utilizing India’s multi resources as a centerpiece.

Distinctly upbeat, Premji outlined some of the hot technology trends, giving personal anecdotes about how to cope with change,  and shared his insight on how to learn to better engage with the environment. Premji said “Globalization is here to stay as customers want it and you will see it more and more.”

Adding “The outlook looked good for India in collaborations with the West, especially the US and EU and a recent indicator of this (trend) was the nuclear fuel deal with USA as an indicator

Premji also predicted a trend which according to him has not yet been realized in the West and even in US, that the globalization would be driven by the large economies across the globe and not just their domestic market.

< style="font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif;">Referring to China, India and even emerging consumer bases in Africa, Vietnam and Bangladesh; Premji said such large economies will dictate the future and not necessarily the domestic markets of EU and America. 

Referring to China, a topic which also popped up during Q& A session, Premji said, “Take them seriously in everything they do. China will build an IT industry. They will hire the best teachers, consultants and do what it takes. We are learning from the Chinese and the art of reciprocity as well; which  China does it beautifully - while opening their market to other countries, by giving in one hand and taking away with two!. Whereas we in India are just learning it and so far we have been giving it away.” 

Commenting on the perceived loss of jobs due to globalization, a sore point in the USA, Premji maintained that it was a sheer lack of productivity that dictated the loss of jobs. And to remain competitive in a “Global World’, even USA and the EU etc. would soon have to tap into the completive market pool of globalized products and services.

Premji was also adamant that lessons have to be learnt by all countries including developed nations that Global competition could not be an One-way traffic and global competition has to be fair to everyone. Illustrating a case in point, Premji brought out the issue of H1B visa- s a topic very familiar to most of the attendees, saying, “The artificial cap on the number of H1B visas at 65,000 visas has hurt USA.” He remarked that the last 15 months has seen a distinct turn of jobs and production being shifted overseas and that USA was not producing enough technical graduates and already the US was building a dangerous shortage of technology workers.

Remarking on the trends in India, Premji was quick to reassure that in India, the change for the better has been the government will and polices and approved budgets. Agreeing that maybe not enough has been done so far, he said the share of the blame falls equally on the domestic IT industry as well as the government.

Outlining the work the of Premji Foundation, of delivering computers to villages with a focus on the girl child, Premji was clear saying “Literacy was not the main object, rather it’s the concept of introducing a multimedia device in a village environment.  He mentioned that a lot of effort, including that of his foundation, was focused on vernacular regional langue material in multimedia format geared towards education.

Another point reiterated by Premji was that companies, in general, have to learn that ‘Cost Arbitrage’ cannot be only motivating factor but delivering More Value’ to customer is needed. He noted that this is an distinct area in which the Indian companies and the Indian mindset was lacking, and they seem to fail to learn this philosophy and include it in their outlook, especially when serving a global marketplace

Avinash Vaidya, President of SIPA, one of the key movers of SIPA, which in the past two years has seen a tremendous uplift under his leadership, thanked Premji for the entire bay area professional community. He also shared some information about the 19 year old organization, which has made a mark for being a grassroots volunteer organization, geared towards up and coming entrepreneurs and professionals and providing a quality forum for networking to exchange ideas and experiences, share solutions and expertise, and help each other  in succeeding as leaders in their global efforts.

Gowri Yadlapati, an engineer at INTEL Corp. was very pleased with the forum agreeing with Patent and IP attorney Sujatha Ganesan saying, “The affordable conference met all my expectations and shared wonderful information and a great chance to network with like minded people- all professionals.”