'High time we looked beyond IT'

Start looking beyond information technology and that will take the Indian economy to a higher plane. This is the song that many Indian business houses including IT giants have begun to sing aloud these days.

“In the last 15-20 years, the focus has been more on IT. It is high time we started looking beyond this technology. We need to look at promoting innovations and owner-ship of intellectual properties,” said Infosys Technologies CEO and MD K Gopalakrishnan said at a press conference convened here on Wednesday to announce TES 2008, a three-day entrepreneurial summit organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in Bangalore from December 16. TiE is an NGO for promoting entrepreneurship.

Contending that there is no dearth of aspiring entrepreneurs in the country, Gopalakrishnan emphasised the need for creating an eco-system for complete entrepreneurship. “There are a lot of smaller companies that are ready to take risks. Similarly, the country also has venture capitalists who can support these start-up firms. We need to think of ways to create a diverse set of industries,” he said.

Concurring with him, TES 2008 chairperson Ravi Narayan said: “The world may be going slow, but India is emerging in a big way in terms of innovations, both products and services. Another interesting trend is that several Indian IT companies, which used to look at the US market, are now focussing on India.”

He said India had the potential to emerge as leader in the cellular technology space.

Speaking on the occasion, TiE (Bangalore chapter) president Pradeep Kar said the TES summit will witness the participation of stakeholders from diverse sectors including manufacturing, social entrepreneurship, clean technology, real estate, retail and franchising, education, healthcare and sports management. The theme of the summit is 1inclusive entrepreneurship. A total of 1,500 delegates are expected to participate in the summit. “We hope to mentor about 300 aspiring entrepreneurs,” Kar added.