The Economic Times (National)
March 24, 2003
Candice Zachariahs

Verghese Kurien, Narayana Murthy, Jaithirth Rao & many more…. Don’t You Want to Build Like them?

From a humble, but profitable, canteen in Hostel II at IIT Bombay to three successful start-ups (including Aspect Development, which was sold to i2 Technologies in 1999 for $9.8bn), to a fourth, Symphony Technology Group – The beat never slows for Romesh Wadhwani, nor does his quest to make others step to his drummer. When a man of such tremendous entrepreneurial spirit – not to mention personal wealth – pledges “many millions” of his fortune to build an entrepreneurial network in India, it’s not something to be taken lightly. The vehicle of his dream is the Wadhwani Foundation.

Romesh’s reasoning is simple: If the Indian Diaspora in the US can start about 30% of the companies in Silicon valley, why can’t Indians in India do the same thing? The end result isn’t just personal success, its’ also the creation of hundreds and thousands of much-needed jobs. “The divide between social and for-profit entrepreneurship is superficial,” says Laura Parkin, executive director of the Foundation. “So many of the skills required are the same.”

It’s this belief that will fuel the Foundation’s three-fold attack on the risk-averse attitude of Indians. The beginning is from education. The 01 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor noted that “The prevalence rate (of entrepreneurial activity) is lowest among those that do not have any formal education and significantly higher among those with professional degrees.” It goes on to suggest that the inclusion of entrepreneurship curricula at all levels of education in India, particularly for professional degree programmes may stimulate start-up activity.

That’s where the National Entrepreneurship Network comes in: NEN builds on the premise that high quality entrepreneurial education and research can increase the success of individuals in all fields. “The purpose of the NEN is to make it possible for millions of Indians like me to start and build large and successful businesses all over India, in all kinds of industries; businesses that create jobs for tens of millions of professional workers,” says Romesh Wadhwani. To sow the seed of enterprise, the Foundation is launching a competition to select five Indian academic institutes to form the base of an entrepreneurial network. In five years “we hope to have entrepreneurship development centers in 100s of institutes.” The competition will begin with a by-invitation list of 250 institutes, to be pruned to five. Thirty semi-finalists will first submit plans for proposed activities like curricula development, courses, skill-building exercises, networking events and entrepreneurial activities. These will be studied by a panel of judges which includes HSBC’s Naina Lal Kidwai, Sunil Mittal of Bharti, Harsh Mariwala of Marico, and Jaithirth Rao of Mphasis among others. Each of the five will receive non-financial support and seed funding of $10-50,000. Each will have a year to develop further proposals for entrepreneurial activity, depending on which they will be eligible for funding of $250,000 to $1 m. “Introducing entrepreneurship as a viable career choice for all sectors is very important,” says Laura. Adds Mr. Wadhwani, “ The key here is to train managers, engineers and others to be entrepreneurs, to encourage them to take risks in the expectation of large rewards, to teach them the tools and help them find the talent and resources they need to succeed, and to provide access to mentors and role models to guide them.”

To this end, the contest will include hotel & catering, fashion & design, and technology and management institutes.

Alongside, IIM Bangalore has been roped in to conduct the National Entrepreneurship Survey. NES will attempt to understand the barriers to entrepreneurship and priorities the conditions needed for such activity to thrive. “For instance,” explains Laura, “how important was a knowledge Diaspora to the success of Indians in the Silicon Valley.” Or how seminal are issues like venture capital, infrastructure, FDI or educational levels of the labour force. Executed annually, NES will seek to build a systematic knowledge base and be a resource for developing policies that encourage and support entrepreneurship.

Finally, the foundation plans to set up a Global Entrepreneurship Forum to bring together researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, NGOs and funding agencies among others. Not only will the forum provide a platform for discussion of the issues affecting emerging markets, it also hopes to inform and influence policy. And while the Wadhwani Foundation doesn’t expect financial returns, this not charity. “In every venture there is a bottom line. It’s about creating value,” says Laura.