Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 29
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. It took a big step toward universal accessibility today when it launched a program in Uganda aimed at bringing information to poor rural and urban dwellers via mobile phones. Working with Grameen Foundation and MTN, the big African mobile carrier, Google has begun offering a handful of services that combine text messaging, search technologies, and databases full of locally relevant information. "We believe that finding information shouldn't require a computer," says Joseph Mucheru, head of Google's operations in sub-Saharan Africa. Richard Mwami, public access manager for MTN Uganda, says: "This will help solve a great need at the bottom of the pyramid." This project is a prime example of smart people scoping out a problem thoroughly and coming up with a technology and service solution that fits the needs and economics of a poor community. Bravo!
Continue reading "Google's Values at Work in Africa"
Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 26
I'm going to be on vacation until July 7. I'm posting a couple of items in advance, but will not be able to attend to comments until I come back. Our technology security policies make it hard to get access from the road.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 25
The tech industry used to be full of colorful and dynamic CEOs. Not so much anymore. That makes it much less fun to be a tech industry reporter. I was reminded of this falloff when Sir Richard Branson visited BusinessWeek this week. Probably 30 BusinessWeek reporters, editors, art directors, and interns packed a conference room and there was a buzz of excitement before the brash ("Screw it, let's do it," is his business motto) businessman made his entrance 15 minutes late. Branson did not disappoint. He was alternatively funny, provocative, charming, and slightly too self-satisfied.
Continue reading "Richard Branson: Where Have All the Colorful Tech CEO's Gone?"
Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 25
Nandan Nilekani capped off more than 25 years in the top executive ranks at Infosys earlier this year by publishing Imagining India, a book in which he passionately called for governmental and cultural reforms. Now he'll get a change to act on some of his own advice. Word came down minutes ago that Nilekani, Infosys' co-chairman, has been appointed as a cabinet minister in the Indian government. On July 9, he'll take over as Chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India, which is similar to the U.S. Social Security Administration.
Nilekani was one of the co-founders of Infosys in 1981 and served as its CEO from 2002 to 2007--a period when Infosys and the entire Indian tech industry exploded onto the world stage. He has been an articulate spokesman for an industry and a point of view--that thanks to the Internet and lower data communications costs, knowledge work can now be done anywhere in the world where the talent exists. A revolutionary thought. It was he who awoke New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to the disruptive changes that are taking place as a result, telling him famously that "the world is flat"--which led to Friedman's book with that title.
I reviewed Nilekani's book before it came out, and, given the amount of work and thought and passion he put into it, I'm not surprised that he has agreed to serve in government. Given the kind of frustrations that his Infosys co-chairman, N. R. Narayana Murthy, has experienced in his forays into state government affairs in Bangalore, Nilekani goes into this fully aware of the potential pitfalls. So he must think it will be well worth the trouble.
My only question is: Why this posting? It seems like commerce secretary or communications and technology minister would have been more appropriate. I've sent him a message asking for an interview, and, hopefully, that and other questions will be answered soon.
By the way, GlobeSpotting loyalists may recall that Nilekani was a guest blogger on the site during the World Economic Forum in January of 2008. Ah, we knew him when...
Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 25
Here’s a telling tidbit from Lanny Cohen, CEO, North American Technology Services for Capgemini, the fourth largest IT services company in the world with revenues of $12 billion. He told me that he attended SAP’s annual Sapphire user conference in Orlando in May. There’s a show floor where business partners of SAP market their products and services. When he was walking around the show floor and checking in at the various booths, it struck him that the experience at each of the IT outsourcers’ booths was essentially the same, no matter if it was IBM, Accenture, HP/EDS and Capgemini or Wipro, Infosys, and TCS. The branding, the array of service offerings, the quality of the people manning the booths; it was the same. Immediately afterwards he sent an e-mail memo to Capgemini’s executives in the US and at the headquarters in Paris describing his impressions. The message was, essentially: The Indians have arrived at parity. “I said, ‘Don’t underestimate these guys. They’re not just in the back office anymore. In the midst of this down, they’re becoming like mature Western-style players--the messaging, content, and style. They’re just like the other global players.’”
