What do you get by adding ‘innovation' and ‘knowledge'? ‘INK,' explains http://theinkconference.com. What do get you by adding ‘Host' and ‘Curator'? The answer is Lakshmi Pratury, who ‘brought TED to India in 2009, when the first TEDIndia conference was held in Mysore,' as the site informs.

The INK Conference, for starters, is “an annual conference that aims to fuel innovation and foster knowledge by bringing together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers from a range of disciplines such as art, architecture, dance, design, music, science, social entrepreneurship, sports and technology – an intellectual Mardi Gras, if you please!” It was a brief meeting that I had with Lakshmi (http://bit.ly/F4TLakshmiPratury), at a TED event in IIT-Madras, sometime ago. Connecting with her recently over the email, Business Line brought up the theme ‘IT entrepreneurship.'

Excerpts from the interview.

As someone who has been actively watching start-ups, what do you find as the winning formula for IT start-ups?

I don't think that there is One winning formula. In my experiences, I found that there are three factors that are common to successful start-ups:

(a) The ability of management to be flexible and change the business plans as per the feedback from the market. Often companies get stuck on the activity or product that they are set out to produce instead of asking “what is all this for”?

(b) It is important to have an ecosystem of investors and a job market that values failure. Some of the best learning and innovations come out of risks and failure. The price of failure is very high in India. So, entrepreneurs are forced to play safe. Unless the investors are willing to let the entrepreneurs take risks, we cannot have big winners.

(c) Finally, we need a consumer that respects innovation and places a value on innovation. In our quest for the best “deal” we go for the generic knockoff and not pay for the time that it took to innovate. It is important to have a paying customer who is willing to pay the value for quality in order to maintain economic incentives for innovation.

Do you find the Indian IT enterprise evolving very differently from that in the mature markets?

The Indian IT enterprise is evolving in its own way and that is why it is exciting as well as turbulent. Since there is no established ecosystem, the environment evolves in the “survival of the fittest” model. Who you know becomes more important than what you know. As a result, the surviving entrepreneur needs to have the street smarts and the capacity to network better than an entrepreneur in a mature market. The entire Indian business ecosystem is only 20 years old and it would take at least another decade of home grown entrepreneurs to come into power to create a mature ecosystem that gives scope to all kinds of talent to succeed.

Looking forward, what do you think will be the major IT developments that will bridge the digital divide?

Ways to connect the radio, TV, mobile and content can bring important and relevant information to everyone at the same level. The quality may differ — as in high-def or 3D or surround sound but the content is the same. I am most excited about the content in the mobile space that can bring digital equality around the world.

Your suggestions on policy changes and initiatives that can give a fillip to IT enterprise in the country.

I would like to see more transparency in the workings of the government through activities similar to www.data.gov with better explanations of the incentives and plans that already exist. I think that it is important for every citizen to understand the incentives that already exist for their wellbeing. Information brings equality.

I also would like to see more schemes and incentives targeted at making the small entrepreneur successful and also famous. In our singular focus on scale, we are losing sight of passion, integrity and quality. So, it is important to celebrate the success of the small entrepreneur as much as we celebrate the success of the multinational.

Does IT entrepreneurship attract enough women? What are the hurdles?

IT entrepreneurship or any entrepreneurship for that matter can attract a much larger female population than what exists today. Women want to work in an environment that gives them maximum flexibility. Whether it is a societal expectation or an inherent desire or the ability to multi-task, women want to be able to work and take care of the family obligations all at the same time.

With the right environment, they can provide a very rich texture to any business environment. Facilities such as childcare at work, flexi-hours, and providing transportation increase the participation of women in the ecosystem.

Most importantly, the way an organisation treats a woman is a key factor. For example, I have seen situations when the moment a woman becomes pregnant, she starts getting inferior quality projects because the organisation does not want mission-critical projects to be “disturbed” in the middle. They can easily build a backup or a two-in-a-box scenario so that the situation can be handled without a hitch. With the right mindset and slight changes to the way we do business, women entrepreneurs can bring the much-needed rich texture to any business.

Any other points of interest.

To some extent, we need to change the definition of ‘IT entrepreneur'. When we use the term ‘IT entrepreneur', we often think of someone doing something in the area of software or hardware. A person operating cell- phone business or a person selling baked goods over the Internet is also an IT entrepreneur. I think that we need to look at how people are using technology to accomplish their business goals as a way to define ‘IT entrepreneur' and not define IT entrepreneurship by the products that they are selling.

Finally, the single most important thing that we need to do is to rewrite our societal definition of success, which is currently defined as the amount of wealth one amasses. If the currency we collect is the only symbol of success, we lose sight of the path we take to amass the wealth and focus only on the end result. We need to find a way to reward failure, risk-taking, integrity, passion, and contribution to society as all these form part of defining the true net worth of the person. We need to place more emphasis on the quality of the journey and not just on the singular end goal defined in monetary terms.

>dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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