Last updated on 29th Sept. 2015
Here's the video of the event held on 26th Sept. 2015, PM Modi attends Digital India and Digital Technology Dinner in San Jose, California, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4krn8K2JWMs, 1 hr 13 min
The first main speaker was John Chambers of Cisco. John Chambers is a really big man in tech. world. So I felt it appropriate to give some info. about him. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chambers_(CEO):
John Thomas Chambers (born August 23, 1949) is the executive chairman and former CEO of Cisco Systems.
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After obtaining his MBA, Chambers began his career in technology sales at IBM 1976–1983 when he was 27 years old. In 1983, when he was 34 years old he moved to Wang Laboratories. There, he became the vice president of U.S. Operations in 1987. Wang had gone from a $2 billion profit in 1989 to a $700 million loss in 1990. In 1991,when he was 42 years old he left Wang and joined Cisco in 1991.
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Since January 1995, when he was 46 years old he assumed the role of CEO [Ravi: in Cisco], the company has grown from $70 million in annual revenues to its current run-rate of approximately $46 billion.
[Ravi: Fascinating that Chambers was with Wang Labs. (based then in Lowell, MA, USA) from 1983 to 1991, as I have spent two stints totalling over one and a half years at Wang Labs, Lowell, MA, USA in the mid to late 80s. So I may even have seen Chambers then, say in the parking lot or in the elevator! As I was a consultant/contractor from an Indian software company (Datamatics Ltd., SEEPZ, Mumbai), I was interacting only with the technical staff in the dept. I was associated with, and not the sales and mktg. guys or the top guys.
Chambers writes about how IBM and Wang missed the bus when mainframe and minicomputer technology wave(respectively) moved to minicomputer and PC technology (respectively), in this article in Harvard Business Review of May 2015, "Cisco’s CEO on Staying Ahead of Technology Shifts", https://hbr.org/2015/05/ciscos-ceo-on-staying-ahead-of-technology-shifts. A small quote from the article, "From IBM, I went to Wang, where I had the chance to work with An Wang, the company’s founder and the most brilliant man I’ve ever met. He invented key parts of the computer industry and built a large, very successful company. The most important thing I learned during my time at IBM and Wang is that even great companies are imperiled if they miss a market transition—and I saw both of them miss important ones."]
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Transcript of John Chambers speech in the video :
[Ravi: Note that John Chambers has been recently elected to serve as Chairman of the US-India Business Council, http://www.usibc.com/press-release/cisco-executive-chairman-john-chambers-elected-chairman-us-india-business-council.]
From 8:54: Prime Minister Modi, all of us in the audience cannot be more proud that you are with us tonight. You are an amazing ambassador for your country and what's possible in the world. And by being in our country, showing what's possible between our countries, showing what's possible between businesses in India and the US and now in Silicon Valley as every company becomes a technology or digital company, you send a message to the world on what's possible. I was asked to talk about the network or the Internet. My parents were doctors and they taught me early on in life, education was the equalizer in life but you had to be in the right country, the right state, the right city to really be able to benefit the full opportunity it gave you. The Internet existed twenty years ago. We said the Internet now is the second equalizer in life. And it suddenly began to break down the barriers, not perfectly, but in large facet, has had more impact on businesses and government than any technology advancement that we have ever done.
And now we are on the cusp of what we call - you can call it the next generation of the Internet. You can call it digitization. You can call it the Internet of Everything. But as technology combines with process change with innovation, it truly for the first time has the potential to change the world.
I was deeply honoured when I was asked to be chairman of the United States - India Business Council. And while I was tremendously humbled by that, my first reaction was, is this what I want to do at this point in my life. And then I thought how wrong that was. Because what we do at Cisco, while we are a far from perfect company, we get transitions right. And there are three huge transitions going on in the world at the present time. The first is one that really this technology that will enable every company to be a technology company in ways that (many) of my peers may probably talk about tonight. The second is the business model and the skill sets needed for this new economy are changing at tremendous speed and you have to be able to change education in a country, you have to be able to adjust the business models, the regulations which allow that to occur. And the third, whether its in a city or company or country, you have to have a visionary leader who surrounds himself with a team that can execute with tremendous speed. When I thought about that, to be a small part of that as chairman of US India Business council, that was something that I could not resist. Because I (would be able?) to change the world, change India. [Applause]
For those of you who are doubters and say this is a vision and it won't happen, I want you to go back to the information age. which really occurred from 1990 to 2010. And president Clinton, even though he came from a different political party than mine, he envisioned a strategy than can change a country and (then the world) and during his eight years of leadership, 22 million jobs, 18 percent growth in GDP, 17 percent growth in real per capita income by the average person in America. [Applause]
This will be an instant replay except it will be 5 to 10 times the size. And its the exact same principles, the way you drive it through. Our (cut) on this just 5 years ago was 19 trillion dollars. [Ravi: Did not get that. What was 19 trillion dollars? Their expected size of this (instant replay) business?] The size of the US economy in a decade. [Ravi: Did not get this either. US economy currently is 17 to 18 trillion USD] That's 1 to 3 percent growth of every country in the world GDP wise on-going for a decade. But it now looks like that number is going to be too conservative.
And when you travel around the world, as Prime Minister you have the vision of many of your peers, when you talk to Chancellor Merkel in Germany or Cameron in the UK or Hollande in France or Renzi in Italy, the leaders, they all understand that every country has the potential to grow 1 to 3 percent GDP. They have the chance to generate a large number of jobs, (for the) first time for them to be inclusive jobs for everyone in the country regardless of age or geographic location. It would change health care and education in a way we are just beginning to (dream?). It would usher in a new generation of startups and capabilities that truly will make an innovating India and an innovating world. It would be able to do so at the same time (as) addressing the challenges such as our environment. And so now you see a race for who is going to move the fastest. Who is going to have the courage to move with that type of capability. And the willingness not just to do the technology which will be the easy part, but the process and organization and structure changes to do the innovation.
If you look to the Prime Minister's vision and you begin to think what is possible in terms of what I just talked about, it is amazing how quickly that can occur. Now I will say something that will make a lot of (businesses) in this room uncomfortable. Whether you are in the US or India or Europe, forty percent of us won't be around in ten years. This is a period (where) you better disrupt or you will be disrupted. To companies regardless of size or countries. And you have got to have the courage to go the ... bumps along the way.
So when you look at Prime Minister Modi's vision of a digital India, (a) manufacturing in India using this inflection point that is occurring, what we do very well at Cisco, see that inflection point occur, and you compete not against other countries or other companies, you compete against your ability to innovate. And the ability to skill in India not a million jobs a year but a million jobs (...) the middle of a month.
Think about how this gives you the vehicle with digital manufacturing .... to make in India. A hundred smart cities, two hundred and forty thousand villages - [Ravi: looking at PM Modi] your vision, I believe, will happen. It takes a country and a leader that has the courage to do that. It also takes, going back to my opening comments - you have to get the market transitions ...... right. This digital age is now upon us. So the technology transition is there.
Second, you have to see the business models and the skills that employees need to participate in this new economy. So it doesn't depend upon which city you are in, or which state or which country. And then you have got to have a charismatic leader who has the courage to make the changes, who knows (the times that we) second guess, (and) is willing to disrupt or be disrupted. And you take those tremendous ideas in a simplistic way and bring it to life.
Its an honour, Mr. Prime Minister, for you to be here, in Silicon Valley. ... USIBC will be there for you, Silicon Valley will be there for you. Indeed United States and India will be very strong together because of your leadership. Thank you.
--------- end John Chambers address --------
The addresses of the other main US Tech CEOs (Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm and Sundar Pichai of Google) were also interesting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech transcript is available here: https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2015/09/pm-modi-speech-at-digital-india-event.html.
I have given selected extracts from that speech below:
From computing to communication, entertainment to education, from printing documents to printing products, and, now to internet of things, it's been a long journey in a short time.
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The pace at which people are taking to digital technology defies our stereotypes of age, education, language and income. I like recounting my meeting with a group of unlettered tribal women in a remote part of Gujarat. They were present at a local milk chilling plant I was inaugurating. They were using cell phones to take photographs of the event. I asked them what they would do with the images. The answer was a surprise for me.
They said,they would go back, have the images downloaded on to a computer and take printouts. Yes, they were familiar with the language of our digital world.
And, farmers in Maharashtra State have created a Whatsapp group to share information on farming practices.
Customers, more than creators, are defining the use of a product. The world may be driven by the same ancient impulses. We will continue to see human struggles and successes. We will witness human glory and tragedies.
But, in this digital age, we have an opportunity to transform lives of people in ways that was hard to imagine just a couple of decades ago.
This is what sets us apart from the century that we have just left behind. There may be still some who see the digital economy as the tool of the rich, educated and the privileged. But, ask the taxi driver or the corner vendor in India what he has gained from his cell phone, and the debate gets settled. I see technology as a means to empower and as a tool that bridges the distance between hope and opportunity. Social media is reducing social barriers. It connects people on the strength of human values, not identities.
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When you think of the exponential speed and scale of expansion of social media or a service, you have to believe that it is equally possible to rapidly transform the lives of those who have long stood on the margins of hope. So friends out of this conviction was born the vision of Digital India.
It is an enterprise for India's transformation on a scale that is, perhaps, unmatched in human history. Not just to touch the lives of the weakest, farthest and the poorest citizen of India, but change the way our nation will live and work.
For nothing else will do in a country with 800 million youth under the age of 35 years, impatient for change and eager to achieve it.
We will transform governance, making it more transparent, accountable, accessible and participative. I spoke of E-Governance as a foundation of better governance – efficient, economical and effective.
I now speak of M-Governance or mobile governance. That is the way to go in a country with one billion cell phones and use of smart phones growing at high double digit rates. It has the potential to make development a truly inclusive and comprehensive mass movement. It puts governance within everyone's reach.
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But for all this, we must bridge the digital divide and promote digital literacy in the same way that we seek to ensure general literacy.
We must ensure that technology is accessible, affordable, and adds value.
We want our 1.25 billion citizens to be digitally connected. We already have broadband usage across India go up by 63% last year. We need to accelerate this further.
We have launched an aggressive expansion of the National Optical Fibre Network that will take broadband to our 600,000 villages. We will connect all schools and colleges with broadband. Building I-ways are as important as highways.
We are expanding our public Wi-Fi hotspots. For example, we want to ensure that free Wi Fi is not only there in airport lounges, but also on our railway platforms. Teaming up with Google, we will cover 500 railway stations in a short time.
We are also setting up Common Service Centres in villages and towns. We will also use information technology to build smart cities.
And, we want to turn our villages into smart economic hubs and connect our farmers better to markets and makes them less vulnerable to the whims of weather.
For me, access also means that content should be in local languages. In a country with 22 official languages, it is a formidable, but an important task.
Affordability of products and services is critical for our success. There are many dimensions to this. We will promote manufacture of quality and affordable products in India. That is part of our vision of Make in India, Digital India and Design in India.
As our economy and our lives get more wired, we are also giving the highest importance to data privacy and security, intellectual property rights and cyber security.
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The task is huge; the challenges are many. But, we also know that we will not reach new destinations without taking new roads.
Much of India that we dream of is yet to be built. So we have the opportunity to shape its path now.
And, we have the talent, enterprise and skills to succeed.
We also have the strength of the partnership between India and the United States.
Indians and Americans have worked together to shape the knowledge economy. They have made us aware of the vast potential of technology.
From large corporate to young professionals in this great centre of innovation, each can be part of the Digital India story.
The sustainable development of one-sixth of humanity will be a major force of good for our world and our planet.
Today, we speak of India-U.S. partnership as a defining partnership of this century. It hinges on two major reasons. Both converge here in California.
We all know that the dynamic Asia Pacific Region will shape the course of this century. And, India and the United States, the world's two largest democracies, are located at the two ends of this region.
We have the responsibility to shape a future of peace, stability and prosperity in this region.
Our relationship is also defined by the power of youth, technology and innovation. These can ignite a partnership that will advance and sustain prosperity in our two countries.
Even more, in this Digital Age, we can draw on the strength of our values and partnership to shape a better and more sustainable future for the world.
Thank you.
--- end extracts from PM Modi speech transcript ---
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Update on 29th Sept. 2015.
Saw an interesting article dated June 2015, about a meeting in New Delhi between Cisco's John Chambers and then incoming CEO (and now CEO, I guess) Chuck Robbins, and Indian PM Narendra Modi, "Modi is among the top 5 leaders I have met, says Cisco’s John Chambers", http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/modi-is-among-the-top-5-leaders-i-have-met-says-ciscos-john-chambers/article7333862.ece.
The articles quotes John Chambers as saying, in reference to Indian PM Narendra Modi:
"He has the courage to put together a vision, strategy and execution plan for a Digital India that we identify with."
and
"He has the rare characteristic for a political leader, to think like a businessman with operational skills. The only one I have seen who thinks like him is President Clinton."
[I thank Wikipedia, John Chambers, Harvard Business Review, Indian PM Narendra Modi, The Hindu Business Line and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts (very small extracts from Harvard Business Review and The Hindu Business Line) from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
