One Week in India’s Silicon Valley

We’re just back from India – a country that has seen incredible economic growth and still holds huge potential. In 2023, India overtook China to become the world’s most populous country and today it has a population of nearly 1.5 billion. Its GDP has multiplied sixfold in the last 20 years, making it the fifth-largest economy. Over the same period, income per capita has quadrupled. India is a major tech hub with a strong ecosystem of start-ups. India ranks third globally (right after the US and China) in the number of unicorns (start-ups valued at over $1 billion). One out of every ten unicorns worldwide is Indian.

Bengaluru – also known as “India’s Silicon Valley” – is the country’s tech capital – one of the reasons why it was chosen as the location for our EMBA module in Asia. Many people have moved here from all over India, looking for opportunity. Growth has been fast – sometimes too fast. The city’s infrastructure can’t always keep up, as we experienced firsthand in the heavy traffic (for which Bengaluru is also famous).

We started our week with a warm welcome at Swissnex India, the Swiss platform that connects Switzerland and India in science, education, and innovation. From there, our program took us to companies like Wipro, SAP Labs India, and Bosch Adugodi Smart Campus. We also visited Oaktree, a smaller, family-owned company specializing in kitchen solutions. Each visit showed a different side of India’s business world.

A highlight was also our meeting with Mayank Goyal, Founder and CEO of moneyHOP, a fintech start-up aiming to improve and make international money transfers cheaper. His company is a great example of how Indian start-ups are shaping the future of digital finance.

We also had the chance to attend a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management Bengaluru (IIMB). Professor Deepak Chandrashekar introduced us – among other things – to India’s Digital Public Infrastructure. We learned about Aadhaar, Indian’s digital identity system covering nearly the entire population, and UPI (Unified Payments Interface), a real-time payment system. UPI has made the country almost cashless – without access to it, daily life can be quite challenging. Since using UPI requires a bank account, many people were motivated to open one – helping financial inclusion rise from just 10% in 2011 to over 95% today. 

Of course, many challenges remain. A significant part of the population still lives in poverty. That’s why our visit to the Azim Premji Foundation was so inspiring. The foundation was established by Azim Premji, the former chairman of Wipro, who has donated much of his wealth to philanthropy and is deeply committed to improving public education in India. They aim to create better and more equal learning environments for all.

India also has a unique law: large companies must invest 2% of their net income in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We saw this in practice at Bosch India. The Bosch Foundation supports – among other things – education training for young people who left school early – mainly due to socio-economic challenges. We met a group of 18-21-year-olds in a program funded by Bosch. Thanks to this support, they are now learning skills that will help them find jobs in the service sector. Meeting these young adults was definitely the most emotional moment of our trip.

Bengaluru left strong impressions. We witnessed a country growing fast and we returned home with new insights and inspired by a culture full of ambition and energy. India has a strong tech mindset. AI adoption in India is far above the global average. This says a lot about the country’s innovation speed and potential to grow even faster in the global arena.

At the same time, the experience helped us put many things into perspective. Poverty and social exclusion remain a reality for many, but we also saw encouraging signs of progress. While challenges persist, the trend toward reducing poverty¹ gives reason for hope.

For me, there’s a “before and after” India. I will see many things differently now. And we all look forward to the milestones this country will reach – and the records it will break – in the years to come.

Sources: Insights from the visits mentioned in the text.

¹ See Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2024 Country Report — India. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2024, pagesa 4 and 16.