-
Bangalore
Our trip to Bangalore has been a fascinating experience and really started to provide great insight about the thriving tech community here in India’s version of Silicon Valley. The enthusiasm about Mozilla and its community are also extremely exciting. In addition to the packed schedule I had laid out for the trip, I was also able to squeeze in two more events into the schedule due to high interest level that came from my blog and my profile set up on Orkut. The social networking experiment that I launched about 5 weeks ago in advance of coming to India has really paid off. So, we met with three enthusiasts who have developed some great extensions (more in a later blog post), and then went to Yahoo! with one of the extension developers in order to meet some of his other colleagues who are also huge Mozilla fans.
Across the board, the reception has been terrific. Special thanks to all who have met with us here…the accommodation has been so warm and friendly and we are really honored to hang out here as such welcomed guests.
In this post, I’m hoping just to lay out a piece of what we have learned. I could go on and on with facts, figures, and anecdotes, but this seemed to be some of the bigger, more relevant information about people in India.
Interesting things we have learned about Internet usage
- We have gathered from multiple sources that the number of users on the Internet in India is ranging from a low-end of 35 million to high-end of 70 million.
- Of those users, most are accessing the Internet through work, cyber-cafe, and home usage. Some have told us that roughly 60% of users are accessing through cyber-cafes but that number is beginning to trend downward as costs go down and infrastructure go up. And, most are accessing though a dial-up connection.
- Mobile is huge here, but Internet usage and mobile have not intersected. Most phones are 2 to 2.5 G technology and users buy new phones every 9 months or so, craving the latest in tech. If an individual makes 3000 rupees a month (exchange rate is roughly 40 rupees is U.S.$1), then that person will spend ~5% on mobile service. We’ve been told on a few occasions that as new devices with better and better technology come out, Indian people will buy them. My iPhone has been a big hit for people. Everyone here knows about it, even though it is not expected to come out for another 8 months (or so we have heard). (More comments on the iPhone later…very very temperamental touch screen…what a pain when trying to use it to take notes in meeting, send a text, or MAKE A CALL!!! Come on Apple, it’s a phone, I have to be able to use it to dial a number! Anyone else having problems with the touch screen?)
Languages, languages, and more languages
India recognizes 22 official languages in its constitution, with Hindi being the national language used by the government and English being used for other official purposes. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India) Just observing the interaction of individuals from state to state in their own languages provides terrific insight into the complexity of India. It is not an exaggeration to say that users in the state of Gujurat (Northwest India, borders Pakistan) would not be able to communicate with users in the state of Tamil Nadu (Southeast India, across from Sri Lanka) if not for English, and even that can be a big stretch because only a small percentage speak English. Localization will be critical as the community of users in India grows. Fortunately, we have met many individuals who have committed to helping localize in several of the languages. Here are some more points we have heard along the way:
- Nearly 20% of those attending school are going to an English speaking “medium” school. (Primary is the first schooling experiences starting with kindergarten, medium is the next stage. And 60% of schools are 2 rooms or less.)
- Less than 10% of people in India are actually comfortable speaking English (some figures report only 7%) with roughly 60 million people (population 1.1 billion) able to transact business in English.
- English and PC usage are strongly correlated
- People are craving to read content in their home language. If IT is to make it to the countryside, schools, etc. people will not know English. The local language is what they learn. Localization is critical to take internet to masses. Some say that 80% of people are in “the countryside”
- The government has launched a program to get 100,000 kiosks into the countryside. It is happening…wouldn’t it be nice to have Firefox on those kiosks? Luckily, one person I connected with has been asked to get his technology on the kiosks and is making the introduction to Mozilla if it makes sense. Why wouldn’t it, right?
- Indian people migrating to other countries want content from home. For instance, one Tamil-based content site hosted by the NGO IT Mahiti, gets 120 million hits per month.
- We learned that if localized in other Indian languages, users outside of India would also access due to those who have migrated. Here are some examples:
- Hindi — India, parts of Nepal, some of Pakistan
- Bangali — Eastern India, Bangladesh
- Tamil — Southern India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia
- Telugu — Central india
Other Facts:
Users pay between U.S.$ 2 and 3 for television a month. TV was popularized by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as a way to promote information sharing, so about 60% of households have color television access and cable.- 35 million households are employed in the organized sector
- 150 million households are self-employed
- 220 million households total
- 40 to 60 percent vote in elections
OK, the point is I could go on and on with stuff we have learned. But, I hope this helps you understand what we have recently learned. It helps us more and more frame our conversations with others we meet. I am writing another post that describes our meetings. Everything has been very grassroots, so if we meet with anyone, it’s likely that they read my blog, saw me on Orkut, or got in touch through some connection and wanted to meet. Because of that, this trip has been so exploratory and grassroots. But, after we leave Bangalore tomorrow, I feel pretty certain that we will start to have a pretty organized group here who will begin to meet pretty regularly. And so, we met with the following people and I have more to say in the next entry:
- HP Labs
- Google/Orkut
- Yahoo! Bangalore
- Community members who have developed extensions
- IIIT-Bangalore (International Indian Institute of Technology in “Electronic City”, a tech area of Banaglore)
- Mahiti — an NGO with an amazingly sharp group of technologists
- Mobilis — NGO running Mozilla on their mobile medical device
-
Ahmedabad
After nearly 30 hours of travel, Chris and I landed on Friday, July 13, after midnight in Mumbai. We arrived to our hotel by 2 AM and then got up the next day, headed back to the airport to fly to Ahmedabad in the state of Gujurat. We headed there to participate in the first ever open source conference held in the state of Gujurat. Additionally, I had been hosting Skype calls and emailing with several graduate students at the Indian Institute of Managemet in Ahmedabad who have been thinking of interesting ways to help spread and promote Mozilla in India. It has certainly been an experiment in social networking and grassroots organizing as I have utilized every possible outlet to meet people: joining groups and posting scraps on Orkut, scheduling calls with Mozilla’s Lightning and Google calendar, taking those calls on Skype, blogging and posting on blogs, and emailing with people who expressed interest in meeting us in India. This trip to Ahmedabad was the first interaction we’ve had with people who have responded to my attempts to network internationally and it was, IMO, a big success.
Open Source in Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad, as described by some at the conference we attended, is an academic center where many scholars and professors are studying and working on their academic pursuits. Given that fact, it may come as no surprise that Professor B H Jajoo from the Indian Institute of Managemt was the lead organizer (with his colleague Dibyajyoti Bhuyan). The conference was also sponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry. Conference topics touched on several different topics, and here are just a few of the sessions:
- Why Free Software?
- OSS Enginnering
- Open Source Business Methods
- OSS deployment in e-Governance Projects
- OSS and its relevance in India
- Building OSS communities (a presentation by me and Chris Hofmann)
The conference had roughly 250 attendees and Chris and I were able to meet many of the leading minds in India who are thinking about open source software and how it will gain more traction. I was impressed with everyone’s presentations and thought that Atul Chitnis gave a very interesting talk, stressing the importance of OSS in India. He has been working on open source projects since 1993 and it is his firm belief that young Indian entrepreneurs and start-up companies in India have no other option but to use open source software. Overall, I was impressed by the energy put into and the breadth of the presentations. It seems that many of the Indian professionals at the conference are trying to find the best ways to promote OSS while also making sure that the ideas are sustainable in the business setting. In my short time at the conference, I quickly learned that the spirit of the participants was very entrepreneurial and each individual seemed to be seeking ways to make open source software and their business ideas a success.
Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad
Another reason for our trip to Ahmedabad was to meet with professors and students at IIM-A. Many expressed interest in taking on student projects that will allow them to utilized their marketing and technology acumen to promote Mozilla and help spread its mission and software throughout India. Many thanks to Professor Anil Gupta and other members of the IIM-A community, including all the students we met and organizers like Guarav Shilpi. We met with three different student teams who are all thinking of ways to promote Mozilla. As part of the arrangement, students will either receive credit for helping Mozilla or, in the very least, list the project work on their CVs. Our next step is to reconnect with the students and professors when we return to the U.S. The ideas were terrific: launching a campus reps program in India, finding interesting ways to distribute Mozilla software, creating viral marketing campaigns similar to the NYTimes full-page advertisement at the release of Firefox 1, and localizing Firefox into Indian languages. It promises to be an active semester with lots of projects being taken on by these students.
Visiting Gandhi’s Ashram
In the pictures that I include in this post, you’ll see several from a morning trip to Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram. As the wikipedia link describes, “Gandhi made it his home, and on March 12, 1930 he embarked on his famous march to Dandi, Gujarat for the Salt Satyagraha. He vowed never to return to the ashram until India became independent.” If you have seen Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi, you might remember the famous salt march to Dandi. Gandhi used this peaceful measure to show the British occupants that the Indian people would not tolerate the unfair and exorbitant taxation of salt. Some say that nearly 450,000 people joined him on the march in 1930. This fact alone is staggering. We learned during our visit that Gandhi, in a time of limited communication, was able to communicate to, organize, and then empower so many people to march for a cause. His mission was always grounded in non-violence and peace. We also learned that it was Gandhi’s unique ability to make people understand their freedom and choices that they had. Rather than being subjects to the British throne, he encouraged Indian people to seek independence peacefully. It was a fascinating trip to th Ashram.
The trip to the ashram was also very important for us because it gives us yet another glimpse at how people think in India. Like Gandhi, many people here feel empowered and entrepreneurial. Gandhi’s teachings are everywhere, his image is on the Rupee bank notes, and it is obvious that many people incorporate his ideologies into their lives. Many times at the OSS conference, we would hear about why the businesses people were starting were not only sound business practices, but would also bring about great social change here in India. That was unique because (at least in the U.S.) it’s not often that social change and business are so closely linked. It almost appeared as a strategic imperative to the entrepreneurs we met. And, we learned from our hosts, that it is this style of thinking that pervades the society and has its roots from leaders like Gandhi.
So far, fascinating. We have already met hundreds of people and Mozilla is well-known by them. Please take a look at the photos and let me know what you think.
-
Namaste, India
On July 12, 2007, Chris Hofmann (Mozilla’s Director of Special Projects) and I will be going to India to meet many of the Indian community members who have been contributing to Mozilla. In addition, we hope to build our community of individuals who will take an active role in promoting the Mozilla mission and manifesto. Ideally, we want to learn as much as possible from those we meet, empower as many people who want to contribute, and connect those who feel drawn to helping spread Mozilla far and wide.
The past few weeks have been an intense effort to piece together a very busy schedule for our trip. I’ve tried every means possible to reach out to people, including joining several groups on Orkut (and making a lot of friends there), emailing former colleagues, connecting with our Gujurati localizers (who are hosting a big event on July 21, 2007) and so much more. It’s been quite a test for the powers of the Internet, but with the magic or email, Skype, IM and social networking, we have wired together what looks to be an exciting trip.
For those who might be in India at the end of next week and the following week, here is our itinerary:
July 12, 22:00 : Land in Mumbai. Namaste India!
July 13, 09:00: Travel to Ahmedabad, India for the India’s first ever National Open Source Conference. We will participate in the conference as attendees, meeting many of the key open source leaders in India. Also, we will participate in a discussion on community building for open source projects
July 14: Day 2 of conference. Also, we will meet with students from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadebad who are creating projects that will help virally promote and spread Mozilla’s mission and software, specifically Firefox. We return to Mumbai on Saturday night.
July 15: Back in Mumbai, we will meet with professor of Indian Institute of Management who focuses on marketing and tech. Sunday afternoon, visit Mumbai
July 16: Travel to Bangalore. Meet with Mobilis (NGO using Mozilla in medical device space) and Ashoka (Seth’s former work)
July 17: Morning — Meeting with Indian Institute Technology — Bangalore, presenting to students who will help with localization, building developer community, and creating ideas to virally spread the adoption of Mozilla software, focusing particularly on Firefox .
Afternoon — Visit the HP Labs in Bangalore and learn from the team there about their lessons-learned when trying to spread technology throughout the India countryside.
July 18: Morning — Meeting with Manu of Orkut/Google at the Google Bangalore office
Afternoon — Meeting with Mahiti (www.mahiti.org). Mahiti is an NGO (founder is Sunil Abraham, an Ashoka Fellow and colleague of Seth) that is spreading open source software to NGOs across India. Their delivery is called “NGO in a box” and the default browser and email software is Mozilla. Along with other OSS solutions, they send Firefox and Thunderbird to over 200 NGOs throughout India.
July 19: Morning — Fly to Hyderabad
Afternoon — Presentation to students at India School of Business — Hyderabad. These students and the ISB marketing club will create viral marketing campaigns and then help drive them forward.
July 20 Morning — TBD in Hyderabad
Evening — Return to Mumbai
July 21 — Localizer event in Mumbai arranged by the Gujurati Localizers. Several Mozilla community members and other open source enthusiasts from India will be getting together to create the team and project plan for localizing en-IN. The second half of the all day session will be creating a plan to build the Mozilla community and to spread the adoption of Firefox.
July 22 — Morning: visit Mumbai
Evening: Leave for U.S.Since the purpose of the trip is to build community in India, we are hoping to meet as many folks as possible. If you happen to be there at the time and want to meet up, please email me or Chris Hofmann. Start by posting a message to this blog.
community website