As I sit down to reflect on the decade gone by, what comes through clearly is when India started to take its rightful place in the global arena. Beginning with the software highs of Y2K to the dotcom bust and back into the boom years, it has been a story that began to see India up the ante on its visibility – noticeably in the software and BPO arena that put Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurgaon on the global map.

Increasingly, the Indian corporates began to sew up global deals and became a part of the international business. Nonetheless, there have been an increasing number of voices that have asked if this is an inclusive growth, whether we are not creating yet another chasm between the haves and the have-nots. While the phrase may be reminiscent of the bygone socialist era, the need for inclusive growth is not only real but very contemporary. As a part of the corporate world that creates employment and plays an important role in the country’s progress, a critical area is that of digital inclusion. In other words, as computer literacy becomes the litmus test for any basic criteria of employ-ability and therefore may play an important role in the quality of life a person may have, it is imperative we offer a level playground to the marginalized sections of society and equip the youth from these strata for success.

The way people connect and communicate is changing. Technology adoption is critical today for any emerging economy to continue its onward journey, even without making much ado about the knowledge worker from India that has gained stupendous recognition and contributed to India’s confident march in the last decade. But conversations with industry leaders have clearly shown that the macroeconomic growth over the last decade notwithstanding, one of the clear possible stumbling factors, along with the lack of infrastructure, is seen in the area of skill-development. In other words, are we developing enough talent to drive this engine of growth and is India’s opportunity at risk after all the hard work we have done to build the brand India Inc. According to a report by McKinsey and Nasscom, India’s market share can decline by 10% by year 2020 and be lost to other aspiring nations if this threat is not averted.

Sometimes this may an even more insidious threat simply because while the lack of infrastructure is clearly seen, we may be misled by the sheer availability of our numbers into believing we do not have to worry about talent. In my industry, I have repeatedly pointed out how India will only keep its competitive advantage if we move up the value chain of offerings and not compete on the low cost of our labor. In other words,  we need to make sure we have the depth and the width of skills available to continue being the front office and back office of some of the largest multinationals as well as ensure home-grown multinationals have the horsepower to compete everywhere in the world.  (Market predictions are that with focused initiatives the industry has the potential to achieve over USD 300 billion in revenues).

While it is a mammoth task that certainly requires government engagement, the corporate world has an important role to play here, especially the tech companies who are best poised to harness ICT for inclusive growth. About a year and half back, we at Dell took a conscious decision to engage our financial and people resources in a focused manner towards this issue of digital inclusion. Like most big companies, we also had a history of giving to the community but we worked towards creating a far more structured, focused and transparent program of giving – digital inclusion for the marginalized youth became our focus and we have tried to create a sizeable program that ensures effective positive impact on those we want to reach out to. 

Devoting resources for the improvement of the community at large has taken us a step further to launch our signature giving program – Dell YouthConnect. We recognized that education and access to tech resources are critical to success in this new connected era. Our aim is to develop a generation of young people equipped for these times, and unleash their individual potential through this program.  We are trying to do our bit through selected NGO partners as well as the involvement of our employees’ time, commitment and passion to improving the community we live in.

The task we have embarked on is huge and we can only work with government, industry groups and other companies to make a difference. But a decade from now, I look forward to an India that continues to make confident strides with its economic might, but, where many more Indians are able to participate in this progress to help take the growth and prosperity to a new, higher level and have a more substantial impact on India’s economy and society.

The author, Ganesh Lakshminarayanan is the VP & MD of Dell.