India offers remarkable opportunities for entrepreneurs: Cognizant co-founder

INDIA offers remarkable opportunities for entrepreneurs and companies over the next few decades, a top Indian American entrepreneur has said.

"The opportunity (in India) is remarkable and that is an incredible testament to the incredible work that the (Indian) government, the public sector, the private sector and the not-for-profit sector in India have done altogether. There is an incredible upside in India," said Frank D'Souza, co-founder and former CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions.

In a fireside chat with Suresh Kumar, professor and director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programmes at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, D'Souza said there are two big opportunities for entrepreneurs and companies in India.

"One is India for India. I think doing all sorts of things in India for consumption in India is a large opportunity. And then of course, I think given everything that is going on in the world, the India for the rest of the world opportunity... I think India is going to have the opportunity to export all sorts of things over the next two decades," he said.

"So both India for India and India for the rest of the world are remarkable in the next few years," D'Souza told an eminent group of Indian-origin entrepreneurs at the TiE New Jersey event where he was presented with the inaugural Excelsior Award for Lifetime Achievement and Contribution to Entrepreneurship.

The next decade, he said, is going to be the one when finally, India produces real IP software-based companies for the world.

"I think that is going to happen now. For years, we have been talking about it. And for years it has been happening in small pockets and we have started to see more and more," he said, referring to the fact that India is now producing one unicorn every nine days.

"I think that is where it is going to come from. You might see the next, the next Oracle, the next Google, and the next Microsoft coming from India. That is what excites me. Services will continue to be incredibly vibrant. I am investing in services. But what is the next frontier for India? In technology, India is going to make the next big global-scale software company. That should be our goal," he said.

D'Souza said Indian American IT professionals are the “best and the brightest”.

Many of them quickly rise to the ranks of leadership roles in companies mainly due to the experience they gain during their stint on H-1B visas, Kumar said.

(PTI)