US and India's tech dilemma

My two countries, the United States and India, are going through a significant transition vis-a-vis technology, entrepreneurship and innovation. And their destinies have become intricately intertwined in the last decade or two.

While China took America's manufacturing industry, India's emergence as a global software outsourcing powerhouse has rocked America's white collar workforce and even its ivory-tower intelligentsia.

Every so often, I get letters from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I received a master's degree, asking for contributions. I usually oblige. Recently, a letter from the head of the electrical engineering and computer science department really disturbed me.

MIT and all other institutions are losing applicants for their EECS programs, and the heads of these departments (one of the largest at MIT) are trying to figure out ways to convince young high school students that EECS is still a great choice for a major. As career prospects, they are offered finance, biology and energy. Jobs in these areas, the students agree, are not going offshore to India.

Finance as one of the leading options for MIT's computer science graduates is one of the disturbing elements in the message. The other is the complete absence of the word entrepreneurship.

Wall Street has taken "quants" from places like MIT, and look at the creative mess they have gotten us into. Now, we want to push more brilliant, high-potential talent into this world? Banking is supposed to be a simple business of lending money. Why does it need MIT engineers? Why should MIT's leaders push their young into this world of unbridled, unadulterated greed, instead of grooming them to become innovators, builders, entrepreneurs, leaders?

A few weeks back, I read a review of my book, Entrepreneur Journeys (Volume One), by Tong Chen, a freshman at MIT. Chen wrote: "As a freshman at MIT, I stumbled upon this book during my Christmas break inadvertently. Never having thought about entrepreneurship or founding my own company, I opened the book with a sense of curiosity and even defiance--I felt strongly about becoming a quant or pursuing similar careers in the finance sector. Isn't entrepreneurship just a euphemism for 'self-employed' or just adventurous people going on in an adrenaline rush?

"And isn't success in this field based solely on luck? After reading just a few pages, however, I became instantly gripped by the inspirations these stories carried. My misgivings for this sector of highly-motivated and responsible businessmen disappeared. Luck only comes after a disciplined foundation of technical expertise and industry analysis. Their pioneering vision, work ethic and long-term insights ... changed my outlook for this economy and even my own career future."

I was stunned. I was moved. I was at the same time elated and angered.

Why has an MIT freshman never considered entrepreneurship as a career option? Why has he never been shown role models of technology entrepreneurs? Why is it that the No. 1 career path that he considers is finance?

What has gone wrong here?

Is it India that has got MIT and the other institutes of its caliber into a panic mode?

India itself is making a concerted effort to promote entrepreneurship. Gaps remain wide when it comes to innovation, but the spirit and the energy of the country is one of hope, certainly not one of panic.

My beloved alma mater, on the other hand, with its unparalleled innovation and entrepreneurship history, infrastructure and stature, wants to lure students into EECS with finance as a carrot.

This is the wrong strategy. Instead, every university, college, community college and high school should make it a point to introduce entrepreneurship as one of the most desirable career paths for America's youth, and set them up with positive role models.

President Obama doesn't help, offering a stimulus package that hardly gives a nod to innovation and entrepreneurship. He's spreading the same fear psychosis that he spoke so fervently against before getting elected.

Yet, there is such an opportunity for the US-India relationship to be one of collaboration around entrepreneurship and innovation. There is no country in the world that has a better infrastructure for innovation than America. And India wants to learn and collaborate. This does not have to be a zero-sum game.