This is “the best time to be in India” particularly for people in the technology sector, said Nasscom’s new chairperson, Sindhu Gangadharan, while mentioning that India leads on the world AI stage both in terms of talent and domain skills. In this transformative era of Artificial Intelligence, it puts the country on a very strong footing.
In a wide-ranging interview to PTI, Gangadharan touched upon a broad range of core concerns-from the importance of mental and social well-being in the workplace to the economic implications of AI and GenAI-and helped assuage apprehensions over job displacement from the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI).
She spoke highly of the fact that organizations should give a high importance to the psychological and physiological well-being of workforces and create such a culture within organizational functions by formulating policies, practices, and interest groups.
This comment by Gangadharan assumes importance in the backdrop of the tragic death of a young employee at one of the prominent consultancy firms that led to social media outcry and triggered intense debate in corporate India about high stress at workplaces.
Gangadharan also referred to India’s increasing clout as a “GCC capital of the world”, the country’s proven strengths in AI skills and talent, and underlined that she is “optimistic and bullish” about the future of the Indian tech industry.
“India has been pretty transparent about its strengths, of how we lead the charge when it comes to technology and it has demonstrated it as well.(but) we can’t rest on our laurels. It is really up to us to make sure that we play to our strengths on talent and skilling. I am very optimistic and bullish about the Indian technology industry,” she said when asked about challenges she foresees in the short to mid-term for India’s over USD 254 billion IT sector, including impact, if any, of US election results.
A person who, in the last three years, has been credited with growing the SAP Labs India’s revenues by 19 per cent year-on-year to over Rs 2,000 crore, Ganga, named recently as the new chairperson of Nasscom, is also the force behind the SAP Labs India in her role as managing director of the biggest R&D hub for German software maker SAP outside its headquarters.
She said, on the question of very broad apprehensions about AI leading to job losses in the IT industry, the productivity gains unlocked by new-age technologies is going to drive further innovation and allow people to focus on solving more important problems.
She said that India will remain the place where companies look for “talent that helps them to go through such transformations”.
“So I don’t see it as displacement (of jobs). With all the productivity gains, every user can focus on their core competencies even more,” she said.
In a wide-ranging interview to PTI, Gangadharan touched upon a broad range of core concerns-from the importance of mental and social well-being in the workplace to the economic implications of AI and GenAI-and helped assuage apprehensions over job displacement from the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI).
She spoke highly of the fact that organizations should give a high importance to the psychological and physiological well-being of workforces and create such a culture within organizational functions by formulating policies, practices, and interest groups.
This comment by Gangadharan assumes importance in the backdrop of the tragic death of a young employee at one of the prominent consultancy firms that led to social media outcry and triggered intense debate in corporate India about high stress at workplaces.
Gangadharan also referred to India’s increasing clout as a “GCC capital of the world”, the country’s proven strengths in AI skills and talent, and underlined that she is “optimistic and bullish” about the future of the Indian tech industry.
“India has been pretty transparent about its strengths, of how we lead the charge when it comes to technology and it has demonstrated it as well.(but) we can’t rest on our laurels. It is really up to us to make sure that we play to our strengths on talent and skilling. I am very optimistic and bullish about the Indian technology industry,” she said when asked about challenges she foresees in the short to mid-term for India’s over USD 254 billion IT sector, including impact, if any, of US election results.
A person who, in the last three years, has been credited with growing the SAP Labs India’s revenues by 19 per cent year-on-year to over Rs 2,000 crore, Ganga, named recently as the new chairperson of Nasscom, is also the force behind the SAP Labs India in her role as managing director of the biggest R&D hub for German software maker SAP outside its headquarters.
She said, on the question of very broad apprehensions about AI leading to job losses in the IT industry, the productivity gains unlocked by new-age technologies is going to drive further innovation and allow people to focus on solving more important problems.
She said that India will remain the place where companies look for “talent that helps them to go through such transformations”.
“So I don’t see it as displacement (of jobs). With all the productivity gains, every user can focus on their core competencies even more,” she said.
Underlining India’s growing prominence in the global tech landscape, she noted that the country has emerged as the GCC capital of the world.
“That’s one huge area of focus that we will continue to have,” she said, adding that India’s Global Capability Centres (GCC) story is one of “phenomenal growth” and one that would entail more hirings as the tally of such centers rises in the country.
“Today, if you look at the number of GCCs in India, we are talking about almost 1,200 GCCs, and that number only works towards growing to over 2,200 as we speak, which also means also the talent that these GCCs will hire, is also significantly going to grow,” Gangadharan said.
India leads the world in AI talent and skills and therefore puts it strongly on the dynamic AI landscape globally.
“If I just look at it from the India lens, I think we can be very proud of the fact that we are number one when it comes to AI talent, number one when it comes to AI skills penetration.it is something where we clearly have an edge.if we have the right focus on making sure our talent is up-to-date when it comes to also having that good combination of technology and domain skills and being able to solve problems in the right way, we definitely have an opportunity to do even more,” she said.
She said close to 16% of the world’s AI talent is from India and that close collaboration between the industry, academia and government, to ensure “solid skilling programmes” would be one of the big priority areas for Nasscom.
She added that the association would parallelly focus on engineering R&D, IP creation from India for the world as well as growth of startups here .
She said, Generative AI is changing the way businesses are operated and leading toward new business models and customer experiences.
“Literally everything is changing because of the power of technology. Today, you can go through a large data set and really be able to zoom into very specific context and guide the user to make decisions very quickly. Also, if you just look at the economic impact that AI is estimated to have in three years we’re talking almost USD 3.5 to USD 4 trillion of economic value that will be added and which I think is massive,” she said.
She underlined: “These sheer numbers underline AI’s ‘transformational power’
“That’s one huge area of focus that we will continue to have,” she said, adding that India’s Global Capability Centres (GCC) story is one of “phenomenal growth” and one that would entail more hirings as the tally of such centers rises in the country.
“Today, if you look at the number of GCCs in India, we are talking about almost 1,200 GCCs, and that number only works towards growing to over 2,200 as we speak, which also means also the talent that these GCCs will hire, is also significantly going to grow,” Gangadharan said.
India leads the world in AI talent and skills and therefore puts it strongly on the dynamic AI landscape globally.
“If I just look at it from the India lens, I think we can be very proud of the fact that we are number one when it comes to AI talent, number one when it comes to AI skills penetration.it is something where we clearly have an edge.if we have the right focus on making sure our talent is up-to-date when it comes to also having that good combination of technology and domain skills and being able to solve problems in the right way, we definitely have an opportunity to do even more,” she said.
She said close to 16% of the world’s AI talent is from India and that close collaboration between the industry, academia and government, to ensure “solid skilling programmes” would be one of the big priority areas for Nasscom.
She added that the association would parallelly focus on engineering R&D, IP creation from India for the world as well as growth of startups here .
She said, Generative AI is changing the way businesses are operated and leading toward new business models and customer experiences.
“Literally everything is changing because of the power of technology. Today, you can go through a large data set and really be able to zoom into very specific context and guide the user to make decisions very quickly. Also, if you just look at the economic impact that AI is estimated to have in three years we’re talking almost USD 3.5 to USD 4 trillion of economic value that will be added and which I think is massive,” she said.
She underlined: “These sheer numbers underline AI’s ‘transformational power’
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