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Good afternoon. It is an honour to deliver the Dewang Mehta Memorial lecture in this
very special year that marks the 50th birth anniversary of Dewang Mehta…a person who
is very special as he has laid the strong edifice for NASSCOM and the Indian IT industry.
I have been at NASSCOM now for the last five years and it is interesting that even
today many people I meet remember Dewang very fondly or refer to NASSCOM as the
Dewang Mehta organization. A small indication of the lasting impact he left in a decade
at NASSCOM and the lives he touched.
Mr. Vittal who was the Secretary IT in the ‘90s describes Dewang as the Hanuman
of the Indian software industry — an individual who almost single-handedly crossed
insurmountable barriers for a purpose.
Many of you may or may not have heard about Dewang and I would use this opportunity
today to share insights from his life that are relevant for all of us, along with the
opportunities that lie ahead in the technology domain.
I met Dewang first in the mid-‘90s, when I was running Digital Globalsoft, an era when
the technology industry in India was very nascent.The immediate things that stayed with
me were his affable nature, passion and creativity. It is the unique combination of these
skills that laid the foundation of his successful career. As young students all of you will
embark on your career journey this year or a couple of years later – do remember that all
of us have some unique skills that define who we are. It is important that we identify them
and make them our strength.
Leaders are born and not created is a much debated statement. I firmly believe that leaders
can be created — you need motivation, determination and a belief in self. A competitive
workplace can be a great leveler —while academic excellence is important, so is the ability
to think differently very important. What stands out from Dewang’s short but eminently
impactful life is the following traits that we can emulate:
1.
Build a dream and then make it happen
“
Roti, kapda, makaan, bijli and bandwidth” was Dewang Mehta’s war cry in the ‘90s as
India lacked broadband, internet, connectivity — all of which we take for granted today.
His ability to simplify the dream, make it a message that all stakeholders can relate to —
society, government — got the right attention and made things happen.
He travelled endlessly across the globe — organising Software India seminars, writing,
wooing the media, government and making this dream part of their plan and action.
When NASSCOM launched the 50 billion USD vision – in the late ‘90s – many skeptics
felt that this was one more of Dewang’s lofty projections. However, it was this aspirational
vision that the industry took as their goal and in the decade ahead helped achieve it.
Stretch targets are important for all of us to realize our true potential.
2.
Think out of the box, innovation is critical
The image of Dewang Mehta sitting on an elephant in the crowded market of Nehru Place
crushing pirated CDs and communicating the message of “NASSCOM puts the heaviest
foot down on software piracy” is hard to forget.This was widely covered by international
media and the country which was struggling with an image of weak laws suddenly was
seen in the global landscape as tackling this issue aggressively.
Similarly, outsourcing in those days was quite a difficult terminology for global customers.
Dewang’s marketing skills coined the word ‘Smartsourcing’ and used it relentlessly to
communicate to global audiences why outsourcing to India was a smart strategy.
He talked about video email in the time when the mobile costs in the country touched
Late Shri. Dewang Mehta Memorial Lecture 2012
