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the language barrier, video-streamed content and assisted access.
The technology industry is also undergoing global disruptions and presents both
opportunities and challenges for all of you — to be entrepreneurs, leverage technology-
enabled businesses and become success leaders in the future. Cloud computing, social
media, analytics, mobility are key trends that are changing the face of computing.
All of you represent a ‘native to technology’ population: you have grown up with mobiles,
computers and now iPads and should now lead the journey for India from a services
innovation hub to a product innovation hub too.
The flat world is a reality today, and, as professionals of tomorrow, we must invest in
learning new languages ( Japanese, Chinese, Spanish); understand and blend divergent
cultures and leverage social media to integrate with the global youth. All of us don’t need
to build new ideas; cross collaboration and diversity also drives innovation.
To conclude, if you are looking at what defines a visionary leader, I would state the
following:
•
Visionary leaders have unusually high comfort in departure from the past
•
They are comfortable with lack of clarity; they have the mind of a path-creator, they
are not path-dependent
•
They are not fazed with the paucity of resources
•
They do not see failure as an option and are not fazed by the possibility of failure
•
They are able to go against popular wisdom and public opinion
•
They seek all data and question all data, including what came from their own mind.
They know that sometimes, facts are the enemy of truth.They must deeply respect
the power of intuition
•
They are not working the vision around current constraints of personal survival
Dewang represented all these and more. He built a vision in 1990 when India was facing
an important economic survival point during the foreign exchange crisis. As future leaders,
I would urge all of you to build the India of tomorrow — be bold with a ‘can do spirit’, be
ethical and work hard and smart.
Thank you all for your time.
Som Mittal,
President, NASSCOM
NASSCOM EC members in NYC at the celebration of Infosys’s listing on
NASDAQ, March 11, 1999
Remembering dewang on the eve of his 50th
birth anniversary, 10th august 2012
The Hanuman of Indian Software
I still recall the shock with which I heard on the morning of 10th April 2001 that at
the prime of his youth, barely touching 40, Dewang Mehta, who was a live wire and
synonymous with the vibrant growth of the Indian Software Industry in the ‘90s was no
more. He passed away in distant Sydney far away from his beloved India about which he
was so proud.
