Forbes India - Tech Conversations

In this episode, Vishal Salvi, chief information security officer and head of cyber security practice at Infosys, talks about the increasing complexity of cybersecurity as it often evolves separately from the business-oriented technologies and digital solutions used by enterprises. He explains how security is becoming more “sentient” as the need for real-time context increases with the scale of operations of the company’s multinational customers; and how this all adds to the challenge of finding experienced people in this area, making it an evergreen field for any young aspirant.

In this episode, Riya Gangamma, Milind M Mohan, and Pradeep Parthasarathy, co-founders of PupilMesh in Bengaluru, talk about their augmented reality hardware technologies company. The trio started straight out of college, got incubation support at IIMB, won a DRDO programme and got to work on a multi-purpose augmented reality headset. One important application would be as a soldier assistance device. Along the way, they also developed a hands-free navigation aid for two-wheeler drivers, which they are already commercialising in partnership with MapMyIndia.

In this episode, Pari Natarajan, founder and CEO of the consultancy Zinnov, talks about how India’s tech industry is changing. Once seen as the world’s back office, India’s IT services sector today prides itself as a digital transformation partner to the world’s biggest companies. Pari is among the figures who played an important role in the metamorphosis of India’s tech services industry itself. Today, Indian techies are ready for the next phase of this evolution, as every global CIO has an India playbook, he says.

In this episode, Nikhil Ramaswamy and Gokul NA, co-founders of CynLr, talk about how far they’ve come, chasing their dream of building a deep-tech hardware engineering company out of India. The duo has been developing a machine learning and computer-vision-based platform to make industrial robotic arms far more versatile than they are today. Their technology has shown early promise and drawn interest from potential multinational customers. Recently, they launched H.I.V.E, their state-of-the-art R&D centre. They are also only two months away from commercialising their first product.

In this episode, Ashwin Yardi, CEO of Capgemini Technology Services India, talks about how the Covid pandemic validated and boosted the offshore IT outsourcing model. Today it’s more common, even for Capgemini’s European customers to directly engage with engineers in Bengaluru, for example, where the Paris headquartered company has its largest Indian operations, Yardi says. He also talks about how the company, with a track record of growing with big acquisitions, offers a global, multi-cultural opportunity for aspiring young Indians considering the tech services space.

In this episode, Manish Jethani, co-founder and CEO of Hevo Data, talks about what drove him to jump back into entrepreneurship, about two years after selling his first venture to what was then Grofers. With about $43 million in funding from investors including Sequoia, Qualgro and Chiratae, Manish and his friend Sourabh Agarwal are close to $10 million in ARR today at their no-code software platform company that helps businesses quickly build the pathways they need to pull data from different sources together.

In this episode, Rajesh Reddy and Sandesh Paturi, founders of Venwiz, in Bengaluru, talk about how their own experience in figuring out the right vendors for various manufacturing projects validated their idea that there was an opportunity to drag industrial services into the internet age – connecting large buyers with MSME vendors across the country. The duo have raised $8.3 million in Series A funding led by Sorin Investments with existing investors Accel and Nexus Venture Partners joining in. They had previously raised $3 million in seed funding.

In this episode, Debashis Chatterjee, CEO and managing director at LTIMindtree talks about the successful integration of LTI and Mindtree that has resulted in a $3.5 billion IT services enterprise, ready to take on larger rivals for bigger orders, while retaining the characteristics of a smaller, nimbler operator. Chatterjee, widely credited with successfully integrating the two diverse companies, explains why he thinks LTIMindtree has what it takes to become a significantly larger IT provider over the next few years.

In this episode, Rohan Verma, CEO and executive director at CE Info Systems, better known as MapMyIndia, talks about why the company is expanding its hardware products business into the consumer segment, offering sophisticated trackers, ‘navi-tainment’ units and in-helmet, handsfree, smart-navigation assistance. Rohan also talks about how MapMyIndia is becoming an anchor platform for startups to innovate on, building products for both enterprise customers and consumers. One exciting example is a product, currently, under development in collaboration with a startup in Bengaluru, that will combine geospatial data and augmented reality.

In this episode, Keshav Murugesh, group CEO at WNS, talks about every global CEO is trying to figure out how to tap India’s tech services capabilities. This has also opened up opportunities for companies like WNS, which are coming into their own, as multinational billion-dollar revenue businesses, to manage or even take over their clients’ BPM units. Keshav also talks about three recent acquisitions that WNS has made, spending some $320 million, the capabilities they bring, and what the deals show about where the company is headed.