NEW DELHI -- The single most important trend unfolding in the world today is globalization -- the distribution of cheap tools of communication and innovation that are wiring together the world's citizens, governments, businesses, terrorists and mountaintops -- and it is going to a whole new level. In India alone, some 15 million new cell phone users are being added each month.
Having traveled to both China and India in the last few weeks, here's a scary thought I have: What if -- for all the hype about China, India and globalization -- they're actually underhyped? What if these sleeping giants are just finishing a 20-year process of getting the basic technological and educational infrastructure in place to become innovation hubs and we haven't seen anything yet?
Here's an example of why I ask these questions. It's a typical Indian startup I visited in a garage in South Delhi, EKO India Financial Services. Its founders, Abhishek Sinha and his brother Abhinav, began with a small insight -- that low-wage Indian migrant workers flocking to Delhi from poorer states like Bihar had no place to put their savings and no secure way to send money home to their families. India has relatively few bank branches for a country its size, so many migrants stuff money in their mattresses or send cash home through traditional "hawala," or hand-to-hand networks.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Opinion: Thomas L. Friedman: India poised to become world hub for innovation - San Jose Mercury News
Author: Thomas L. Friedman
