India's
Communists Courting IT Companies
A communist-run state in India wants to cash in on
the country's lucrative and ever-expanding technology
boom. Raymond Thibodeaux reports from Thiruvananthapuram,
better known by its anglicized name, Trivandrum, the
capital of Kerala State on the southwestern tip of India.
Dozens of animators at Toonz Animation work late hours
to produce about 30 minutes of cartoons per month
These are self-described technology geeks at Toonz Animation,
one of many high-tech companies in this campus known
as Technopark in Trivandrum, the capital of India's
Kerala State.
The atmosphere here at Toonz Animation, and across
the campus, bristles with energy and creativity and
youth. Kerala's fledgling technology industry appears
to be the domain of the under-25 set. The workers' vitality
is undimmed by countless hours of sitting at computers
writing software or drawing cartoon characters, like
the ones from The Adventures of Hanuman.
That is an original series from Toonz, which also does
computer animation projects for dozens of Western studios,
including U.S. giants Disney and Paramount.
Hanuman, a mythical Hindu monkey-god is probably one
of the first cartoon heroes to attain superhuman strength
by meditation and yoga. His archrival is Rock Shasa,
a billionaire demon in double-breasted suits who uses
his wealth to crush Hanuman and the forces of good.
Hari Varma is director of operations at Toonz. Like
many of the tech companies here, Toonz is expanding
at almost superhuman speed. Toonz plans to double its
production capacity within the next three years.
"When we're talking about animation, there are
different ways of doing that business. There can be
games. We are starting production of gaming and the
content and software programming for games," explained
Varma. "And then we have got live-action filmmaking
along with special effects. There can be medical animation
happening - medical animation where the operations are
done virtually. So many possibilities are there."
And there are so many possibilities for the 125 tech
companies at Technopark, an office park owned by the
state government. About 16,000 information technology
professionals work at Technopark designing software,
operating call centers and handling back office support.
That number is expected to double in five years as Kerala
lures more high-tech business from abroad.
Kerala's tech industry has brought in about $60 million
a year for the past two years, a sliver of India's estimated
$50 billion technology boom.
Listen to Thibodeaux report (mp3)
Radhakrishnan Nair, Technopark's chief executive, says
that is going to change.
Nair says that with many I.T. companies in India's
other tech corridors - Bangalore, New Delhi and Chennai
- experiencing problems such as crowded roads and shortages
of skilled labor, a growing number of companies are
turning to Trivandrum.
"Trivandrum has a large pool of resources and
technical resources in terms of manpower because of
the traditional nature of Trivandrum being an academic
and research and development city," explained Nair.
"The cost of manpower is much lower than in other
established places like Bangalore and Chennai, maybe
by 50 to 60 percent. The cost of living is much lower
and the quality of life is one of the best in the country."
| Outsourcing
Partners at Kochi |
Software Companies Trivandrum |
Cost Advantage |
| Start
Business in Kerala |
Software Companies Kochi | Kerala's
IT Policy|
|
Technology Focus | |
