BITSians present a Paper at the International Conference on Entrepreneurship 2008, Malaysia

June 15, 2008 - PRLog -- The theme of the conference "Towards Developing Global Entrepreneurship Societies" was chosen to stimulate and enhance knowledge in the vibrant field of entrepreneurship in order to develop an entrepreneurship culture and environment among societies so as to fuel economic growth and employment creation. The event was kick started by a scintillating speech by Tan Sri Dato' Muhammad ali Hashim, CEO of Johor Corporation, a state owned two billion dollar entity in Malaysia.

The conference provided a platform for both academicians and practitioners alike to share their knowledge and experiences to address the core theme of building entrepreneurship societies. With 104 quality papers from across the world in 5 academic areas within two days by academic and professional communities, the conference was well received and was a grand success.

With the active support and sponsorship from SATYAM Computer Services,  Manoj Vasudevan, an alumnus of BITS Pilani and Vaibhav Soni, a fourth year student of BITS Pilani representing India showcased at the International conference on entrepreneurship, a paper titled - "An Empirical Analysis on Sustainable Grass Root Development via Rural Tech Parks".  

The inspiration behind this study was GramIT, the pioneers in the rural BPO space which is an initiative by the Byrraju Foundation. The theme of GramIT - SMART Sourcing or Serving markets and accelerating rural transformation has laid the foundation for many other rural BPOs to mushroom in the country including SourcePilani (http://www.sourcepilani.com) based in Pilani, Rajasthan.

Since this paper revolved around two working models - GramIT and SourcePilani, and had practical as well as business and social connotations, it was well received by the audience and increased the visibility of GRAMIT and SourcePilani at the global level. Scholars and entrepreneurs present in the conference agreed that parallels could be drawn based on the GRAMIT/SourcePilani model and be applied to other emerging economies in Asia.

The paper talked about the BPO industry boom in India and how it has become a strategic tool for companies across the globe to increase their cost effectiveness as well as improve their quality standards. It then proceeded to describe the evolving business challenges faced by the industry today and how that has led to an opportunity - Rural BPOs.

With the urban firms constantly looking for alternatives to cuts costs and battling attrition due to stiff competition, they could see an opportunity to leverage rural talent and resources. IT/BPO services could now be delivered from villages which meant extension of the IT/BPO industry landscape into towns and villages thus enhancing livelihood opportunities for community members and help bring about a reverse migration trend from cities to villages. The paper then proposed a conceptual model - Rural Tech Park that would have a capacity to generate employment for a 1000 rural people across various IT/BPO industry verticals.

The paper also presented a detailed study and an empirical analysis that was carried out in the township of Pilani, Rajasthan and adjoining rural areas, in order to identify and scope feasibility factors for setting up a Rural Tech park in Pilani. This was done in terms of social, economic and institutional factors like rural dynamics, rural talent pool, rural infrastructure, rural resources, rural orderliness, government policies etc.

In order to evaluate the potentiality and business feasibility of a Rural Tech park in Pilani, the data collected was used to create a viability evaluation model that tells how viable it will be to set up a Rural Tech park in terms of sustainability and profitability. A composite index score was found using the viability model that suggested Pilani as a profitable location to set up a rural tech park.

“The essence of the whole paper was to provide a platform and a solution to corporate companies by providing a viability model that would facilitate and capacitate their CSR initiatives through setting of Rural Tech parks.

Ultimately, it boils down to grass root development that can be made sustainable by tapping into a strong business case.”, says Proud to be a BITSian Manoj who currently heads SourcePilani, a rural BPO based in Pilani.

About BITS Pilani: One among the top ranking universities in India today, Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani which has the reputation of pioneering the online examinations for admissions through the pathbreaking BITSAT and setting a benchmark in industry university collaborations offers degrees in various disciplines presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa campuses and in the short future at Hyderabad campus apart from an array of work integrated learning programmes for HRD of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates. BITSAA is the alumni associtaion of the Institute whose alumni are spread across the globe from Australia to America.

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Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani Rajasthan is a Deemed University (established under section 3 of the UGC Act. 1956 under notification no. F.12-23/63.U-2 dated 18th June, 1964) running educational programmes both on-campus as well as off-campus, offering degrees at all three-tiers, namely, Integrated First Degree, Higher Degree and PhD.

Website: www.bits-pilani.ac.in