 | Posted: June 10, 2010 6:42 PM by: Paco Sandejas |
This is an interesting article describing the phenomenon of Brain Gain or Reverse Brain Drain in India. Experienced PhD's and MS holders are returning to start new businesses or join interesting tech companies. They like the better quality of life, the lower cost of living, the return to their culture, among other things. The same is true in China and ideally should happen in the Philippines. Why not?
Great article from Silicon India on
Reverse Brain - West No More a Greener Pasture
by Juby Thomas
Bangalore: For the past few years, Indians returning back has been constantly on rise. Around 60,000 professionals settled in U.S. have returned to India in last year alone. This is almost equal to the number of Indians going to U.S. every year. Constant feeling of getting back to the roots and the decreasing gap in salaries in India and U.S. are some of the major reasons attributed to this trend of reverse brain drain. Statistics report that India is facing nearly 30 percent shortage of IT professionals, providing a lot of opportunities for the Indians to head back.
"Take the IITians for example. If you see 10 years back, 90 percent of the IIT grads left India to grab opportunities in West, but now, almost 85 percent of the IIT passouts prefer to stay back in India," says Jayaram Valliyur, who has returned from U.S. and is currently, working for Amazon India. Valliyur has over twelve years of experience in building large scale distributed systems in the areas of retail banking and marketing automation, and currently working as the Director of Amazon India. He says, "It was my entrepreneurial spirit that brought me back to India. The kind of work we do is similar in both the places, opportunities, money, technology are here in India too. In fact, the growth is much faster. You get opportunities to work with different talent and a chance to interchange with people who are going back and forth."
The extensive experience, technological solutions, quality assurance and commitment to the work have made Indian professionals to create a brand name for themselves. With organizations from west look at India for talent and MNCs trying to open shop here, opportunities are galore for Indian professionals to grow.
Vidya Shastri, Software Development Manager at Amazon, says, "There are two reasons for coming back to India. One is the professional growth and opportunity in an expanding Amazon India and the other is personal reason to be closer to our parents and extended families, and to have my daughter be exposed to these relationships. Professional growth has been steady in India. Personally, it's been a great success moving back to India."
Most of the Indians returning are couples in the age group of 27 to 35 having kids. The major factor cited by most was to protect their kids from the Western culture. Education was also another reason for Indians to move back. There is a common believe that Indian education system is quite good.
"The ultimate reason for my shift is to allow my kids to grow up with my parents. You cannot find a major difference in the work culture. Business is the same and India gives more importance to multitasking whereas U.S. gives importance to projects. There is lot of appreciation for Indian talents. I worked for 9 years in U.S. and after coming back to India I can see a lot of changes in ethics and work culture, from remote centers to developmental centers and rise in leadership talents to managerial developments," says Madan. Director - HR, Amazon
"The U.S. work culture is more 'individualistic', whereas the Indian work culture is 'team oriented'. There is more maturity and experience in the U.S, but more enthusiasm and energy in India. I like the Indian work culture better overall," concludes Vidya.
With the economy bouncing back and growing at a faster pace, rupee becoming stronger, times have changed in India. Today, it is a place conducive to Startups and Entrepreneurship and Indian professionals around the world are waiting for an opportunity to make the most of it.
Witnessing the growing impact of this reverse brain drain that helps them to etch a better footprint globally, Amazon is hiring in U.S. This will open up opportunities for many Indians to relocate to their homeland. To know more click the link below.
http://www.siliconindia.com/events/Amazon11.html
In a thought provoking article, ‘Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China’(TechCrunch,Oct 7,2009) Vivek Wadhwa brought out many pertinent points on Reverse Brain Drain to India and China:
“Why would such talented people voluntarily leave Silicon Valley, a place that remains the hottest hotbed of technology innovation on Earth? Or to leave other promising locales such as New York City, Boston and the Research Triangle area of North Carolina? My team of researchers at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley polled 1203 returnees to India and China during the second half of 2008 to find answers to exactly this question. What we found should concern even the most boisterous Silicon Valley boosters.
We learned that these workers returned in their prime: the average age of the Indian returnees was 30 and the Chinese was 33. They were really well educated: 51% of the Chinese held masters degrees and 41% had PhDs. Among Indians, 66% held a masters and 12% had PhDs. These degrees were mostly in management, technology, and science. Clearly these returnees are in the U.S. population’s educational top tier—precisely the kind of people who can make the greatest contribution to an economy’s innovation and growth. And it isn’t just new immigrants who are returning home, we learned. Some 27% of the Indians and 34% of the Chinese had permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens. That’s right—it’s not just about green cards.
What propelled them to return home? Some 84% of the Chinese and 69% of the Indians cited professional opportunities. And while they make less money in absolute terms at home, most said their salaries brought a “better quality of life” than what they had in the U.S. (There was also some reverse culture shock—complaints about congestion in India, say, and pollution in China.) When it came to social factors, 67% of the Chinese and 80% of the Indians cited better “family values” at home. Ability to care for aging parents was also cited, and this may be a hidden visa factor: it’s much harder to bring parents and other family members over to the U.S. than in the past. For the vast majority of returnees, a longing for family and friends was also a crucial element.
A return ticket home also put their career on steroids. About 10% of the Indians polled had held senior management jobs in the U.S. That number rose to 44% after they returned home. Among the Chinese, the number rose from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China.”( Vivek Wadhwa is a fellow with the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and executive in residence/adjunct professor at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University).
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP)
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After 10 years working in the US and Singapore, I went back to the Philippines to work in a local Automation System Integrator. When I started with them, their sales was just about Php10 million a year. Now, 10 years later, we are making at least PhP 100 Million annually.
I agree that while returnees like me makes less money here in absolute terms, the Philippines offers better quality of life compared to US and Singapore.