'We want to bring in more VCs to Hyderabad'

FIRST PERSON/J A Chowdary

Assuming top positions is not new for J A Chowdary. As director of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, he played a key role in the spurting up of outsourced software development and the setting up of Indian operations for many multi-national companies.

With a career spanning more than 25 years, he has contributed to several organisations like ISRO, BHEL, Department of Electronics , STPI and Metamor Enterprises Solutions India.

He is presently the chairman of American Chamber of Commerce, Hyderabad chapter, as well as of IEEE, Hyderabad section. He served as the chairperson of the Hyderabad Software Exporters Association, and has been an advisor to IT taskforce for e-governance of AP.

Chowdary has now taken up another task "� of reviving the Hyderabad chapter TiE, which was shelved for almost two years. The chapter will be relaunched on Friday by Vinod Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and TiE.

Chowdary spoke about TiE's future course of action to Business Standard.

What is the motive behind the revival of TiE's Hyderabad chapter?

TiE is a strong group in the Silicon Valley, with 38 chapters worldwide and over 8,000 members. About 17 per cent of the Valley's companies are promoted by persons of Indian origin. Budding entrepreneurs in Hyderabad can learn a lot from their counterparts in the Valley who have been successful.

By networking with them, our entrepreneurs can benefit to a great extent. Since the two-year long recession in the IT industry has ended and business has started picking up, we thought it is the right time to revive the chapter.

What are the chapter's future plans?

We want to organise the Indian version of TiEcon, which is an annual event in the Silicon Valley. We want to bring in venture capital firms to encourage the start-up companies here. Already, some of the VCs are keen on investing in good companies here.

TiE is known for its interactive sessions with eminent IT personalities...

Yes, as a first in the series, we are organising an interactive session with Vinod Khosla on February 20. On February 26, we have lined up another session with Raymond J Lane, the erstwhile president and COO of Oracle Corporation.

More such sessions will follow soon so that our members will be benefited by interacting with such successful personalities.

What is the present strength of TiE in Hyderabad?

We have about 20 chartered members at present. Our target is to increase this to 50 in a year's time. We will also try to rope in ordinary members. The annual fee for the chartered members is Rs 10,000 while it is Rs 1,000 for ordinary members.

Do you foresee any adverse impact for the Indian IT companies because of the H1B visa quota exhaustion?

The decision to cut the H1B visas to 65,000 from the earlier 1,95,000 is, in a way, a blessing in disguise for the Indian companies. The US companies, which cannot afford to lose the cost advantage, will now prefer to get their work done offshore.

Indian companies which have onsite contracts on hand can go for L1 and other business visas instead of H1 Bs.