From Silicon valley to Sivakasi

How Covid 19 made Silicon Valley irrelevant

In both Chinese and Japanese, the word “crisis” is written with two symbols signifying “danger” and “opportunity.” The truth is that every crisis, while deeply unsettling, also contains the seeds of
opportunity. Many organizations that influence our lives and our society today have emerged from global crises. WhatsApp, AirBnB, Slack, Uber and others gave birth from the 2008 global financial crisis.

If we were to define in one word, what we are currently going through, the most prominent word would be “Change” and every change presents a new beginning aka, opportunity . For opportunities to bear fruit, they need the right ecosystem. And the constituents of the ecosystem are disrupted.

Take for example, the Silicon Valley- the world’s largest hotspot for technology & innovation. It is known to have the ingredients that encourage and accelerate new ideas and innovation. The ecosystem here is made up of great educational institutions, large private equity players, technology leaders and others. It is the birthplace
of Apple, Google and other large companies.

Every ingredient that helped create the silicon valley ecosystem is today irrelevant as meetings and collaboration and ecosystems have gone virtual. What this means is that we have the opportunity to replicate the silicon valley ecosystem virtually anywhere.

I am involved with a program to create a compelling eco system to mentor five high potential startups identified and selected by IIM Calcutta. We are creating an enabling environment to let these companies scale up and go global. The program conceptualized and implemented by IIM Calcutta is called Post Covid Venture
Experience (PCVE) and is chaired by Prof. Anju Seth, Director of IIM Calcutta and the first woman director of IIM Calcutta.

As a mentor to these startups, I shall be providing guidance on infusing the required ammunition into their offerings and help them hit the ground running. In addition to my personal involvement, Camomile Healthcare shall provide the required support to these organizations to help reach out to the entire ecosystem.

Camomile Healthcare is proud to be a part of this program and provide its vast expertise in terms of the latest thinking in healthcare innovation, as well make the necessary industry connect to help these start-ups develop into full grown companies. I also intend to reach out to my colleagues, networks and friends like yourself if there are synergies with these startups.

We hope to create silicon valley replicas in India and that could be in Sivakasi or Sullurpet or Solang Valley and it could be the birthplace for the next Apple. It is India’s time and Indian healthcare time.