Page 135 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

122 << Dot-Coms and the Making of an Overseas Territory

force to Silicon Valley to “gain fresh insights into mapping India’s increas-
ingly infotech-linked future,” and to invite tech entrepreneurs and venture
capitalists to establish stronger economic and cultural ties with their “home-
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land.” Thus, by the late 1990s not only were transnational connections
between the government, the IT industry in India, and the Indian Ameri-
can “techie” community in Silicon Valley well-established, but the idea that
success in IT and the new dot-com economy would enable India to assert
its influence at a global level defined the political and cultural imaginary of
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both India and the diaspora. Where the development of the dot-com sector
in India was concerned, these transnational linkages and imaginaries played
out in three important ways.
One of the most striking features of the development of the dot-com sec-
tor in India is that it has, from the very beginning, been closely associated
with NRIs in Silicon Valley. It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which
Indian “cyberheroes” like Sabeer Bhatia (creator of Hotmail.com) and Vinod
Khosla (cofounder of Sun Microsystems), and networks of Indian IT pro-
fessionals such as The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), referred to as the “Indian
Internet mafia,” captured the imaginations of dot-com entrepreneurs in
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India. Not only did major newspapers and business magazines write exten-
sively about NRI successes in Silicon Valley, never failing to mention that
“40% of all start-ups have an Indian founder,” these cyberheroes’ influence
was felt most directly at major conventions such as India Internet World. The
first India Internet World show was held in August 1998 in New Delhi at
Pragati Maidan (“progress grounds”), a site that hosts a range of trade exhi-
bitions, and attracted over 40,000 Web designers, software developers, and
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a number of “Internet evangelists, futurists and consultants.” While the
first edition in 1998 featured speakers from major IT companies around the
world, in 1999 every session was led by prominent NRIs who recounted their
experiences building successful Internet companies in Silicon Valley and
proceeded to model themselves as consultants to aspiring dot-com entrepre-
neurs in India. 26
Second, these NRIs facilitated access to venture capital, cutting-edge
technical expertise, and the latest managerial know-how for dot-com pro-
fessionals in India. Dossani and Kenney have documented how changes in
financial regulations in 1995 led to the entry of foreign venture capital funds
into India for the first time. Further, as Carol Upadhya notes, “much of the
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capital in these funds came from NRIs, especially wealthy NRI tech entre-
preneurs who did well during the boom years in the U.S. and were flush with
cash.” This initial wave of NRI funding also led to the creation of venture
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capital firms within India, and initiatives such as “India Venture 2000” by