Chetan Bhagat takes centre stage at Bengaluru Tech Summit

Bengaluru: Author and columnist Chetan Bhagat took centre stage at the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2021 to moderate the plenary awards session.

His participation invited some sweet banter as the proceedings started a bit late probably due to the moderate to the heavy downpour in Bengaluru on Thursday. The issue of Bengaluru's vehicular traffic invited attention and laughter all around.

The atmosphere was one of excitement among the IT start-up entrepreneurs who were trying to make their presence felt in the midst of the India's young novelist. There were moments of fun about the fillip that the start-ups got and questions were asked of such investors.

The speakers made it a point to express how the Bengaluru environment and IT ecosystem were different from the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, Bhagat had some anecdotes to share about his life, dreams, and the values that enterprises followed besides reminiscing his younger days in college. He invited entrepreneurs to share their success stories. Bhagat said he was excited that Bengaluru was home to 36 unicorn companies and was keen to know how the city contributed to their successes.

Prashanth Prakash, chairman of the vision group of start-ups in the Karnataka government, said the State is known for its start-ups and attributed the success to the culture of the place.

"Irrespective of the political party in power, the government is industry-friendly and the government has pioneered in establishing the vision group and there is no other city in the country such as Bengaluru in this aspect," he said.

Successful start-up entrepreneurs Sujit Kumar and Harshal Mathur echoed the sentiment. They said they had relocated to Bengaluru from Delhi and Jaipur because of the investor-friendly environment.

Lingaraju Sahukar said his company with 19,000 employees was spun off as a start-up venture.

Bhagat said Mumbai enjoyed a good cinema culture where people would show Shah Rukh or Salman Khan's house but Bengaluru has an industrial friendly culture where probably people would run to see Infosys founder Narayana Murthy's house or Wipro Chairman Azim Premji's abode. He said the cab driver who brought him to the hotel worked at a unicorn company.

When CBhagat fired a question at Science and Technology Minister C.N. Aswathnarayan, he shot back saying: "Money should stay with the right people and that is when it is bound to grow. Our government is identifying such people and rewarding them. It is our duty. The State progresses with such people. The new education policy lays emphasis on the development of skills."

Ashwathnarayan said the Karnataka government intends to conduct the Tech Summit in San Francisco. At this juncture, the focus of attention shifted to Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan who was part of the State's IT unicorn company.