The Friday interview: Nandan Nilekani, the 'Bill Gates of Bangalore', with a social conscience to match | Business | The Guardian

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The man who inspired the slogan "the world is flat" has a small revision to make in the light of recent events. "The world has got flattened," says Nandan Nilekani, chairman of Indian technology giant Infosys.

The "Bill Gates of Bangalore" - as he became known to star-struck American commentators - first served as inspiration to Thomas Friedman when the New York Times columnist wrote that bible of globalisation, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, way back in 2005. Then, as now, at the epicentre of the Indian IT outsourcing boom, Infosys and its charismatic co-founder seemed the embodiment of the optimistic mood. Soaring world trade, the endless march of the internet and a common language (jargon-inflected English) were ironing out political and geographical divisions around the world.

It all feels an age ago, sitting over a pot of tea in a deserted London hotel foyer. Global trade has collapsed, protectionism is on the rise and the banking crisis has national governments rushing to resurrect control over international business. But Nilekani insists the analysis still holds. "Because the world was flat, we all got flattened: the crisis moved around the world faster," he says in that enigmatic way that visionary businessmen get away with. Whether he means we were all just flattened to the ground by the financial earthquake at the same time, or irreversibly rolled smooth by the progressive force of globalisation, is left unspoken.

India (and Infosys) have not been immune from the earthquake. The stockmarket has crashed and one of Nilekani's main competitors, Satyam, has been caught up in a huge accounting scandal. But the optimism that greeted both China and India's historic re-entry into the world economy remains. India's banking system was heavily regulated and avoided the worst of the ...

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/24/nanden-nilekani-technology-infosys

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/24/nanden-nilekani-technology-infosys