Thomas Friedman's talk - The world is flat

This morning Thomas Friedman, the NY Times columnist and author of books like 'The Lexus and The Olive Tree' and 'The World is Flat' was on the Microsoft campus. He was talking about his latest book 'The World...'. Was quite interesting. He mentioned his trip to Bangalore ( he pronounced it as Bongolore:-) ) and how the internet and fiber optic cables have helped in enhancing globalization and in fact making the 'world flat' . He says the title of the book was inspired by Nandan Nilekani's words to him " The global economic playing field is being leveled.."

It was well attended - I would have liked to see him talk more about outsourcing but he focused on other aspects. Microsoft and other companies of course have understood this a long time ago - we have R&D centres in Hyderabad, Beijing and Cambridge. The important point here is that this is not just outsourcing of cheap work, it is real Research and Development.

On a related note, Manas Mittal and Kanav Abrol from NSIT which finished second in the WESC have received full time job offers from the India Development Center in Hyderabad. This is just fantastic news. When I first spoke to people in Microsoft HR in year 1 of the competition, this was the outcome that I was hoping for. Nothing of course happened in the first year. This year however the folks in India, completely on their own, saw value in what these guys did (they still had to interview etc) and hired them. Maybe the world is really flat:-)

Congrats Manas and Kanav!! Also good luck in your Msft careers - may they be long and successful.

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