Seminar discusses globalization in India

According to a recent seminar held at Tech, mental labor-jobs that require higher education and advanced skills (such as those in the fields of engineering and information technology)-is becoming increasingly globalized, i.e. outsourced to less developed foreign countries. At the forefront of this movement is India, which is dominating the international market in mental labor.

The seminar was hosted by the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and Ivan Allen College Jan. 19 as part of the Globalization, Innovation and Development speaker series.

Martin Kenney, a professor at the University of California-Davis and a senior project director at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, was the featured speaker.

Kenney gave a presentation titled "Iconic But Not Unique: India and the Globalization of Mental Labor."

According to Kenney, India is moving up in value in the area of mental labor, doing sophisticated data mining, standardizing it and bringing metrics into it.

"This is the cutting edge of the transformation of where intellectual and mental work is around the world. Everybody is now talking about this mental labor," Kenny said.

With the global redistribution of this labor, many nations are entering the market for it, including China, Mexico and the Philippines. According to Kenney, these nations are competing to provide this type of service, but they are only at the beginning of such work.

In spite of these competitors, Kenney said that "India is becoming the dominant location [for outsourcing mental labor]."

Some companies began to depend on off-shoring mental labor in India in the 1970s and later began to establish small labs that succeeded there. According to Kenney, the Indian service provision ecosystem is growing rapidly.

"What is so fascinating about it is how fast it has grown," Kenney said.

Apparently, companies benefit from outsourcing to India because talented, underemployed engineers are available there at extremely low costs and the country is an unregulated sector with tax breaks for exports-factors that are attractive to entrepreneurs.

Kenney emphasized the shift from low-end to high-end engineering among Indian engineers and software firms who are realizing their potential and taking control of their roles within the global market for mental labor.

Demand is extremely high for this type of work in India and many of these engineers are able to move up the value ladder within their companies quickly.

According to Kenney, companies that are off-shoring in India are now collaborating with the engineers there, asking for input and expert advice on programs rather than dictating the specifications for development and leaving them out of the design process.

In other words, companies around the globe are coming to Indian engineers more and more for their proficiency and skill.

Many successful brand names in technology are coming from India now. Indian software and service industries continue to grow and expand in addition to the offshore operations from the U.S. and other countries that are taking place there.

According to Kenney, the growth of software firms in India is significantly changing the global composition of technological entrepreneurship.

"Indians are coming into the world in a completely different way. India is really unique," Kenney said.

India's developing role as the global center for mental labor has a very real impact on Tech students.

Top U.S. engineers are moving to India to develop their own start-up companies. Clearly, many students will have to be aware of this important shift in the global configuration of mental labor because it will affect job opportunities for them now and in the near future.

"Since we have a large Indian population here, it directly affects Tech students," said Hassan Chaudhri, a graduate student in International Affairs.

"Students will have to start thinking about how to compete globally," Chaudhri said.

Otherwise, the outsourcing of mental labor will continue to drain jobs from the U.S.