Gurudev(gurudev.goud@gmail.com) Goud
| |
My Visit to Taiwan-First person recap. #
Gurudev Goud Hi BBN'ers,
Presenting a write up on my Taiwan visit, Indian Semiconductor Association is kind enough to host it on their website. This is available in its original form at http://www.isaonline.org/pub-downloadables.html
Here it goes.....
MindTree was part of the five member delegation visiting Taipei the capital of Taiwanto attend the prestigious once a year Semi-Tech Exhibition and various other meetings up with prestigious product manufacturing firms and the worlds leading Semiconductor Fab’s like TSMC, UMC etc. This exhibition was coordinated by ISA (Indian Semiconductor Association). Apart from MindTree, the other members of the delegation included Wipro, Softjin, The Hindu Business Line and HelloSoft. Paddy and I represented MindTree. For a country Republic of China (Taiwan) which was given a bad deal both by United Nations and China its huge neighbor.UN had derecognized Taiwan and recognized China (Peoples Republic of China) and thus Taiwan lost all diplomatic relations with all other countries including India. Our Indian Ambassador is actually called General Secretary of the India-Taipei Association] Taiwan has come a long way in owning more than world’s 50 percent of the world’s Semiconductor business!! The Technology world practically shudders to think of any natural calamity to hit Taiwan, last known incident 15 years back was an earthquake which hit Taiwan and the prices of “memory chips” hit the ceiling.
“Shey Shey”
We landed on a pleasant Taipei morning, i.e. pleasant immigration staff, airport staff and above all pleasant Taiwanese co-passengers who gestured with a pleasant “Shey Shey” Thank-you in Mandarin for each interaction. The drive to the hotel took an hour through a beautiful and hilly terrain and much disciplined peak hour traffic. We saw lots of places with worshiped statues of our own great Indian Buddha. For a country so technological advanced the local Taiwanese knowledge of English is near Zero. We all had to carry the Hotel Business Cards always as the Taxi drivers and others can’t understand until we show them the back of the Hotel business cards which is in Mandarin.
VIP Get together dinner: i.e. VIP’s of Semi-Tech get together for a dinner hosted by Indian Ambassador-This is the first time we had a panoramic view of the tallest building in the world the “The Taiwan 101”, which is 509.2 metres from the ground level. . We saw a breath taking view of Taipei set afire by the beautiful Neons of leading Taiwanese corporations garnishing the well served Taipei district before us.
“Ghaas-bhoos”
Herbivorous Paddy and I munched nuts, leaves and salad dressing served in Titanic style cutlery and manners along with some funny smelling so called vegetarian soup. Our omnivorous hosts pitied our state and thought that Indians are so primitive (!) in the food chain and have so less to relish on !! We thought “do they even know that something called “double benney MTR dosa and hot idly sambhar exists?” Well in Taiwan, we could only think – they could eat !!
Semitech Exhibition Taipei
Grand opening ceremony with the Premier of Taiwan Mr. Su Tseng-chang and TSMC founder and CEO Morris Chang, Dr Chang is considered and respected like JRD Tata in Taiwan. We visited the Hsinchu City, which is like the Bangalore of Taiwan. We were flabbergasted with the Manufacturing capability of TSMC and UMC both heavy weight giants and housed opposite to each other. We were served a delicious packed Veggi lunch which looked like Chicken and Beef. Taiwan is the only country in the world where Vegetarian monks get to relish food made to look and taste like Beef and Chicken and is made of Soya Cheese (Tofu).
After a grueling 2 days of standing at the ISA Booth in the exhibition, all the four of us of knew each others sales pitch very well!! But the emotional bonding was such that each one of us considered each others sales pitch as a “Protected IP” ?
In the evening we were all served with a deeply welcomed piping hot Maharashtrian dinner by Mr. Vijay Gokhale and his Deputy Mr. Alok Dimri at the former’s palatial apartment.
Back to the Pavilion
We both landed in Bangalore with a heavy heart and a strong message “Taiwan, marginally smaller in land mass and half the population that of our own state Karnataka controls the entire semiconductor market of planet earth” and that we cannot live without doing business with the small island which never wanted to flaunt or advertise its tallest building The Taiwan 101 or it Semiconductor manufacturing prowess.
Paddy and I realized that we had in fact visited the most productive and functional country in the world.
Thanks and Regards
Guru
----------------------------------------------
Gurudev R Goud
Director-Global Technology Alliance & Partner Relations
MindTree Consulting Pvt. Ltd.
R&D Services, Phase I, Global Village, RVCE Post, Mysore Road
Bengaluru 59
Web : www.mindtree.com/pr/pr.html
Private Reply to Gurudev(gurudev.goud@gmail.com) Goud (new win) |
