There have been many occasions in my life when I bit my tongue and later felt good that I exercised my option to remain silent in a situation that otherwise could have resulted in a big mess. However, there are a handful where I regretted such a decision. Today is one of those.
I was at my first ever entrepreneurial round table event organized by fellow Booth alumni and current students in Naperville area regularly. This time the guest speaker was Mr. Russ Shields, a Booth alumna from 1960s. Not many people may know him but his biggest accomplishment till date is getting Nokia to buy Navteq (the mapping company) for $8bn+ in an all cash deal. That is also the reason why I chose to show up at this roundtable event today after work. Having worked at Navteq myself as a consultant, I was curious to meet the man, little did I know that this meeting will keep me up till 2 am in the night.
After making his not so impressive speech on his biography as an entrepreneur, Mr Shields opened up for questions. Unimpressed as I was with his talk that he delivered mostly staring down at his empty right palm, I clearly did not have any questions for him. However, I had chosen to sit on the front table and call it my Indian habit to show deference to elderly people or my lack of fortitude, I decided to stay through the Q&A.
Mr. Shields rambled on various answers that I kept listening to in the hopes of finding any one thing that I could take back for my $15 and precious time investment in this conference. It finally came when a gentleman sitting on my table asked Shields why he chose China for software development and not Latin America or Europe. This gentleman even went on to add the risk to intellectual property arising out of operating in China. In response to this Shields said China is historically very advanced in technology that not many people know of... Nothing wrong so far .. then he goes (I think) glancing at me .."India can produce accounting and billing software but nothing technically advanced ever came out of India historically". This fumed me, though he quickly moved on to pontificate on his knowledge of Chinese history etc. I kept thinking if I should immediately walk away from there or give him a befitting reply. I was thinking whether to mention Aryabhatta, Charak, Bhaskara, the Rama Setu from Ramayana and what not to slap him with the historical proof of immense contributions of the great Indian civilization in the fields of science, maths, and technology. While I was going through these thoughts the moderator announced this is the last question for the Round table and in the fit of the moment I got my a$$ off the chair and briskly walked out of there cursing Shields and myself for not saying anything.
I had to have an outlet though so I logged in to Booth portal after a year or so may be, after two failed attempts at login with wrong password I finally got in. Searched for Russ Shields on community directory and found his work email. I just sent him the below email.
******
Mr. Shields,
I am a Booth alumn from 2010 and was present at the round table today. Having worked at Navteq during 2003-05, I came to listen to you with high expectation of learning from your rich entrepreneurial experience. However, I am deeply hurt and disappointed by your anti-India remark in response to the question about your decision to invest in China. The person who posed the question did not even solicit your opinion on India's historical contribution to technology, he rather wanted to know why you did not choose South America or European regions to outsource SEI software development work. You chose to go on a tangent and made a blatantly incorrect statement "Nothing technologically advanced ever came out of India. India can produce accounting and billing software..". As a proud Indian I am deeply hurt by this historically incorrect statement. India along with China is the oldest continuing civilization on Earth today. I am shocked that you take pride in your academic background in history but have scant knowledge of the great Indian civilization.
India has pioneered advances in scientific, mathematical, and technological fields that the world is using till today. For example Aryabhatta 476 to 533 AD used the concept of heliocentricism to calculate the speed of planets, provided advanced astronomy, algebra and trigonometry concepts. Mind you Aryabhatta did not even come up with heliocentricism, he used the concept which means Hindus have believed in Heliocentricism for much longer than Aryabhatta's time. Hindu scripture Ramayana talks about a bridge on the ocean built by Lord Rama, that bridge till today stands between India and SriLanka overr the Indian ocean exactly as described in Ramayana, such act of fine engineering more than 3000 years ago dwarfs many modern day engineering projects. Similarly Acharya Charak born 300 BC is the first physician to have undstood the process of digestion, and metabolism, and he first explained the concept of immunity. I could go on forever as there is no end to the contributions of Indian civilization to modern day sciences. To say the least I myself worked at your company Navteq before it went public and after as a consultant through a leading offshoring firm Infosys from India, the software we delivered and tested was critical to the launch of technology enhancements at Navteq under the project codes "Bison" and "PS3" at that time. Navteq did not hire just one Indian consulting firm, they engaged three of them during 2003-05; Infosys, Patni Computer Systems, and Applabs. You must have sound business reasons to go to China but that does not give you the moral authority to make blanket disrespectful statements against the Indian community.
I urge you to take back your incorrect and impetuous remark that demeans India and communicate your apologies to the audience present at the round table today. Such remarks do not augur well for the roundtable and is not in keeping with the culture of mutual trust and respect that The Booth School of Business promotes and fosters.
Regards,
Ajay
Booth 2010 graduate
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Even after sending this I am not happy because I am not sure if he will ever read it. Therefore I decided to write my first ever blog. The two things I took away from today's experience 1) Never go and listen to Russ Shields ever again 2) Never keep quiet when some one says anything factually incorrect against India.
Good night.
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