The outpouring of support for the teenager who was arrested in Texas — after authorities mistook the home-made clock he brought to school for a bomb — is rooted in the American love for tools and thingamajigs. The police excess violated a very basic American creed: let kids tinker, regardless of whether they become tailor or soldier or spy. From Dave Hewlett and Bill Packard, whose messing with gizmos and gadgetry in their garage led to HP, and indeed the term ‘garage start-up’, to Bill Gates and Paul Allen, whose mucking with computers and programming resulted in an operating system and a giant corporation, America’s world domination is built on curiosity and enterprise.
This is particularly true of Silicon Valley, the world’s tech crucible and an entrepreneurial microcosm that has opened its arms to the world. Its eco-system nurtures immigrant initiative and is also enriched by it. Indeed, one of the first internet memes to emerge after the Texas episode showed a young Steve Jobs, son of a Syrian immigrant (his biological father was Abdulfattah Jandali), trifling with some electronic equipment. The irony-rich caption reads, “An Arab-looking man in his garage…building what appears to be a bomb.”
Small wonder Ahmed Mohammed won instant support from the likes of President Barack Obama to engineers at MIT, NASA, and a range of Silicon Valley tech companies. They recognize one of America’s great strengths — creative exuberance and freedom. Starchy Indian babus and netas who will descend in droves on the Bay Area next week should note this. And should they make a sortie to Fry’s, a local electronic outlet, they’ll even find a typical wellspring that nourishes the Valley’s spirit — the store sells not just finished TV, computers, and other white goods, but also rows and rows of motherboards, chips, circuits, vacuum tubes and sundry peripherals.
Originally a grocery store, the moment Fry’s began stocking computers and assorted electronic gee-gaws is generally recognized as the moment the PC was born and the Valley took off. Such DIY (Do It Yourself) culture, visible in outlets ranging from Ikea to Home Depot, is almost totally lacking in India, notwithstanding our glorification of jugaad, a byword for shoddy, makeshift solutions. The egalitarian, innovative spirit of America, along with the academic interface and capital backing, is why some 90% of devices in homes across the world are ‘Made in USA’ (even if it owns only the intellectual property now).
For nearly half a century after Independence, our modest or at best middle-class upbringing in India did not afford us the luxury of even fiddling the radio dial, let alone taking apart the sole refrigerator or TV at home (I once got a hiding for dismantling my mother’s sewing machine). Compounding this, there were “brahminical’’ injunctions about physical labour; such grunt work was meant for the working class, not cerebral elites. Many Indians are hamstrung to this day by the handicap of not having gotten their hands dirty. While boilerplate graduates of the Indian system (notably present company) have to call Plumber Joe ($56 an hour) for any small problem, many of our American counterparts can rip out an entire bathroom, tub and tiling, pot and plumbing, and rebuild it — for fun.
Much of this ethos comes from the education system, which is why the Texas school that needlessly fingered Ahmed is copping such criticism. For all the exaggerated moping about its decline, US colleges remain the hotbed of innovation, attracting nearly a million foreign students every year. The generous funding of higher education, from both public and private funds, is one reason why Americans, including many immigrant students, continue to provide breakthrough technology to the world. From the first internet browser, which came from Marc Andreessen’s work at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, to Google, which was derived from the Stanford University work of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, to Facebook, which emerged from Mark Zuckerberg’s work at Harvard, American academia remains fertile and fecund.
Indeed, the internet itself was birthed in a research program initiated by DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, attesting to the role government can play. While our self-congratulatory media often glorifies NRI billionaires flush with paper money, few noticed that early this decade, both DARPA, with a $3-billion budget, and the National Science Foundation (NSF), whose $7-billion budget funds fundamental research in science and engineering, were headed by administrator-engineers of Indian origin — Dr Arati Prabhakar and Dr Subra Suresh respectively. If New Delhi is going to throw money at the problem of its system not producing innovation, it is best funnelled into the education system — from universities to academic institutions. The work done here is what turns up in the silicon crucibles of the world where venture money and entrepreneurial talent take over.
This is particularly true of Silicon Valley, the world’s tech crucible and an entrepreneurial microcosm that has opened its arms to the world. Its eco-system nurtures immigrant initiative and is also enriched by it. Indeed, one of the first internet memes to emerge after the Texas episode showed a young Steve Jobs, son of a Syrian immigrant (his biological father was Abdulfattah Jandali), trifling with some electronic equipment. The irony-rich caption reads, “An Arab-looking man in his garage…building what appears to be a bomb.”
Small wonder Ahmed Mohammed won instant support from the likes of President Barack Obama to engineers at MIT, NASA, and a range of Silicon Valley tech companies. They recognize one of America’s great strengths — creative exuberance and freedom. Starchy Indian babus and netas who will descend in droves on the Bay Area next week should note this. And should they make a sortie to Fry’s, a local electronic outlet, they’ll even find a typical wellspring that nourishes the Valley’s spirit — the store sells not just finished TV, computers, and other white goods, but also rows and rows of motherboards, chips, circuits, vacuum tubes and sundry peripherals.
Originally a grocery store, the moment Fry’s began stocking computers and assorted electronic gee-gaws is generally recognized as the moment the PC was born and the Valley took off. Such DIY (Do It Yourself) culture, visible in outlets ranging from Ikea to Home Depot, is almost totally lacking in India, notwithstanding our glorification of jugaad, a byword for shoddy, makeshift solutions. The egalitarian, innovative spirit of America, along with the academic interface and capital backing, is why some 90% of devices in homes across the world are ‘Made in USA’ (even if it owns only the intellectual property now).
For nearly half a century after Independence, our modest or at best middle-class upbringing in India did not afford us the luxury of even fiddling the radio dial, let alone taking apart the sole refrigerator or TV at home (I once got a hiding for dismantling my mother’s sewing machine). Compounding this, there were “brahminical’’ injunctions about physical labour; such grunt work was meant for the working class, not cerebral elites. Many Indians are hamstrung to this day by the handicap of not having gotten their hands dirty. While boilerplate graduates of the Indian system (notably present company) have to call Plumber Joe ($56 an hour) for any small problem, many of our American counterparts can rip out an entire bathroom, tub and tiling, pot and plumbing, and rebuild it — for fun.
Much of this ethos comes from the education system, which is why the Texas school that needlessly fingered Ahmed is copping such criticism. For all the exaggerated moping about its decline, US colleges remain the hotbed of innovation, attracting nearly a million foreign students every year. The generous funding of higher education, from both public and private funds, is one reason why Americans, including many immigrant students, continue to provide breakthrough technology to the world. From the first internet browser, which came from Marc Andreessen’s work at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, to Google, which was derived from the Stanford University work of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, to Facebook, which emerged from Mark Zuckerberg’s work at Harvard, American academia remains fertile and fecund.
Indeed, the internet itself was birthed in a research program initiated by DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, attesting to the role government can play. While our self-congratulatory media often glorifies NRI billionaires flush with paper money, few noticed that early this decade, both DARPA, with a $3-billion budget, and the National Science Foundation (NSF), whose $7-billion budget funds fundamental research in science and engineering, were headed by administrator-engineers of Indian origin — Dr Arati Prabhakar and Dr Subra Suresh respectively. If New Delhi is going to throw money at the problem of its system not producing innovation, it is best funnelled into the education system — from universities to academic institutions. The work done here is what turns up in the silicon crucibles of the world where venture money and entrepreneurial talent take over.
With Due Acknowledgement to TOI
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