NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Startup 17: Ananth Seshan, CMD, Fifth Generation Technologies
Friday April 16, 2010 , 5 min Read
Dr. Ananth Seshan is the Chairman-Managing Director of Fifth Generation Technologies India (P) Ltd. (5G), an intellectual property focussed software product company. It was founded by Ananth in the year 2000 with a vision to become a thought leader in manufacturing and business intelligence products and solutions.
Equipped with a PhD in Robotics and Automation from the University of Toronto, Canada, Ananth has strived all along in his career to apply state-of-the-art academic research to the benefit of the industry. He is a hardcore entrepreneur focused on setting up a technology-based and research-focussed development centre in India despite many barriers and hardships. As the leader of the company, Ananth drives the ideation of new thoughts and concepts that are subsequently engineered into world class products by the 5G engineering team. 5G is one of the first Indian product companies at the turn of the century to have successfully developed and implemented a real-time manufacturing intelligence product way ahead of its times, Enterprise Gateway, which continues to provide significant value to large and major global manufacturing enterprises even today.
The thought leader Ananth shares his views on entrepreneurship with Indian Startup EMERGEOUT initiative by NASSCOM.1. Why did you take up entrepreneurship journey?
Ananth: To fulfill my passion, which is to make a (positive) difference to the community that has contributed to my growth.
2. What keeps you going (how and where do you find your motivation levels)?
Ananth: When I see others around me in my company giving everything they have for the collective growth, constantly questioning themselves, and striving to push themselves to become better all the time, I get inspired.
3. What is your advice to wannabe entrepreneurs in India?
Ananth: Never say die. The real test of an entrepreneur lies in how the following question posed repeatedly by the entrepreneur to himself or herself during ones entrepreneurial journey is answered:"What else am I ready to give up for realizing my dream and passion?"
4. What success means to you and your organization?
Ananth: Success is achieved when consistent self improvement of each and every member of our organization is continuously being transformed into the collective growth of our ecosystem, meaning, our suppliers, customers, and the society at large.
5. What are your learnings from the failures?
Ananth: That I have achieved one more positive movement from "what I did not know that I did not know" to "what I know that I did not know."
Collective transformation of the organization through self-improvement of every member of the organization is what Dr. Ananth is striving for. He has realized his potential as an entrepreneur by building a successful organization that was an early mover in the intellectual property space.
As part of the Indian Startup EMERGEOUT initiative by NASSCOM, 16 entrepreneurs have shared their views. To know what they are, please visit the links given below.
1. Kishore Mandyam of PK4 Software
3. Ajay Sharma of Shristi Software
4. Pallav Nadhani of InfoSoft Global (FusionCharts)
5. Manoj Srivatsava of Hanu Software
7. Sushil Chaudary of Mann-India
9. R. Swaminathan of Matrix Business Solution
10. Suresh Sambandam of OrangeScape
12. Prasad Guntupalli of Attra
16. Yadu and Naresh or Robust Designs
NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave, Chennai, April 30, 2010
NASSCOM EMERGEOUT conclave comes to Chennai on 30 April 2010. With “Nurturing the IT DNA in India’s growth sectors” as its theme, the conclave focuses on sectors that hold relevance to Chennai such as the automotive sector, in addition to opportunities that exist in the UID space, and workshops on marketing, product design, and many others.
We will soon feature a conversation with Chair of the EMERGEOUT Forum, Mr. Krishnakumar Natarajan. Watch out this space!
Mr. Bharat Goenka, founder, Tally Software is the keynote speaker. It is a no-brainer right now that if you walk to anyone and ask them to cite you an example of an Indian product, Tally ranks among the top list, and it has been that way for a while. Mr. Goenka is without doubt one of the most prolific icons of the Indian product software industry. Talk to him about product positioning, understanding user behaviour, pricing, marketing and building a brand that is as big as Microsoft in terms of training and development centers, and you are sure to walk away in awe. Would you miss hearing him?
To wrap up the conclave, Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice Chairman, Cognizant, is going to engage in rather inquisitive conversation with Prasanto Roy from CyberMedia. He has been a technology industry leader for over 30 years. As a founding member of Cognizant, he was been responsible for the company’s high-touch customer relationship and delivery excellence model. Under his leadership, Cognizant became the youngest IT services company to reach the $1 billion revenue milestone. He is also the part of NASSCOM Chairmen Council and under his leadership, some new initiatives in the EMERGE Forum were started.
To find the speaker list, please visit http://bit.ly/dvMYqq.
Jessie Paul, MD, Paul Writer Strategic Services, author of No Money Marketing, and formerly Chief Marketing Officer of Wipro, is holding a workshop on “Frugal Marketing—What Works, What's Trendy, What's Hype.” Besides great product or service and innovation, marketing right is crucial to build a brand. Jessie is going to demystify the art of brand building using a frugal budget. Visit her blog post at the EMERGE blog http://bit.ly/ahqdqO for details.
The complete program agenda is available and is waiting to be updated: http://bit.ly/9on2ci Many speakers and impressive lineup of programs await participants. Don’t miss all the action! Join the bandwagon of the emerging opportunities in India!!
Please register for the conference here.
–Contributed by Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy, Chief Evangelist, YourStory