Tarun Kartick
Why is the youth of Andaman and Nicobar Islands unemployed? Why is there a constant fight on bringing in domicile when some hundreds of government jobs are declared by the administration? Why are Andaman and Nicobar Islands still considered one of the remotest places on this planet?
The answer is lack of entrepreneurial culture. India has been a pioneer in entrepreneurship since the Vedic ages the First Generation Entrepreneurs of free India have been pretty much successful in their respective endeavors. The reason behind their success is sometimes assessed as the lack of competition and sometimes by the vision they had and the hard work they did to achieve what they wanted.
The new generation of entrepreneurs those who are born in this encapsulating world of information technology are mostly interested in startups with technical background, the reasons being low investment, speedy profits and the glamour that this addictive world provides.
Majority of the youth of these Islands complete their schooling in the Islands and then fly away to different parts of India and the world to get higher education, after completing their higher education they look for a job somewhere in other parts of the world and promise develop a negative view about the Islands.
Those lucky students who study in these Islands in a protective environment end their life looking for a Government job and later work for a few thousand bucks in some of the traditional business in the Islands.
I was born in one of the remotest corners of India and the world, Campbell Bay. A place with a population of merely 10,000 people located in the Great Nicobar Island. I saw a computer when I was in the first standard but only got to work with it when an entrepreneur in the initial years of twenty first century dared to setup a computer institute there in Campbell Bay. He failed in his business endeavors but gave me a spark to do something with the computers (There is no computer institute in Campbell Bay today and the population can be well said as computer illiterates.).
When I completed my schooling and joined B.Tech CSE in DBRAIT I got a unique opportunity, Computer Society of India along with Nurture Talent Academy were conducting a National Level Technical Competition in our college. I blindfoldedly signed up for it and led my team to a victory in the local level we were one among the three who were qualified to compete in National Level.
After this initial victory I was amused and on top of the world. I worked as hard as I can and made my team attend even the boot up camps that were held as far as in Bangalore. I was sure that I will clear the screening round for the national level competition at IIT Mumbai and I did.
This was the turning point in my life I was proud to be chosen as one among the top thirty student entrepreneurs in India and worked even hard for the final competition. The day came when we were at one of the premier institute of the country IIT Mumbai, which is the first to have an active entrepreneurship cell among colleges in India.
We lost the competition, the reason I assessed later was the lack of exposure to modern presenting techniques like video editing and the lack of specifics of some of the basic programming languages that one programmer should know. I blamed the slow internet for the defeat in my heart, but slowly I broke down, frustrated about how can there be better people than me in this field. I almost sat day and night to learn new things and wanted to test myself back in the field. I went back to Mumbai and applied for jobs that required B. Tech as the qualification. I was surprised that I cracked each and every round of the interview without any hassles and performed better than those who were graduates and Post- Graduates.
I stopped dreaming about the idea to start what I had thought before and developed a new idea. I called it “andamankat” first e-commerce store of the Islands which would sell the tour packages of the local tour operators and the handicrafts and shell crafts available in these islands globally. I coded it and the platform became functional but again raising funds came in my way.
To raise funds for my project I almost turned to all available sources in the Islands from Bankers to the Government organizations providing funds to small scale industries everywhere. I got some great advices and some bitter experiences. Some people even refused the possibility that ecommerce has a future in India and some told me they have no experiences and cannot fund a technical project.
This is the real cause of unemployment in these Islands the safe playing attitude of the residents make entrepreneurship really unsuccessful in the Islands. Whether it is the parent of a student or a Government employee everybody wants a safe game. The parent wants his kid to study and take up a good job; a government employee implementing a scheme of Government will not take up risky projects.
My motive behind this article is to bring together a group of like minded people to form an Entrepreneurship club in our Islands to support the emerging entrepreneurs in their endeavors, my motive is also to find angel investors from the Islands who understand the practical problems of the entrepreneurs of the Islands and fund their project accordingly.
Students from these Islands have very high aspirations but the breakdown because of the lack of exposure, I want every volunteering entrepreneur to have sponsors who could provide them exposures in respective fields in Mainland, India.
