" Coimbatore was an entrepreneurial city. Our people were job providers and not seekers. This held true for the farmers also.
" Coimbatore was an entrepreneurial city. Our people were job providers and not seekers. This held true for the farmers also. No wonder they invented pump sets besides setting up ginning factories and mills. Originally rainfed dry land black soil farming was the order of the day and it was inherent with risks. Therefore the people got an appetite for risk. This attribute made them entrepreneurs.
However years of modern education, new kinds of employment oppourtunities, Government jobs etc., has reduced the quest for entrepreneurship in Coimbatore. If one looks at India as a whole, it is possible to understand that it was a very prosperous country because of its skills and entrepreneurship prior to colonization. Today job creation is the subject which is spoken about. If our country has to rediscover and re establish its past economic supremacy, we should nurture entrepreneurship with full gusto. A change is required and I am part of that mission, " smiled Paddu Govindaraj - Founder GTEN ( Global Tamil Entrepreneurs Network ).
Padmanabhan ( Paddu ) was born to Govindaraj and Rajammal of Nanjegoundenpudur near Negamam. His father worked in a textile mill briefly before coming back to farming. He found that the town was not economically rewarding when compared to his village. Paddu studied at the Ramachandrapuram Government High School and later on did his B.Sc ( Chemistry ) in the Government Arts College at Udumalpet. Unlike now, getting jobs had been a challenge those days. However he worked for a while in a paper mill ( Amaravathi Paper Mill ). Paddu did not have any plan in place and life moved on. Thanks to a reference from A.L.Govindarajulu Naidu ( ALG School ), Paddu got an admission to do an MBA at the PSG College of Technology.
It was in PSG that he got introduced into the world of computers. Those days Computer Science degrees were unavailable. It was self study for him. The father of technical education Prof G.R.Damodaran had been at the helm them. Dr.Ranganayaki was the HOD ( Head of the Department ) and she had been kind enough to ensure that Paddu get placed in the PSG Industrial Institute. After spending 2 months, the bright youngster joined the Computer Division of Best & Crompton in Chennai. Those were the early days of the computer industry. Paddu became an IT sector entrepreneur ( 1986 )after spending 1 year at work.
" I began Infonet Services with a few SIVA PC computers. It was a venture with a few batchmates from my college days. I began with software development and the company created 2 products - PLANTPACK for the plantation industry and PHARMASCRIPT for the pharma distributors. These 2 sectors were among the early computer users. We did very well in Coimbatore. This went on till 1993 and we supplied computers on a turnkey basis ( hardware, software and UPS ) to our clients. It was a new approach those days. The business was done with establishments in the north and the west. We were the distributors for ' AURELEC ' computers and Networking software. By about 1990, I moved to Chennai and took this activity along with me.
I focused on software in Chennai and eventually took over a dormant software company in order to expand overseas. We did business Thailand, Laos, Singapore and Vietnam. Meanwhile we had taken up projects funded by the World Bank in India. In Chennai, we had created a mutli lingual software - MULTISCRIPT. My penchant for products made me do this but it was ahead of its time. The 1997 South East Asian financial crisis hit us badly because our clients had been hit financially. Finally, we had to focus on western countries. I moved over to the USA as a Senior Project Manager for Vetri Systems in the year 1999. On reaching the USA, I worked in areas connected with the auto industry in the Mid West ( Detriot area - Ford, Chrysler and General Motors territory ).
3 years later ( 2003 ) I started out on my own once more and began providing software services to big corporates like Owens Corning. My interest in creating products resulted in one called LEAD PRO ( lead management system ) This happened in Detroit and we must understand that referrals are important even in the USA, " smiled Paddu the determined entrepreneur.
Paddu's new product CAREVIUM came along 2 years later. Meanwhile he moved over to Santa Clara in California. CAREVIUM is a management software product used for senior citizen care. Senior Citizen care is a big business in the USA. CAREVIUM is a web based resident care management application. It can be used by senior citizen homes. Eating, medicating, physical activities, vital signs, social activities, day to day schedules of the senior citizens in homes can be monitored irrespective of their health status. It is designed for use with mobile tablets at the point of care.
Family members and residents can also access the resident care information and get alerts and notifications using the smart tablet based AccessAnytime app on a 24/7 basis. Billing and administrative work becomes easy too for the service providers who offer it at senior care centres or private homes.
" Since 2003 my focus was on start ups and I learnt a lot. Began to be associated with TiE ( The Indus Entrepreneurs ) and ran events with them. Have been in California from 2011. Thanks to my start up experience, it was possible for me to advise/mentor start ups in the Silicon Valley. I have been involved for 9 years with TiE and the Silicon Valley. Many people came up for advise. I was able to assist them in creating business plans, raise resources and succeed. Scaling up was also taking place. I co founded the AMERICAN TAMIL ENTREPRENEURS ASSOCIATION in the Silicon Valley in order to network the same activity at the community level.
Mentoring and Organizing events were part of the game and now through GTEN ( Global Tamil Entrepreneurs Network ), I am trying to take it to the next level. Planning to establish centres in cities like Coimbatore, Chennai, Singapore and Dubai in order to connect the start ups with the Silicon Valley eco system. I am travelling to all these cities and have met quite a few start up entrepreneurs. Want to see Coimbatore becoming a sunrise start up city. I am also meeting a lot of college people and this will hopefully create a number of incubation centres.Setting up incubators and consulting will be a chargeable activity.
Colleges and clusters can use my experience and services. Coimbatore is the place for health care and jewellery start ups. Besides all this I take up student mentoring, faculty development. Workshops, seminars, bootcamps, lectures, tours to the start up places, academic and start up exchange programs will be focused upon, " added the founder of GTEN.
Paddu responded affirmatively while talking about the start up scene in Coimbatore, " The city is a big hub for entrepreneurship and education. Scope is high and oppourtunities should have been created in the knowledge industry by now. We missed the IT bus. Now we have been given another chance. Let us kick start the START UPs and create a large eco system. People can find money, resources but directing it in the right way is the issue. Product selection, packaging, user experience, digital marketing need to be enriched in Coimbatore. We can bring in a lot of connects and collaborations from overseas. NOW is the time to establish the START UP environment in a big way. Fortunately the current eco system in India is really conducive. "
The functional and accommodative approach of the founder of GTEN is sure to help. Paddu Govindaraj is one of the simple Start Up mentors who literally sleeps on a mat !
The activities of START UP mentors like Paddu Govindaraj are bound to yield rich dividends for the aspiring entrepreneurs of Coimbatore.