The Differences Between Bangalore And Silicon Valley
from the not-quite-the-same dept
For years it's been common for various places to claim that they're the next Silicon Valley -- often with their own variation on the name (Silicon Prairie, Silicon Mountain, Silicon Alley, etc.). However, recently, with the focus on Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat, the idea that anywhere can be its own Silicon Valley has gotten an awful lot of attention -- and plenty of that attention is focused on places like Bangalore, India. Apparently, though, not everyone in Bangalore agrees. A fascinating opinion piece from an Indian news site notes some of the growing clashes between the tech industry and others in Bangalore and gives plenty of reasons why Bangalore is no Silicon Valley -- noting that Silicon Valley companies were actively involved in helping to build up the local community beyond just building businesses. It's that entire local infrastructure that helped make Silicon Valley what it is (though, some may argue recent developments are hurting that infrastructure). Yet, we still see companies recognizing that they need to move to Silicon Valley in order to compete. So, yes, it's true that the barriers to innovation and development are dropping, but it still takes more than a few tech businesses to become an innovation hub. This isn't to say that Silicon Valley is perfect or won't eventually be topped by some other place (or no place at all), but there's this notion that recreating Silicon Valley is easy -- and that hasn't actually been shown to be true yet.
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Plenty of underutilized places
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The only silicon valley
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Re: The only silicon valley
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Re: The only silicon valley
Boston also has a high cost of living but could be an alternate point. Austin or Seattle might work as well. However, I think given the general hostility by Americans towards things such as human cloning and stem cell research, the biological center of research will probably be outside the US.
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Re: The only silicon valley
The notion that other countries will supersede the USA in biotech has been talked about for a long time. However, most of the world's best researchers remain in the USA; they may work for short stints abroad, but typically, they are frustrated by the lack of academic freedom, and end up going back to the USA. Other countries are not without their religious oppositions to biotech either -- Buddhist countries are opposed to organ transplants or "unnatural" conception technologies, for example.
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Re: The only silicon valley
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