It’s no secret that several entrepreneurs who flocked to Bengaluru to set up their start-ups have struck gold. But did you know that Bengaluru’s evolution as the start-up capital has a shiny little connection with the yellow metal, literally?
To be more precise, it all started at the Kolar Gold Fields, explains Vinay Parameswarappa, founder of Gully Tours.
“It’s not something that happened overnight. Waves of innovation across time have led to this, and for Bengaluru, the beginning of the wave was gold found in Kolar.”
A view of Central Workshops Electrical, Kolar Gold Field mine site | Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
Kolar Gold Fields was electrified in 1902 to aid the process of mining gold. Electricity was drawn by harnessing the Cauvery Falls at Shivanasamudra hydroelectric power station, Asia’s largest. This was followed by a proposal to divert the surplus power generated to electrify the city of Bengaluru. Then Maharaja of Mysore Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV approved the proposal in 1904, and 104 streetlights came to life near K.R. Market in August 1905, followed by more. Bengaluru thus became one of the first cities in Asia to be electrified.
The electrification that happened very early on led to modern industries and a culture of innovation in the city, says Parameswarappa.
A view of Bharat Gold Mines Limited in Kolar Gold Fields. | Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
“We had people like Sir M. Visvesvaraya who said, ‘Industrialise or perish.’ From the Bhadravati Iron and Steel Plant to the Paper Mills to Mysore Sandal Soap, a variety of industries cropped up in the region.”
Talking to the enthusiastic crowd gathered to participate in Gully Tours’ first Bengaluru start-up trail for the public, Parameswarappa shed light on the myriad chapters of history that culminated in the city becoming the Silicon Valley of India. The trail was led by Raksha Shenoy and Parameswarappa.
A view of Mahadevapura off the outer ring road, which has become a major information technology hub in recent years. | Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
The PSUs and IT boom
The next wave happened post-independence. And this was in the form of the multiple Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) established in Bengaluru, says Parameswarappa.
If Hindustan Aeronauticals Limited was established a few years before independence in 1941 in the city, post-independence, between 1951 and 1964, five more central PSUs took shape here. These included Indian Telephone Industries (ITI), Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT), Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bharat Heavy Electronics (BHEL) and Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML).
The city’s location away from the borders and the not-so-friendly neighbours proved an ideal location for many sensitive PSUs and organisations such as defence, the space research organisation and so on, points out Parameswarappa.
Around these institutions formed an ecosystem of infrastructure and amenities to cater to them. The city also saw premium educational institutions like IISc coming up in the early 1900s. The availability of high-quality talent became one of the markers of the city.
“It was this heady mix of electricity coming in, industries getting started and institutions of excellence being established that led to the formation of a knowledge economy here, which facilitated the growth of companies like Infosys in the 1980s here,” Parameswarappa notes.
The liberalisation of the economy and the markets opening up in the 1990s gave a shot in the arm to this process.
“The tipping points in history added up. Today, Bengaluru is the start-up capital and often compared to San Francisco,” he adds.
A file photo of the Bengaluru skyline. | Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
A hub for innovation
While Bengaluru owes its ‘tech city’ title to the efforts of several people, Parameswarappa notes that one name stands out – R.K. Baliga.
The visionary engineer who moved to the U.S. in 1953 after his studies in IISc to work with GE and later had short stints in Japan and Paris was the first chairman of Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation (KEONICS.)
“He was fascinated with this strip of land in California near San Fransico, which you call Silicon Valley today. He always dreamt of starting something like that in India,” says Parameswarappa.
Baliga moved back to India from the U.S. in 1960 to teach at Manipal Institute of Technology.
Powered by institutions like BEL, Karnataka was an electronics hub as far back as the 1950s, accounting for around 30% of India’s electronics production. Baliga himself worked at BEL for about 15 years.
The idea of setting up a high-tech cluster similar to Silicon Valley stuck with him. He presented the idea to then Chief Minister Devaraj Urs, who gave it a green signal. KEONICS was set up in 1976 with Baliga as its first Managing Director and 332 acres of land in Konappana Agrahara village 20 km to the south of Bangalore city was allocated for the cluster.
“KEONICS earmarked around 300 acres of land meant for just innovation in science and technology. Baliga dreamt of Electronics City as a stretch from Bangalore to Hosur, similar to that in the Valley, and having a space for innovation there. And we saw that happening in the Electronics City during the IT wave.”
The technology companies that came up during this period further strengthened the culture of innovation, created an environment that would be conducive for the growth of startups in the future, and sparked an entrepreneurial mindset among future generations.
A view of International Tech Park Bangalore (ITPB) at EPIP (Export Promotion Industrial Park) Zone, Whitefield, Bangalore. | Photo Credit: K. MURALIKUMAR
The ‘gold’ connection between two cities
Silicon Valley, located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area, is home to many innovative technology companies. Bengaluru is today known as the Silicon Valley of India and is often compared to San Francisco due to the concentration of start-ups in the city. However, what is similar to both cities is the large presence of start-ups and how it all started. Interestingly, both have a ‘golden’ tinge.
If Bengaluru was a beneficiary of electrification in the early 1900s due to gold in Kolar, San Fransico witnessed its gold rush in the mid 1800s.
In 1848, gold was discovered in the Sierra Nevada foothills, changing forever the fate of what was until then a sleepy town. Fortune seekers thronged the city to fish out gold from the river. Its population exploded, and infrastructure developed eventually. The western terminus of the United States’ first transcontinental train line connecting its east and west coasts came up in the city. San Francisco turned up on the world map.
In 1891, Stanford University was established in the region. The university became a hub of talent and research, and by the 1940s, several engineering companies took shape in the area. In the 1950s, the Stanford Industrial Park was set up with 660 acres dedicated to research centres, manufacturing facilities and offices, and this marked the beginning of what is today known as the Silicon Valley.
