The research, based on a survey of more than 5,000 students and young workers in 13 countries around the world, found that the technology practices of new hires and students from the “Millennial” generation in China and India– those between the ages of 14 and 27 — have leapfrogged their counterparts elsewhere in the world, especially in much of Western Europe, where many Millennials feel that technology consumes too much time.

Millennials in the Americas (Brazil, Canada, and the United States) and Asia-Pacific (Japan and Australia), meanwhile, have positive perceptions of technology, but not at the same level as young people in China and India.  When it comes to adopting new technologies, the survey found that borders don’t matter. Regardless of country, Millennials are clearly jumping the boundaries of corporate IT. They expect to use their own technology and devices rather than those supplied by their employers, according to the research. Even e-mail usage is changing.

Courtesy mckaysavage on flickr

Yahoo India news article titled “Giving young India a foothold into the future”.  The leading companies in India have joined hands with the central government to improve the career prospects of bright young people from rural India. In a public-private partnership effort to be shortly announced, foundations run by Wipro chief Azim Premji, Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Group and others corporate chiefs will fund the coaching of school leaving rural youth to prepare them for engineering, medical and other technical entrance examinations.

Around 4,000 youth will be selected every year from a network of 576 schools across the country set up to promote quality education in the rural areas. The government and the private sector may share the cost equally.

This unique public-private model for education is one of the ways India can translate demographic challenge into demographic dividend.  Still the number of rural youth wanting to get good education is very large and India needs to move aggressively in tackling this issue.

Nearly one out of 10 people on the planet are under 25 years old and living in India. Hence, what this Gen-YRI does, thinks and aspires for, gives insights to all those who aim to engage them.  With that in mind, TCS has conducted survey dubbed generation Web 2.0 survey reached out to 14,000 high school students in 12 cities to capture the pulse of the Indian youth with a focus on career ambitions and technology habits.

The findings by TCS survey is categorized into four buckets (read about it here)

• The Globetrotter: Today’s students continue to express a strong desire to be mobile like previous generations. This generation has global ambitions and wants to study and work abroad. However, a growing confidence in the economic future in India is also reflected in the survey as many students want bring skills back to India and put them to use in India.
• The Gadgetphile: Students from both metros and mini-metros who love gadgets and aspire to have the latest products available.
• The Nation-Builder: Along with the career the younger Indians want to travel, learn new skills, experience interesting. They also want to branch out of the traditional career choices and going for some new options like gaming and animation. They prefer to work for Indian companies compared international MNCs.
• The Social networker: Gen-YRI is getting to be a consummate  Social Networker and is likely to have as many online friends as real ones.  Interesting this is that these friendships go beyond the traditional boundaries of gender, caste, and geographies. The Youth is willing to communicate with anyone and everyone as long as they have the same interests.

The article notes that these neighboring authors have inched their way up the Indian best-seller lists with powerful books that combine gripping narratives, snapshots of socio-political realities, history and commentaries. These talented group includes writers like Kamila Shamsie, Ali Sethi, Mohammed Hanif, Nadeem Aslam, Danial Moinuddin, Mohsin Hamid, Uzma Aslam Khan, Shahabano Bilgrami, Hanief Kureishi, Tariq Ali and Khaled Hosseini – most of who have either stayed abroad or have travelled extensively.

Conflicts, trauma, memories of partition, terrorism, clash of cultures, closed Islamic societies and alienation, are the overriding themes of the novels from the three nations.  Writers in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan don’t have a large market for their books in their home country are now feeling confident of expressing themselves in English – not in queen’s English but in the language that captures the atmosphere of their countries.  These contemporary writers from Pakistan and Afghanistan trying to reject the conservatism imposed in their own countries.

These trends will infuse Indians with an understanding of what’s going on in neighboring nations.  Most of the Indian are oblivious to the deep culture, art and history of its neighboring countries and the books by these authors can provide a window into these nations.  This, no doubt will lead to normalization of relationship between the South Asian nations.  Having stable and friendly neighbors is vital for rapid economic growth in India

The British Council has launched  ‘Project English’ in India and the goal is to have  every teacher and learner of English in the world will have access to English skill by 2010.  British Council has been working with the state governments to design and run large scale teacher training and curriculum development projects that are helping to improve English language teaching in state schools. They have also been working with large corporate sector employers to improve language assessment and training systems. 

In the past only a certain segment had a strong command over English in India, but initiatives such as Project English would help to widen that segment.  This would give Young India a global edge.