Fareed Zakaria, the noted author and Editor at Large of Time Magazine, wrote in a recent column: “When I travel from America to India these days, it's as if the world has been turned upside down. Indians are brimming with hope and faith in the future. After centuries of stagnation, economy is on the move. The whole country feels as if it has been unlocked. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the mood is sour. Americans are glum, dispirited and angry. The middle class, in particular, feels under assault. Perhaps most troubling, Americans are strikingly fatalistic about their prospects... The can-do country is convinced that it can't.”

What Americans can’t we can! I am glad an Indian, who has spent a large part of his life in the U.S., mentions it without mincing his words.

The core reason behind India’s success is its vast pool of knowledge and the creators of that knowledge. That is pretty much the ‘secret sauce’ (if you want to call it that) of our success. Somehow Indians have been firm believers in sharing knowledge unlike the westerners who mostly believing in hording and protecting their knowledge assets. This Indian tradition is ancient and is now part of our DNA.

To keep the momentum going, you, as CIOs, have the great responsibility of harnessing the potential of knowledge sharing for generating wealth for your companies, which ultimately contributes to the success of the nation.

For this, it is essential to have corporate knowledge (don’t read information) on a sharable network so that it can be accessed conveniently by the employees using any device. You should be able to create an infrastructure that not only helps employees in accessing that knowledge, but also helps them properly use it. That’s how knowledge evolves, stays relevant, and becomes more valuable.

The question is how do you create such a network?

“Unlocking Knowledge’ – this issue’s cover feature will give you the right answers. The feature will not only help you in creating an IT-enabled network for knowledge sharing but will also reveal how important the role of CIO is to execute it.

We hope you had a happy and prosperous Diwali – CTO Forum, your trusted knowledge partner.

rahul.mani@9dot9.in