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IT's really COOL!
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Amidst swaying coconut palms and mango trees, the latest information technology campus coming up in the city looks more like a lung space
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If the State Government's plans bear fruition, the Bangalore-Mysore Highway will soon be a four-lane expressway and a high-tech corridor.
IF YOU thought information technology facilities in Bangalore are synonymous with high-rise slivers of glass and steel, it is time for a rethink. The latest technology campus coming up in the city could actually be mistaken for green lung corridor.
Interestingly, Global Village is just 12 km. from the Vidhana Soudha along the Bangalore-Mysore Road — that's just half the distance to Electronic City in one direction and the International Tech Park Ltd. (ITPL) in another, those favoured destinations for high-tech activity. Tanglin Developments, which has created the 60-acre facility (which is about two km. from the Outer Ring Road junction of the Mysore Road), hopes to attract companies who look for a relaxed, green ambience for their hotshot hardware and software whizkids.
Which is why a company like MindTree Consulting, steered by one of the father figures of Indian IT, Ashok Soota, who earlier headed Wipro, has just become the latest high-tech outfit to come to Global Village. By November this year, MindTree's new West Campus (it has its main facility in Banashankari) will house 3,000 of its engineers in a 50,000-square metre area that is coming up in Global Village. Mr. Soota gave RSP Architects Planners and Engineers (who also helped design many units in ITPL) a mandate: realise in brick and stone MindTree's corporate "DNA" of imagination, action, and joy. The new campus is expected to be ready by September this year.
From the first floor corridor of the circular, tiled clubhouse, one can see undulating coconut groves and neem trees in all directions. Today, two other IT companies are already in business there, nestling among the greenery: Kshema Technologies (the company was acquired by Mphasis-BFL earlier this month) in a 8,000-square metre building of its own and iVega in a slightly smaller structure. At lunchtime, their staff relax on the shady lawns or take a walk along green edged paths.
This is a world apart from the environment in which much of Bangalore's high intensity, high-tech work is done. And hopefully, other players will follow, driven by the urge to create serene workplaces where the mind can range far and wide, supported by surrounding tranquillity. This place reminds one of the only other tech park in India where research is conducted in an island surrounded by swaying coconut palms, Thiruvananthapuram's Techopark.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the new and emerging satellite township of Kengeri is close by. Many of Bangalore's young IT professionals have been driven away by stiff housing costs to move to the outskirts of the city, and creating a workplace that is conveniently situated near employees' homes is obviously a canny move. The same quest for a relief from glass and steel towers, which is at the same time convenient for the family and not just the breadwinner, has seen the creation of Cybercity Magarpatta, near Pune, a complex where homes, schools, shops, hospitals, and high-tech companies share the same location and ambience.
If the State Government's plans bear fruition, the Bangalore-Mysore Highway will soon be a four-lane expressway and a high-tech corridor combined. Then others might follow. But right now, the Global Village looks like a smart idea whose time has come.
ANAND PARTHASARATHY
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
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