It is the seventh month we (Ashutosh, Abhishek and I) are working to develop Linkscon (formerly Protrain Networks). We started with the idea of small eLearning website and eventually developed this great knowledge sharing platform. The idea was simple, to encourage the knowledge sharing among the professional. People feedbacks are positive, and success has been quite encouraging. Rich knowledge contents on the website and visitors count reinforces our belief. However, during all the time we were overwhelmed with the questions of Why another community website when Linkedin and Facebook are already in place? And why a new professional community when professional bodies like PMI, AACEi or IACCM is already exiting?

One question was in my heads too. How this website shall be helpful for Indian construction professional? This question is more complex and exciting for me, from the questions others are posing to us. I came back to India after spending seven long years in Dubai (UAE), witnessing the whole boom and bust of Construction. India always perplexes, and I am not an exception. There is a lot to build over here.  Forget about 8-9% of GDP growth, there is lot be done even to sustain minimum living requirement like water, power roads etc. The biggest challenge we Indians have at this time is - To build our country to last. Finance is no more the major concern now.  However, the skill crunch is daunting. Majority of assets being built is not sustainable. Urban planning is a big failure for every Indian city. Quality is very poor. Beauty is disappeared. Can we do anything to help our fellow construction professional to help them built our country in better way? Are we going to wait somebody else to start this mission and follow him? Or, we are going to start the mission now?

I read ‘Business and Speed of Thought’ and ‘The Road Ahead’ both written by Mr. Bill Gates a decade ago. It was in year 2000. Some of the chapters of the books talked about how Internet was going to change the world. Mr. Gates view of Internet as a change agent was great but not promising for me that time. It was the time when India has only dial up Internet connectivity available in cities only. We were ranked from the bottom in the list of developing nations. Dot Com boom has busted in US. Youtube was dream. Yahoo was ahead of Google. Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook founder friends were in schools. My net salary was one tenth of what I am paid now. Civil was least sought engineering branch. All of us use to dream for outsourcing job in Infosys, TCS or Wipro. L&T share were the not discussed in Economics Times. Best way to have a good life for my family and I was to escape from India and settle down abroad.

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