Startups need to address gender diversity: Cisco executive chairman John Chambers

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Exhorting that the start-up ecosystem in India has the potential to position the country as the world’s “start-up engine”, Cisco executive chairman John Chambers said on Thursday that one of the issues that Indian start-ups need to address is that of gender diversity at workplace by hiring more women across various roles to boost productivity.

“India has done an amazing job as a country with some of the top women leaders in government, business. But as we go further down in the employment, you have to address the gender diversity in start-ups. It requires commitment as a country to change,” he said here at an event organised by Uniphore Software Systems, a startup involved with speech recognition and analytics technology. Uniphore announced that Chambers has acquired 10 per cent stake in the company. While the Chennai-based company did not disclose the amount of funding received from Chambers, it said existing investors including IDG Ventures also participated in the series B round.

“Start-ups are growing at 10 per cent… India has a high chance to lead. It has a rich talent pool of engineers and I think, if done right, the startup engine here could be the best in the world,” he said. He further said: “If I could bet on one startup engine, where I put my energy, time and resources behind, it would be India”.