I worked hard, studied hard and played hard at Stanford. But it's getting more and more competitive. I don't think I could get into Stanford or even into IIT today," said Wipro czar Azim Premji at the first ever alumni meet of Stanford University graduates in India, held in Bangalore on Wednesday.

The alumni included Nadir Godrej, managing director, Godrej; his wife Rati Godrej, Sankalp Saxena of i2 Technologies, Vijay Chandru from Strand Genomics and Chetan Maini from the Maini Group.

Recalling his Stanford days in the 1960s and stressing on the spirit of entrepreneurship, Premji said that entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs (entrepreneurs inside an organisation) must continue to keep learning.

"Winning is not about being the strongest or the fastest but of persistence and a fanaticism for excellence. Constancy of integrity differentiates between the successful and not so successful entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs," Premji said in an informal speech.

As a part of his tips to budding entrepreneurs, Premji added, "You should have excellence in the smallest of the things and the biggest of the things. You have to change quickly, often and consistently. But, principles, values and integrity do not change."

While four students from this reputed university have literally hooked the world to the Internet by finding 'Yahoo' and 'Google', it is also this very spirit of entrepreneurship that the alumni intends in inculcate among its students.

The event is being organised by Stanford's Asia Technology Initiative, a group of students and faculty members from Standard University who seek to cultivate global entrepreneurs by engaging Stanford and its peer institutions across the Pacific in real-world ventures. As part of this programme, every summer, a team of selected students go to different hot spots within Asia to explore the synergy between technology and entrepreneurship in the Asian context.

Currently, two students each are participating in TCS, Bangalore and Biocon, Bangalore, respectively, in the team-oriented internship programme.

Meanwhile, speaking at the Global Entrepreneurship Conference held on the occasion of the first Stanford alumni meet, Ranjit Pandit, managing director-McKinsey & Co, said the key concerns for the growth of ICT industry namely, communications infrastructure, emphasis on intellectual property rights and legislation are far better than it was five years ago.

"The number of software professionals in India is going to increase from 0.5 million to 4 million by 2010. In contrast, it is likely to reduce from 9 million to 6 million in the United States. As emerging economies continue to offer an attractive business proposition, India is clearly a sleeping giant about to wake up," Pandit said.

However, he expressed concerns on the high consumption tax in the range of 40-60 per cent in India in comparison to 17 per cent in China, which will continue to pose a threat to the manufacturing sector.

Emphasising on the India advantage, Joe Liemanbt, CEO of Trilogy Software Inc, said, "Looking ahead, our growth would be anchored in India."

Liemanbt added that the company would soon visit various Indian universities to interact with students and develop the spirit of entrepreneurship. Trilogy was founded in 1989 and is among the world's largest privately held software companies.

The company provides industry-specific enterprise software for the automotive, communications, computer hardware and insurance industries. Trilogy solutions enable companies to develop, market and sell products more quickly and profitably.