[Tech Talk] "YouTube Indoini is My Coding Teacher"... Indoini Becomes the World's 'IT Teacher'

'Indian Tutorial' Trending on YouTube
Expert Developers Offer Free Lectures...Outstanding Skills
4.5 Million Programmers...Outsourcing Powerhouse
Accumulating Know-How by Winning Big Tech Projects

For several years now, a meme called 'Indian tutorial' has been popular on YouTube. It means that if you search for an unfamiliar topic such as math, science, or programming on YouTube, there is always a lecture video by an Indian instructor explaining the topic in detail somewhere.

Especially in the field of programming, 'Indian tutorials' are very useful. Some say that beginner coding lectures are of higher quality than many bootcamps or intensive academies. It is common to see netizens expressing gratitude, saying, "I learned coding not from university but from Indians on YouTube."

So how did Indians become the 'IT teachers' of the world? The secret is deeply connected to India’s industrial structure.

Core of India’s IT Competitiveness: 'Outsourcing'

An image of an Indian expert providing free lectures on YouTube, teaching students. 'Indian Tutorial' is a popular meme in English-speaking countries.
[Image source=Online Community]

India is commonly known as an IT powerhouse. However, this does not mean it is a traditional tech startup powerhouse like the United States or the United Kingdom. The area where India demonstrates its greatest strength is the 'IT outsourcing' industry.

IT outsourcing encompasses all subcontracting businesses utilizing computer communications. This includes overseas call centers, programming code writing, reviewing completed code, and debugging tasks.

In major IT hubs like Silicon Valley in the U.S. or London in the U.K., developers command high salaries. Companies such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft (MS) often sign contracts with senior developers for annual salaries of $300,000 to $400,000 (approximately 390 million to 520 million KRW).

Therefore, both big tech and startups outsource tasks to relatively inexpensive overseas developers to reduce costs, and India is the country that dominates this business.

Original source: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, India

According to Indian authorities, India’s IT outsourcing industry exports reached $150 billion (approximately 195 trillion KRW) in 2022, accounting for nearly half of the country’s total service exports. Most of the IT export revenue was earned from outsourcing-related businesses. Of the export revenue, 62% went to the U.S. and 17% to the U.K.

The close cooperation between the U.S. and U.K., which create and sell software, and India, which provides highly skilled programmers at low cost, supports the global IT industry.

Millions of English-Proficient Developers... The Source of 'Indian Tutorial' Strength

The strength of 'Indian tutorials' also comes from this abundant outsourcing industry. India has far more developers than other countries and many veteran software engineers who have gained experience by securing projects from global IT companies. It is natural that the 'tips' they provide on YouTube or other social networking services (SNS) are highly valued.

Recently, many developing countries in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia have entered the IT outsourcing industry, leveraging low labor costs and abundant engineering talent. However, India’s advantage remains solid.

It is estimated that about 4.5 million developers are currently working in India, most of whom are proficient in English. More importantly, India is home to the world’s largest IT outsourcing consultants. Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (approximately 600,000 employees), Infosys (about 300,000), and HCL (about 200,000) have built know-how and networks through decades of close collaboration with American big tech companies.

Potential Limits in the AI Era

High-rise buildings in Mumbai, India's representative industrial city.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

However, there are skeptical views that India may find it difficult to build a high-tech economy solely through IT outsourcing. Outsourcing is fundamentally a price competition. To grow its overall economy while maintaining the competitiveness of outsourcing exports, India will have to suppress developers’ wages. This will lead to a brain drain of high-level talent overseas.

Also, outsourcing is hard to become a 'high value-added business.' While Anglo-American big tech companies can leverage outsourced engineers to acquire software and intellectual property (IP) and earn huge profits, subcontractors find it difficult to fully enjoy these benefits.

The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation of coding work is another concern. Recently, MS made a strategic investment in the British AI coding company Builder.AI. This company creates applications (apps) by AI instructions without prior programming knowledge, a task that used to be the main work of subcontracted engineers.

In other words, for India to fully unleash the potential of its highly educated engineers, it must foster domestic big tech companies equipped with their own technology and software.