Srinagar, Sept. 4: Jahangir Raina was determined to brave guns and grenades in the firm belief that his home state’s salvation lay in information technology.

An alumnus of the London School of Economics and Lancaster University, the 30-year-old telecom professional returned to Jammu and Kashmir in 2001 to bring IT outsourcing benefits to his militancy-racked home.

Jahangir is confident that the violence “should be no problem”. “Given our experience and desire to put Kashmir on the prestigious telecom map, it is quite possible some of the pioneering ideas like voice-over Internet protocol (VOIP) can also be disseminated from here,” he said.

The idea hit him when in 1996 his London-based telecom company, iLocus, did research that showed telecom service providers would lose substantial revenue from applications like Internet telephony if they failed to embrace the Internet.

“Since that time, nearly all incumbent telecom operators around the world have actively adopted the technology turning VOIP into an opportunity rather than a threat that could potentially cannibalise their revenue streams,” he said.

“The VOIP industry,” he points out, “started with a simple PC-to-PC calling in 1995, but has since developed into a more mature technology to the extent of replacing the existing legacy of telephony networks.”

What prompted him to set up base in his home state was a more favourable cost-base and access to a large pool of software developers for VOIP teams. “iLocus had a cost base of approximately $25,000 a month in the UK, which has been reduced to almost $3,000 a month in Kashmir,” Jahangir said. This was made largely possible by the inexpensive manpower available here.

Not even technical hiccups could deter the Masters in Operational Research from giving up on his home state.

“There have been problems associated mainly with central government institutions like the excise department and STPI (Software Technology Park of India). There have been periods of disconnections (of Internet) lasting over a month, severely affecting the units, including mine.”

But Jahangir has stuck to his decision to stay put. His father Mohammad Abdullah Raina is not surprised because he says Jahangir is a “born rebel” with enterprising ideas that he has now successfully applied to his profession.

He set up iLocus in London in 1995, which after shifting base to Srinagar has started making profits in research and software work for Internet telephony. Jahangir said the research by iLocus since has been an important input to the growth of VOIP.

“My friends and relatives back in London warned me of guns and grenades in Kashmir. They thought telecom was too far-fetched an idea in a troubled land. Thank God, they are gradually being proved wrong,” he said.

But Jahangir is not the only one trying to put Jammu and Kashmir high on the global infotech map.

Located at the Rangreth industrial complex in Srinagar, Magnum Software Services has become the region’s first company to bag an international back-office services contract.

It is presently formatting medical and research data for a Singapore-based client, using the services of 315 local men and women who are determined to prove Kashmiri entrepreneurs are second to none in matching the exacting IT standards of the developed world.