At the IVCJ Conference on Private Equity and Infrastructure held on the 26th November 2007, the co-founder of Hotmail, Sabeer Bhatia showcased his futuristic idea of Nanocity the first planned Indian city of the 21st century to be benchmarked on global standards. The Chandigarh born computer wizard has entered into a JV with the State Government of Haryana to build a $1.07 billion metropolis. To be set amidst the pristine surroundings of the Himalayan foothills, comparable with Manhattan and Mumbai in terms of size, Nanocity aspires to replicate the vibrance and the spirit of innovation of the Silicon Valley, said the CalTech passout. The rationale for its location in North India is to tap the large resource pool existent in the 700 million population of North India and to balance the influx of IT professionals to Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi. In its first phase of development, Nanocity envisages a great base of education to develop the human capital to feed global software and technology companies which will be ultimately brought in. Infrastructure planning includes a proposal for water recycling by agencies which are responsible for water recycling in Singapore. Nanocity, with its state of the art facilities vis-à-vis biotech, IT, art & culture and education is conceptualized as the greencity, flexcity and complexcity in India. “Remember, this is what Nanocity will look like in 25 years from now” said Sabeer Bhatia, when he showed his vision on an animated virtual model the Nanocity!

(Full story to be covered up in the upcoming edition of IVCJ's Private Equity Journal for India)