'Silicon Valley of India' to ‘TecHalli’: Anand Mahindra announces winner for caption competition

Bengaluru: The winner for the caption competition on what would be a new title for Bengaluru in place of ‘Silicon Valley of India’ was announced by Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Friday, June 4.

Taking to Twitter Anand Mahindra wrote, “We have a result:@NandanNilekani who agreed to be a co-judge shortlisted 4 entries and then we both converged on one entry from those that we thought was the most appropriate. And the winner is…(Drumroll please) ‘TecHalli’ submitted by @SrinivasPReddy.”

In a follow-up tweet Anand Mahindra wrote, “His entry cleverly put the ‘H’ in Tech to double use. By capitalising the ‘H’ he drew attention to ‘Halli’ meaning Village/Place in Kannada. So we now go from Silcon Valley to TecHalli ! Srini, DM @MahindraRise your mailing address to receive a model Pininfarina H2 Speed.”

Mahindra also replied to Twitterati who said that many would not know the meaning of ‘TecHalli’.

A user tweeted,”Good and congratulations to the winner. But Silicon Valley is a metaphor and when u say tech halli of India internationally, no one will understand what it means unless they know Kannada,” to which Anand Mahindra replied,”Well it’s time they made an attempt to understand what it means. Much of the world doesn’t speak English and didn’t initially understand what Silicon Valley meant either.”