Brief stop turned into a 15-year stay

The Sunday Times, May 13, 2007
By Yap Koon Hong


Silicon Valley was where he wanted to end up, but with his original software envisaged here, developed in India and showcased in Germany through a Singapore agency, he's quite happy to call this place home

SPORTING CHANCE: A love of cricket got Mr Sunder Mani his first job here. His wife, Solina, has just started a business here. Their daughter Aashita was born in Bangalore, but their son Ashwal was born here and Mr Sunder is looking forward to his entering national service.


IF ALL goes well, 43-year-old permanent resident Sunder Mani should start selling his first original product from this month.

It will mark the realisation of a dream which has taken almost 15 years to come to fruition in Singapore, a place he never imagined living in for so long.

Naturally, he hopes his innovative computer software application, called Apps-D, will make him rich. The idea was his, but he had it developed in India. Singapore helped him advertise it and, if he is successful, it will be sold everywhere.

It may all happen because of the day in 1992 when he bought a ticket and hopped onto a plane to Singapore on the urging of a friend who had told him about the attractiveness of working here.

There were many jobs in the booming electronics sector, the pay was reasonable if one leveraged on the exchange rate (25 rupees to S$1) and a Singapore work stint would be a useful addition to his curriculum vitae.

The last was most important, especially if you were Indian, university-trained and young, Mr Sunder said. Singapore would be a brief, convenient stepping stone to somewhere better.

'I thought I would stay for five years, get some overseas exposure here,' said the Bangalore native who graduated in electronics engineering from his hometown university.

His ultimate destination then was the nerve centre of the computer world, in the United States.

'Silicon Valley, not Singapore, was where I had wanted to settle,' he said.

Initially, it was not easy getting a job in Singapore when he arrived. He could not find work for three months and when he got his first, it was thanks to his passion for cricket.

While flipping through the sports pages of The Straits Times one day, he chanced upon a local report on cricket. 'I didn't know Singaporeans played cricket,' he said.

He made a few calls and within a week, had signed on as a member of the Ceylon Sports Club in Balestier Road.

Within three months, he was hired as a business development manager by a fellow club member, who owned an electronics firm.

'He found out I was looking for a job while we were playing cricket,' recalled Mr Sunder.

Things fell into place after that. Within 10 years, he had changed jobs a number of times, and each improved his marketing and business skills.

His second job, as a sales engineer for a Singapore company, enabled him to suss out the region when he was sent to the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.

His third, with a foreign company, gave him a wider geographical latitude in the Asia-Pacific.

His fourth job took him to a quasi-government company with 300 doctorate scholars and his job was to turn their ideas into commercial reality as the business development manager.

By the time he switched to his fifth job, he was earning between $12,000 and $14,000 a month and learning how to set up a company and shepherd R&D projects into commercial viability.

He moved a couple of times more before starting his firm, I-Flapp, in 2005. It paved the way for what he calls his dream enterprise.

Thoughts of settling in Silicon Valley are now a distant memory. 'I realised that Singapore was close to home. My culture and upbringing are Indian and I have the best of both worlds here,' he said.

A trip to the US buttressed his view that Singapore was right for him and his family.

'The United States is not a place for my family and me,' he said. There are many Indians there, but the sheer size of the country is daunting. Here, if I want to visit friends, they're just down the road.'

As an only child who is close to his parents, Singapore is less than four hours by air from Bangalore. So, they visit him regularly and stay as long as they want. He visits Bangalore once a month to check on his firm.

The arrival of Indian international schools here means his two children receive an education similar to that in India.

His wife, Soina, 36, just started a business here and is studying for her doctorate.

Their daughter, Aashita, now 12, was born in Bangalore, but their son, Ashwal, 10, was born here.

Mr Sunder's pride is that Ashwal has been selected for Singapore's Under-13 cricket squad.

What about Ashwal's having to do national service, and the view that that is the litmus test for permanent residents?

'That's one reason we wanted him to be born here,' he said. 'NS will toughen him for the better and it's not so long now. To live in this world nowadays, it's absolutely important to be tough. It will be good for him.'