Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has told an interviewer in India that it is unlikely a technology company similar to Google, Apple or Facebook will be created in the country because Indians lack creativity.
Wozniak, who is on a visit to India, said that the country's education system was based on repetitive study and did not encourage creativity.
News magazine India Today said Wozniak, when asked about tech innovation in India, replied: "I am not an anthropologist and I don't know the culture of India well enough. I don't see those big advances in tech companies.
"What is the biggest tech company here, Infosys maybe? I just don't see that sort of thing [innovation] coming out of Infosys and I have done keynotes for them three times."
{loadposition sam08}Wozniak created the Apple I and II but left Apple after a plane crash that put him in hospital for a while. He has not joined any technology firm after that, preferring to indulge in his own endeavours.
Steve Wozniak: "The creativity gets left out when your behaviour is too predictable and structured, everyone is similar."
He told the interviewer that Indians were not encouraged to follow creative careers.
"The culture here is one of success based upon academic excellence, studying, learning, practising and having a good job and a great life. For upper India, not the lower. I see two Indias," he said.
"That's a lot like Singapore study, study, work hard and you get an MBA, you will have a Mercedes but where is the creativity? The creativity gets left out when your behaviour is too predictable and structured, everyone is similar.
"Look at a small country like New Zealand, the writers, singers, athletes, singers, athletes, it's a whole different world."
Asked about teaching students to code in schools, Wozniak said that while it was important, nobody should be taught to code before the age of 12.
"You don't get to a stage of symbolic reasoning until you are 12 years old. Some people get there early, but most people at 12, and that's why algebra can't be taught till you are that age. And programming can be taught only when you are ready for algebra," he said.