Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola, who bet the farm on Android and gave us the Verizon Droid, first big success for the Android ecosystem, was the clear winner of this years Consumer Electronics Show with the Atrix and the Xoom, named best smartphone and best tablet respectively of the 2011 International CES. The Atrix in particular looks most intriguing as its a one of a kind device. Thats one desi-american to watch in the coming years in this exploding tech, Somebody who has already made an impact and is poised to make a much bigger impact starting this year.

Other desis showing off their tablet concepts at the CES were the pakistani-americans Osman Rashid and Babur Habib with the dual screen Kno, a textbook tablet which is already shipping. Tablets replacing textbooks is an easy prediction. It has to happen. A very cheap slate for school children in South Asia and other developing regions has to be the goal for every desi working in this field.

Along with the textbook tablets there will, I predict, be an explosion of experimentation with new ways of teaching with innovative software. Children, youth and adults will learn much faster and better as a result. A trend setter here is bangladeshi american Salman Khan who recently won $10 million from Google to help expand his online Khan Academy, the largest such school in the world, which already has ~2000 educational videos.

Cheap solar-powered or handpowered tablets with educational software will bring the best education in the world to even the poorest family in the world. The sooner this happens the better.

I think the resilience of Hinduism under such circumstances bodes well for its future, regardless of a couple of rogue elements and the odd high-profile conversion.

This trend of disassociating with the generic term hindu will continue to gain strength in the coming decade and beyond. Yoga too is being delinked from hinduism, and for good reason IMO, since it predates the Vedas. Speaking of Yoga, it will continue to gain in popularity.

I also predict that more desis will convert to christianity following the examples of Governors Jindal and Nikki Haley who converted from hinduism and sikhism respectively. And the example of half-bangladeshi- and half african-american Congressman Hansen Clarke who converted from Islam. Success breeds imitation.

Muslim desis will give up identifying with their birth religions in greater numbers. We have some early trend-setters right here in this blog.