India Is The Powerhouse Helping Businesses Around The World

One of the positive impacts of the US tariff war may be a high demand for freelancers, believes Matt Barrie, chief executive officer (CEO) of Freelancer, one of the largest freelancing marketplaces. He spoke with Shivani Shinde on the sidelines of the recently concluded India Global Forum about how India is a powerhouse of talent and also one of the major regions of its freelancer base at 30 million. Edited excerpts:

- Matt Barrie, CEO, Freelancer

How is Freelancer different from other freelancing marketplaces? We have the world's largest crowd-sourced marketplace of freelancers, with 80 million people in it. It's growing by about 25,000 a day. We work with businesses, large and small, all the way from consumers who might want something done for $10, to the biggest thing we have been running right now—a $10 million project for gene editing, the central nervous system of humans, with the National Institute of Health, where we tap into the genius of the world.

How significant is India for Freelancer? We have about 30 million freelancers from India. We're actually huge in India; it is the number one demographic for us. India is the powerhouse, helping businesses compete against the Amazons in the world.