A DATAQUEST TRIBUTE: The IT Indians

Abraham

Thomas



MD & CEO, IBM India



When Thomas joined IBM’s Singapore unit in 1986 as a trainee, little did

he know that 14 years later, he would head the company in one of its most

challenging markets–India. As MD and CEO, Thomas–an MBA from Singapore–oversees

and manages IBM’s sales and marketing, services and exports business in India.

For eight consecutive years, he made it to IBM’s Hundred Percent Club for

exceeding his sales quota and was awarded IBM’s Asean and South Asia General

Manager Award for ‘Outstanding Business Performance’ in 1997.

Arjun

Malhotra



CEO, TechSpan



Born in Calcutta in 1949, Malhotra has studied at Doon School, IIT Kharagpur

and Harvard Business School. And then Arjun Malhotra helped co-found one of

India’s largest technology companies in 1976–HCL. He took over the US

operations of the group in 1989, ran the HCL-HP joint venture in India in 1992

and consolidated and grew HCL Australasia operations in Hong Kong, Australia and

New Zealand. He left to found his own firm–TechSpan–in 1998, with funding

from Goldman Sachs.

Ajai

Chowdhry



chairman & CEO


HCL Infosystems




When HCL was founded in 1976, there were only 15 computers in all of India–so

Chowdhry and his partners created the ‘computer culture’ in the country.

Chowdhry has been largely responsible for driving international growth at HCL

Insys. He set up HCL’s operations in Singapore in 1980 and since then, has

covered South Asian Markets, including Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and

Indonesia. Chowdhry took over the reins in 1994 and has successfully

transitioned the company from a hardware-only focus to a premier technology

integration company.

Arun

Jain



CMD, Polaris Software Lab



Jain is a first-generation entrepreneur who promoted Nucleus Software Group in
1986, with the aim of creating world-class services company. In 1993, Jain

started Polaris Software Lab with development centers in Chennai and Noida.

Since then, Polaris has carved a niche for itself in the BFSI segment, and is

one of the fastest-growing IT companies in India.

Pravin R Gandhi



Pravinbhai, as he is called, is a stalwart in Indian IT. He has always been a
man of various occupations. He co-founded one of India’s early IT companies,

Hinditron Computers.He was significantly involved in getting DEC (of

minicomputer fame) to India. His insight in to the dynamics of the technology

business has endured the test of times. Down to earth and brash, Pravinbhai

wields tremendous influence over the industry. In his latest avatar, he is part

of $30-million angel fund, Infinity Technology Investments.

NR

Narayana Murthy



Few remember him now as the first designer of the ‘Basic Interpreter’

implemented in India. Or as the man who was part of a team that built the

country’s first multi-user OS. Which is as it should be. Murthy is listed here

for creating a globally-respected Indian company. It had little to do with

Infosys being the first to be listed on Nasdaq, and more to do with what Murthy

projected for himself and his company–openness, honesty and savvy.

Vinay Deshpande



chairman and CEO, Encore Software



Even though he is mostly associated with the Simputer, 54-year-old Vinay

Deshpande, a Stanford alumnus, is also the co-founder of Processor Systems and

PSI Data Systems. He also co-founded Encore Software in 1990. He has been a

member of the R&D working group of the Prime Minister’s Information

Technology Task Force set up in 1997-1998. The World Economic Forum has also

named him as one of the ‘100 Technology Pioneers’ for 2001 & 2002, for

being engaged in the most innovative technology areas.

Ajit

Balakrishnan



chief executive officer, rediff.com


Ajit Balakrishnan is the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of
Rediff.com India. Balakrishnan is also a director of Rediffusion-Dentsu, Young

& Rubicam Ltd, where he has served since March 1993, and a director of

Rediffusion Advertising Private Ltd and PSI Data Systems Ltd. He holds a BSc

degree in Physics from Kerala University and a post-grad management diploma from

the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Sanjiv Sidhu



founder, chairman & CEO, i2 Technologies



What made Sanjiv Sidhu found i2 Technologies in 1988, when he was about to

be made V-P of Texas Instruments? The answer lies in his firm belief that

information systems can greatly help in arriving at intelligent decisions.

Today, Sidhu has established a $ 200-million technology company that boasts of

an array of blue chip clients like IBM, 3M and many more. Probably one of the

most significant contributions made by Sidhu is his visionary thinking–that

supply chain solutions over the Net and its impact on business efficiencies

cannot be overstated.

Ashank

Desai



CMD, Mastek



One of the founder members of Mastek, he has played a pivotal role in making

it a Rs 265-crore global IT services company. His vision and leadership

abilities have helped Mastek develop strong export markets in the US, Europe and

Asia-Pacific. He was also one of the co-founders and past-chairman of Nasscom

and has been involved in all major initiatives taken by the apex body in India.

Arun Netravalli



president, Bell Labs



An alumnus of IIT Bombay, today he is President of the world’s largest

R&D organization, to become the night leader at Bell Labs (the R&D unit

of Lucent). Earlier, he was executive vice-president of Lucent Technologies and

has been with Bell Labs for the last 27 years. He is also a known expert in the

field of multimedia communications and the one who pioneered digital images and

video compression technology. His work on high-definition television has earned

him an Emmy. He has authored 140 technical papers, co-authored three books and

holds 60 patents in the area of human interfaces, picture processing and digital

television.

Ashok

Soota



Soota began his career with the Shriram Group in 1965 and rose to become CEO of
Shriram Refrigeration. By the time he left, he had turned around a company that

had been in the red for four years. In 1984, he became CEO of the Rs 7-crore

Wipro Information Technology. By the time he left in 1999, he’d brought in

many changes that triggered runaway growth. The entrepreneurial bug caught him

and he co-founded MindTree Consulting–an e-biz firm.

Bharat Goenka



This is a refreshing story–even an unusual one. Shyam Sunder Goenka, BCom,

manufacturer of spare-parts for textile mills, traditional Marwari businessman

and father. Bharat Goenka, BSc, son. One day, father told son that if he could

make a software accounting package that even he could use, they probably had a

winner on their hands. The son did just that and the father-son duo formed

Peutronics in 1986–now called Tally. In the years since, Tally has held strong

and grown to the extent of almost becoming a generic name. It is even included

in the curriculum of the Indian Institute of Chartered Accountants for students

taking up their articleship.

Ashok

Jhunjhunwala



Jhunjhunwala is an authority in technology, telecommunications, computer
networks and fibre optics. Over the years, through sheer hard work, dedication,

passion and creativity, he has explored the worlds of engineering and technology

and championed the cause of technology and innovation. Chennai-based Polaris

Software Lab recented inducted Jhunjhunwala, who is head of the department of

electrical engineering, at IIT Chennai, onto its board.

Avtar

Saini



director, Intel



In late 1999, Avtar Saini was appointed to head the South Asia operations of

Intel. He has been with Intel for the last 20 years, having started out as micro

architect and logic designer on the Intel 486 processor. In 1989, he co-led the

Pentium processor design team, where he managed the chip design and its eventual

ramp-up into volume production. He holds seven patents for his work in

microprocessor design, and started Intel’s India development center in

Bangalore.

Asim Ghosh



managing director, Hutchison Max Telecom



Asim Ghosh, as managing director of Hutchison Max Telecom, is responsible for
the overall business and spearheads the company’s growth and leadership

position. He has held senior executive position with Hutchison Whampoa in Hong

Kong, managing a group of 13 consumer goods business units with operators in

Hong Kong, China and South-East Asia in the AS Watson Division. Ghosh has had

successful stints in America, Canada and the Far East earlier.

Azim

Premji



He left college midway and came home from Stanford to take over his father’s

oils and pulses business on his death. He grew that into a more than Rs

3,000-crore IT business–among the best-known Indian IT brands abroad. But it’s

not merely for his business acumen that he is renowned. What Premji is and will

be remembered most for is his unceasing vision of Wipro as primarily a

technology and IPR-driven company.

Dr Vinay Bharat Ram



president, DCM Group



He came from Harvard to join the quality control department of the textile

division of Delhi Cloth Mills, run by Lala Shri Ram. Then he went on to become

one of the first to venture into computers. He told Dataquest in 1988–"We

were the first to venture into computers in the 1970s by introducing the first

desktop calculator". That division was spun of to become DCM-DP. Unlike his

peers, his decision to move into the industry was not one of passion–but an

assessed business move.

CN Ram




CIO, HDFC




An electrical engineer from IIT Chennai and an alumnus of IIM-A, Ram joined

HDFC eight years ago as head of IT. Previous to HDFC, he worked with the Bank of

America for 12 years. In this fast-growing domestic and private bank in the

country, he set up and manages the entire IT backbone, including customer

services and operations.

Dr Ravindran



It took courage back then, to come back to India and dream to be an

entrepreneur. But he did just that. Born in 1942, schooled at Ottapalam in

Kerala, Dr Ravindran did his BE from Trivandram and went to Stanford, where he

met Vinay Deshpande. They returned home–very few did at the time–to set up

Processor Systems India. This is for the man who dared to dream in the wrong

place at the wrong time. And got a whole industry going...

Balu

Doraisamy



president, Hewlett-Packard India



In his earlier role, Balu was the managing director of Compaq Computer India

Ltd since June 1999. He led Compaq India to be the #1 IT vendor’s position in

the domestic market, with a leadership position in servers, storage, desktop

PCs, notebooks, workstations and mission-critical support services. That success

has seen him become president in the merged entity–the new HP–in India.

Bhaskar

Pramanik



MD, Sun Microsystems India



An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Bhaskar’s first job was with Nelco, where he

sold calculators for Rs 50,000 before moving to Blue Star in 1982. When

Digital Equipment Corp came to India in 1987, Bhaskar joined as its first V-P

(sales and marketing). Personally, says Bhaskar, "that was the turning

point for me". In Digital, he rose to become director (enterp-rise sales)

for APAC before he left to join Sun Microsystems.

Dr Raj Reddy,



Dean (Computer Science Institute), Carnegie Mellon University



Forty two years ago, he left India with a BE in Civil Engineering from the

Guindy Engineering College, Madras. Today, he is among the most respected names

in the US in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. Dr Reddy was

founding director of the Robotics Institute from 1979 to 1991 and is now Dean of

the Computer Science institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also

co-chair of the US President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee.

Chandrababu

Naidu



Pramod Mahajan once said of Chandrababu Naidu —"he’s the man who taught
politicians that Powerpoint could mean something other than three holes in a

wall socket." Naidu is listed here for not just being a savvy politician

who got on to the tech bandwagon when the time was right; he is here for truly

believing in what technology can do for the country, for untiringly spreading

that message and acting on it at the risk of political backlash.

Dr Roddam Narasimhan



Dr Narasimhan has many firsts to his name. The two he’s remembered for

most–he was the first president of the Computer Society of India (CSI) where

he served four terms from 1965 to 1969. He was the first Chairman of Computer

Maintenance Corporation (CMC) where he helped usher in the new era of the Indian

IT industry after IBM’s exit. With a degree in Telecommunication Engineering

from Madras University in 1947, he went to the USA. for an MS in Electrical

Engineering from CalTech and a PhD in Mathematics from Indiana.

Deepak

Puri



MD, Moser Baer



He heads the country’s only storage media manufacturer and one of the top

5 optical media companies in the world. As a mechanical engineer, he started

Moser Baer in 1983 in technical collaboration with Swiss firm Moser Baer AG,

which was into time solutions. Soon after, he saw potential in storage data. The

rest is history.

Deepak B Phatak



Call Prof Deepak B Phatak the most resourceful teacher in Indian IT. He

served as the first dean of resource development at IIT Bombay. His brief was to

raise funds for the institute and he did it mighty well through his network of

students in the US. So much so, that he set up a separate school for IT and got

it funded. He is currently the head of the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information

Technology, IIT Bombay, a school complete with a business incubator and

Internet-enabled distance learning.

Dewang

Mehta



former president, Nasscom



Dewang played a key role in putting the Indian IT sector on the world map. From
CA to the chief of Nasscom, his hard lobbying tactics paid off, making Nasscom

one of the most respected industry forums in the country. He deserves credit for

the events that led to the I-T exemption for software exporters and software

reproduction legislation, and excise & sales tax exemption from a numbers of

state governments.

Dr Homi Jahangir Bhabha



Yes. this is an unusual name to find on this list. When one thinks of Dr

Bhabha, one mostly thinks of India’s early nuclear program days. But it is not

for that that Dr Bhabha finds his name on this list. Not even for the Bhabha

Electron Scattering phenomenon. Or for the setting up the Tata Institute of

Fundamental Research. He finds his name here because in 1966, he headed the

first-ever committee on informatics that would define the course of the Indian

IT industry for well over a decade. The report suggested the imperatives for an

indigenous Informatics industry for a self-reliant nuclear defense program.

Dr N

Seshagiri



He is among the few bureaucrats remembered for his contribution to

liberalizing the industry. First through the New Computer Policy of 1984, then

the Software Development and Export Policy of 1986 and finally as

member-convener of the PM’s National Task Force on Information Technology in

1998, Dr Seshagiri also helped conceive the idea and coordinated the design and

implementation of NICNET.

Dr Narinder Singh Kapany



chairman, K2 Optronics



He is the father of fiber optics, the man that Fortune magazine one of the

seven ‘Unsung Heroes’ in its ‘Businessmen of the Century’ issue. Born in

India, educated in England and working in the US for the past many decades, Dr

Kapany invented fiber optics–"the wonder material"–in 1954. That’s

the technology that is now used from endoscopy devices to high-capacity

telephone lines and has changed the medical, communication and business worlds.

Dr

Srinivasan Ramani



Enthusiasm. That’s the one word that defines the man who helped create the

first e-mail in the country. The service was developed to demonstrate India’s

capabilities in data networking. He and fellow scientists pioneered the Internet

age in India through the Ernet–a network connecting the education and research

institutions and conducted among the earliest experiments in satellite

communications.

Gururaj ‘Desh’ Deshpande



Born in Dharwar in 1950, he went on to become what one might call a

"serial entrepreneur". He co-founded Coral Network Corporation in 1988

in the US. He went against the nay-sayers to set up Cascade Communications in a

market dominated by Cisco and sold the company to Ascend in 1996 for $3.7

billion. By that time, 72% of all Internet traffic was coursing through Cascade’s

products. A year later, anticipating the optical networking boom, he co-founded

Sycamore Networks that would help revolutionize the backbone of the public

network. His inspiration? A framed $26.95-check that was all he got from his

first entrepreneurial venture. A reminder to him, he once said, that "If

you really believe in it, you’re going to make it happen".

Sugata

Mitra



senior vice-president (R&D), NIIT



This 50-year-old physicist-turned-computer-education-expert came to the

forefront with the internationally-acclaimed ‘hole in the wall’ experiment.

The key observation of this experiment was that children constructed their

learning without external interference, something that Dr Mitra calls ‘minimally

invasive education’. If proven, it could mean a complete makeover in the way

children are taught computers. He has also designed and implemented several

novel computer applications in India.

FC

Kohli



former deputy chairman, TCS



Dr Fakir Chand Kohli, former deputy chairman of Tata Consultancy Services,

was awarded the Padma Bhushan early this year, for his contribution to the

software industry. He is often known as the ‘Father of the Indian SW industry’.

He obtained a BSc (Hons) Electrical Engineering Degree from Queen’s

University, Canada, and MS Electrical Engineering Degree from the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, USA. He is instrumental in building TCS and guiding it

to its current standing.

Harish

Mehta



It was Harish Mehta who, along with Saurabh Srivastava, Prakash Ahuja and

Shashi Bhatnagar, co-founded Nasscom, and brought in Dewang Mehta–the young CA

and computer graphics enthusiast–to head the industry association. The rest is

history. One of the early IT entrepreneurs in the country, Mehta headed

Hinditron which brought in Digital, the first MNC IT firm to arrive in India,

post-IBM’s exit.

Kanwal Rekhi



Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 1945, Kanwal moved with his family to India

during the partition. With a BTech from IIT Bombay and an MS from Michigan Tech

University, he was among the first new-generation Indians to land up at Silicon

Valley and make a fortune. He co-founded Excelan in 1982 and moved to Novell

when the two companies merged in 1989. He subsequently helped set up TiE–The

Indus Entrepreneurs–and has been involved with over 50 start-ups.

Jay

Pullur



founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies



Pramati was one of the first in India to launch Java-based products, and Pullur
has worked with Wipro for 10 years. Jay holds a degree in Computer Science from

IIT Kanpur. Pramati was the first in India to license J2EE and among only three

picked to exhibit Enterprise Java Bean technology at Java One in 1999. R&D

in the Java community process has helped Pramati deliver EJB 2.0 server

technology to the market early.

Kumar Malavalli



Considered one of the originators of fiber channel technology, Malavalli

chairs the ANSI Fiber Channel Switch Committee and the FC Assocation Technology

Committee, which have helped shape standards in this area. Born in Mysore, he

did his engineering from Dusseldorf and moved to Toronto. After two decades of

work in companies like ITT, Canstar and HP, and then, one summer day in 1995, a

venture capitalist called Seth Neimann met him at a shopping center, offered him

$1.4 million and Brocade Communication!

Nandan

Nilekani



He’s been the quintessential road warrior. The man who always stood one

step behind Narayana NR Murthy, ran the operations that no outsider ever got to

see, ran the business, made that sale. Last year though, was the time for

Nilekani to come out of the shadows and take over as CEO of the company. He

still remains the road warrior, though–flying from continent to continent

closing sales. His job–to keep Infy growing in one of the toughest business

environments.

KV Kamath



If one looks at KVK’s five-year record as the chief of the country’s

fastest-growing financial institution, there’s no parallel. A veteran at ICICI,

he transformed it into an agile organization, entered new segments in the

financial sector, and brought it up to global reckoning in terms of competitve-ness

and vision. And it was through technology that KVK brought about a large part of

this transformation. A strong proponent of the New Economy, Kamath pioneered the

initiative to promote a tech company, a venture fund and a string of Internet

companies.

N Vittal



chief vigilance commissioner



He took over as the secretary of the DoE in 1990 and changed the rules of

the game. The software industry will remember him for the $400-million

challenge. They will also remember him for what he once said and did–"The

Indian software export miracle happened," he said, "because something

ungovernment-like happened. The Department of Electronics started breaking rules

to create a freer environment, which dramatically changed the scenario!"

From there, he moved to DoT, where he is remembered for his privatization

attempts.

Maj Gen A

Balasubrahmanian AVSM (retd)



This AVSM winner, with 34 years in the Indian Army, will be most remembered

for being the founding secretary of the Computer Society of India. He also

served as president of CSI from 1969 to 1972. In recognition of his services, he

won the ‘Silver Core’ from the International Federation of Information

processing.

Navdeep S Sooch



co-founder of Silicon Labs



Known in the Silicon Valley as ‘Nav’ Sooch, this Amritsar-born Stanford

alumnus prominently figures in Fortune’s ‘America’s 40 Richest Under 40’

list and is the co-founder president & chief executive officer of Silicon

Labs. His personal worth is estimated at around $186 million. Before founding

Silicon Laboratories, he held various positions at Crystal Semiconductor/Cirrus

Logic and at AT&T Bell Labs.

NK

Patni



CEO, Patni Computer Systems



Naren Patni holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Management
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has over 25 years’

experience in the IT industry and has been a consultant to US Trust Co of New

York and Arthur D. Little. He is instrumental in initiating and developing the

outsourcing business model for the software industry in India.

YS Rajan



leading scientist and author



A scientist and technologist, YS Rajan is partnering with leaders in the

industry and science establishments to accelerate technological competence and

create wealth for Indian citizens. He is executive director, Technology

Information Forecasting and Assessment Council, which looks into technology and

assesses what can be made commercial with a goal toward largescale

commercialization. Recently, he took over as scientific secretary to the

principal scientific adviser. Before joining TIFAC/DST in 1988, he was with the

Indian Space Program since 1964. He recently authored a book, named Empowering

Indians. TIFAC outlined the technology vision of India till 2020. He has to his

credit the distinction of co-authoring a book with APJ Abdul Kalam, President of

India.

Pawan

Kumar



chairman and CEO, Vmoksha



One of the oldest hands in the Indian IT Industry, this IIT Kanpur alumni

joined TCS in 1974 and is credited with setting up the Software Maintenance

Group there. After spending nearly two decades with TCS, he moved out–only to

head organizations like Fujitsu-ICIM, IBM Global Services India and DSQ

Software. Subsequently, the entrepreneurial bug bit him and he launched Vmoksha.

Prem Shivdasani



managing director, ICIM



Coming back from USA is not a recent phenomena. Prem Shivdasani did that way

back in the 80s and went on to become an icon of the Indian IT industry. Apart

from being the CEO of ICIM, the largest computer Indian company in the mid-80s,

Shivdasani has to be credited to lay the foundations of the Indian IT industry.

He was the founder member for MAIT and then later on for Nasscom.

Pramod

Mahajan



Union minister for IT, telecommunications and parliamentary affairs



In Year 1999, Mahajan was given the task of heading the newly-created IT

department. He helped the Indian IT sector strengthen its roots and also helped

India maintain key alliance with Asian leaders like Goh Chok Tong, Dae-Jung and

Natsagiya Bagabandi. Along with building a resurgent regional identity, he also

pushed forward path-breaking legislation. He has networked extensively with

politicians, bureaucrats, academicians, businessmen and scientists.

Pradeep

Sindhu



CTO and founder, Juniper Networks



Legendary venture capitalist Vinod Khosla calls Sindhu "tech’s

biggest unsung hero". The Juniper founder expanded the routers’

capabilities, making Juniper the only company so far to seriously threaten Cisco

and permanently alter the Internet’s backbone technology. He founded Juniper

in 1996 and was considered crazy to take aim at Cisco. But 5 years later Juniper

grabbed 30% of the high-end router market. Prior to Juniper he was former Xerox

PARC principal scientist where he designed tools for VLSI and high-speed

interconnects for shared memory microprocessors.

Pramod

Bhasin



president, GE Capital



Arguably the most important man in the BPO space in India is Bhasin. GE has

20,000 employees working in back-end offices in India. He says the BPO industry

in India can have another 45,000 trained students enter it. Currently GE handles

450 processes across 30 different businesses. Bhasin is a CA from Thomson

McLintock & Co, London and holds a BCom degree.

Prof Sadagopan



founder-director, IIIT (Bangalore)



The founder-director of the Indian Institute of Information Technology,

Bangalore he has taught for more than two decades at IIT Kanpur and IIM

Bangalore. From 1973-1976, he moved to Purdue University, USA for his master’s

and doctoral degrees before returning to India to teach at IIT-K. Prof Sadagopan

has taught full terms at Rutgers University (New Jersey), IIT-M and AIT

(Bangkok). He has authored two textbooks–Management Information Systems and

ERP: A Managerial Perspective. His name figures among Marquis’ ‘Who’s Who

in the World’ since 1997.

Prof

HN Mahabala



One of the pioneers of Indian IT education, 66-year-old Prof HN Mahabala

obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan,

Canada. In 1965, Mahabala initiated the computer science program at IIT Kanpur–a

first in India. He has taught over 25 courses in computer science and set up a

national computer center at IIT Chennai.

Prof N Balakrishnan — Balki



chairman (information scientist & services)


Indian Institute of Science




Prof N Balakrishnan has made significant contributions to the creation of

the Centre for Microprocessor Applications, the National Centre for Science

Information, the Supercomputer Education and Research Centre at the Indian

Institute of Science. He was associate chairman of the Centre for Scientific and

Industrial Consultancy Centre. He is currently chairman of the Supercomputer

Education and Research Centre and also divisional chairman of Information

Sciences & Services. He has contributed to over 120 publications and

international journals and among his areas of research is numerical

electromagnetics.

Rajesh

Uppal



general manager (IT)


Maruti Udyog Limited




Rajesh Uppal is the IT chief of the country’s largest automaker. A

mechanical engineer, Uppal joined Maruti in 1985. Since then, he has been

working in the IT division at MUL. Joining the division as an executive, he

today heads it as general manager. During his stint at MUL, Uppal has been

witness to the nascent wing growing in stature and reach to become what it is

today. Before joining Maruti Udyog, Uppal had worked with Bhel in the public

sector unit’s IT department. Today, 60% of the company’s business is

conducted online and 260 dealers are linked to their WAN.

Rajesh Jain



Rajesh Jain made it to the cover story of the February 2000 issue of TIME–"Rajesh

Jain taught Asia what Silicon Valley has known for a long time: going public may

be the most celebrated way to cash in on the Internet, but selling out can be a

sure-fire moneymaker." And he got $115 million for selling out India’s

first portal site–IndiaWorld–to Sify in November 1999. A year before that,

Jain set up NetCore, a Linux-based messaging software company. NetCore is now

transforming itself into a company called as Emergic.

Raj

Saraf



chairman & MD, Zenith Computer



Saraf is an LLB from the University of Mumbai. He singlehandedly ventured into
the arena of electronic components–pioneering Zenith Semiconductors. Without

external help–financial or otherwise–Saraf incorporated his dream, Zenith

Computers, in 1980. Zenith has come a long way from the sale of integrated

circuits to assembling and then to its own brand. Saraf has played a key role in

taking PCs to the common man, with dramatic price slashes being his strongest

weapon–one that makes him a formidable adversary in the PC space.

Rajiv Bapna



founder, Amkette



Rajiv Bapna, an alumnus of IIT Delhi, founded Amkette in 1986. The company was
the first-ever domestic manufacturer of floppy diskettes in in India. In a short

span of time, Amkette gained a strong name in the Indian market due to Bapna’s

strong focus on precision manufacturing, customer service and distribution

policies. In time, Amkette has diversified into a computer essentials company

with a range of 150 products encompassing 15 categories. Bapna is also

responsible for creating one of the largest IT distribution network in the

country.

B

Ramalinga Raju



Ramalinga Raju the soft-spoken son of an agriculturist who developed a hard nose
for the IT business. Raju jumped into IT as a hobby, quickly realized its growth

potential and has today built it into a Rs 1,700-crore giant. He started one of

the first–if not the first–true outsourcing deal with Deere & Co in the

US and set off a whole new phenomenon. In 1999 he won the Ernst & Young

Entrepreneur of Year (Services) Award.

Rajiv Gandhi



They called him the JFK of India–the man who took a different, young,

modern image of India to the world. They called him the "Laptop Prime

Minister" (he carried a 386 Toshiba). Later, they called him other names

like "Computerji". But he’s remembered here not just for the image

he projected outside, but the messages he sent within. He believed in the Indian

IT dream long before Indian programmers were flocking to training institutes and

long before Indian software even looked like it had a future internationally;

for his various technology missions and for setting up C-DAC that gave India its

first indigenous supercomputer. But most of all, he’s remembered for the New

Computer Policy, 1984, announced within 19 days of his coming to power–that

opened the floodgates.

Ramesh

D Grover



managing director, CMS



He learned very early in life how to rise over adverse situations and emerge

a winner when he managed to survive and successfully migrate to India from

Lahore in 1947 soon after the partition. After joining BITS Pilani on a

scholarship, he soon started assembling radios for co students to fund his

study. He took up his first job at L&T but quit it after eight months to

join IBM as a trainee engineer. In his decade long stint there he went on to

become its national technical support manager. His big opportunity came when IBM

decided to exit India and some worried customers suggested that he start a

maintenance company and that they would suport him. It worked!

Rajendra

S Pawar



chairman, NIIT



A distinguished alumnus of IIT Delhi, Pawar co-founded NIIT along with

batchmate Vijay Thadani and with support from Shiv Nadar. Pawar, a visionary and

developer of HR potential, has played a role in instituting quality processes

and Crosby’s CDMS at NIIT. He is interested in foreseeing the trends and

crucial directions in the deployment of IT for quantum change in organization

effectiveness.

Sanjeev Bhikchandani



The pioneer in the Web-enabled recruitment business, this 39-year-old IIM

Ahmedabad exponent founded naukri.com in 1997 before the dot-com wave hit Indian

shores. Even as several others recruitment websites entered and exited this

space, naukri.com remains one of India’s few profitable Internet businesses

and projects sales revenue for financial 2002-03 at Rs 10 crore. During his 16

years in the industry, Bhikchandani has worked with Lintas India and SmithKline

Beecham, before "being bitten by the entrepreneural bug".

S

Ramadorai



chief executive officer, Tata Consultancy Services



Beginning his career with TCS as a programmer, Ramadorai rose through the

ranks and was given the charge of setting up TCS’ operations in the US in

1975. He began with New York and that network has since grown to over 50 offices

throughout the country. Since taking over as CEO, he has focussed on building

relationships with large corporations and academic institutions, planning and

directing technology development and acquisitions and overseeing the company’s

R& activities.

Raman

Roy



president and chief executive officer, Wipro Spectramind



As president and chief executive officer of Wipro Spectramind, Raman Roy was

responsible for the company’s strategic direction and is the key driving force

of the company’s mission and business philosophy. 45-year-old Raman is

regarded as the pioneer and "guru" of the IT-enabled services business

out of India, having played a pivotal role in proving India as a locale for

remote processing and has successfully delivered servicing solutions.

Sabeer Bhatia



entrepreneur



He was India’s first IT poster boy–who made greenbacks by playing

hardball with the world’s richest man. After selling Hotmail for about $390

million in Microsoft stock, he returned to his entrepreneurial ways because he

did not want to be called ‘Mr Hotmail’ for the rest of his life. His fall

from grace came with the demise of aarzoo.com, which was a casualty of the

dot-com bust. He has floated NavinMail, which offers voice-based services that

allow users to send voice messages.

Sam

Pitroda



CEO, WorldTel



They called it the ‘Great Technology Honeymoon’–his and Rajiv Gandhi’s–that

led to the setting up of the Center for the Development of Telematics in India

and his appointment as Gandhi’s technology adviser. Against one of the most

public oppositions in the history of Indian technology by bureaucrats of all

hues, he launched the Rural Automatic Exchanges (RAX) project, that brought the

PCO revolution to India. Pitroda launched his own company, Wesom, in 1974 in

Chicago, which he sold to Rockwell International six years later. After his

return to the US, he took over as CEO of WorldTel, which helps develop and

finance telecom in developing countries.

Sanjeev

Aggarwal



CEO, Daksh


e-Services




When he decided to quit as CEO of 3Com India, he didn’t join the dot-com

gold rush. Instead, he ventured into IT-enabled services–specifically CRM–as

his experience had taught him that most online transactions are abandoned

because of inadequate customer support. And in two years’ time, he not only

built a 2,300-people-strong team, he also created a highly customer-centric firm

with a focus on delivering customer service–a fact that was recognized by

Ernst & Young, which have him the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year Award’.

Shailendra Gupta



Group CEO, Tech Pacific Holdings



In 1996, when Tech Pacific invested into Godrej & Boyce and started

Godrej Pacific Technology in India, nobody thought that the venture would become

big. But it did, thanks primarily due to Gupta, the man who headed this company

as CEO since its inception and implemented the Tech Pacific business model and

management systems in the Indian environment. In 1999, Tech Pacific bought full

equity from Godrej & Boyce and the company became Tech Pacific (India) Ltd,

a fully-owned subsidiary with Gupta as managing director. Tech Pacific is a

top-tier distributor in India and posted revenues of Rs 1,676 crore for fiscal

2001-02.

Satish

Naralkar



Satish Naralkar has spent 20 years in the IT industry with companies like IBM
and CMC, but his stint as the



CIO of NSE for five years since inception fetched him his real glory. In 1994,
his brief was to architect a new stock exchange for the country using

technology. And he delivered well, with NSE having many firsts in technology and

technology practices to its credit–the world’s largest satellite-based

trading network, business continuity planning, outsourcing, Internet-based

online trading, and much more. Since 1999, Naralkar has been heading NSE.IT, a

technology subsidiary carved out of the National Stock Exchange.

Vijay Bhatkar



chairman, ETH Research Lab



He is the father of Indian supercomputing. As the then executive director of

Center for Development of Advanced Computing, he gave India’s its first

supercomputer–PARAM 8000–in 1991 . And he did it in a record time of three

years. It was the most resoundingly proud retort to the US, which had then

refused to let Cray sell its supercomputer to India. Bhatkar went on to build

PARAM 10000 in 1998, one of the world’s largest supercomputers, propelling

India into the group of elite five nations that possess this technology. He is

also credited with nurturing the GIST multilingual technology which made

possible the use and co-existence of all Indian languages along with English on

standard computers and the setting up of C-DAC’s well-known Advanced Computing

Training School. He has authored/edited eight books and over 80 research

publications in supercomputing, artificial intelligence and distributed computer

control. In 2000, the government awarded him the Padmashri.

Shashi

Ullal



former president and MD, HECL



Ullal worked for 42 years with the Indian IT industry, and was the first to take
on the challenge of a new industry–the VSAT segment–and assumed office as

president and managing director of Hughes Escorts Communications in July 1995.

He developed this industry segment in India, one because of which his company

maintains the early entrant advantage. Previous to Hughes, Ullal was with IBM

for 19 years, and other major assignments were with DCM Data Products,

Hewlett-Packard division of Blue Star Ltd, Modi Olivetti and Alcatel Modi. As

president of the VSAT Service Providers’ Association, he also raised the VSAT

issue to facilitate access to Ku and C bands and foreign satellite connectivity.

He is a member of the Telecom Committee of Ficci, Assocham and CII.

Sirjang (Jugi) Lal Tandon



CEO & chairman, Celetron



One of the earliest immigrants from India to Silicon Valley, he founded the

Tandon Corporation in 1975, producing magnetic recording heads for floppy disk

drives and becoming a leading producer of floppy disk drives. Prior to 1975,

Jugi had worked at IBM, Memorex and Pertec. For his achievements in technology

and business, he was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree overseas.

Shiv

Nadar



25 years ago, when Shiv Nadar quit DCM to form Hindustan Computers Ltd in a

one-room tenement, little did he realize that he would pioneer the growth of IT

in India in every sphere–hardware, software and networking communications.

Also that, in the process of running HCL, he and his company would be become the

incubators for India’s leading IT professionals and entrepreneurs. Today, he

has moved on to the software side, with HCL Technologies, to make it amongst the

top 10 Indian IT companies.

Sivasankaran



Sterling Computers



Sivasankaran launched the Siva PC at an unbelievable price of Rs 29,000 and took
the bottom out of the market. That was to become a habit with Siva–he did the

same in 1997–till he eventually faded out of the PC scene altogether.

SR

Balasubramanian



chief information officer, Hero Honda



He is considered the person who turned IT cynics into IT believers within

Hero Honda. With 27 years’ experience in the field of IT, starting from Indian

Oil Corp to AF Ferguson & Company, Balasubramanian joined Hero Honda Motors

in 1990. Back then, he was involved in IT implementation, devising new IT

policies and coping with the resistance to IT implementation. After a two-year

break, he re-joined Hero Honda and helped install structured LAN systems and WAN

links, connecting 21 locations and manufacturing plants. Employees were soon

eager to be part of the network and the culture changed–and that made using

SAP much easier. As things improved, Hero Honda made increased revenues and

faster audits–thanks in part to Balasubramanian.

Suhas Patil



chairman emeritus, co-founder and director, Cirrus Logic



A true visionary, Patil co-founded Cirrus Logic with Michael Hackworth in

1984. Today, Cirrus Logic is a leading manufacturer of advanced integrated

circuits for multimedia, communications and mass storage in personal computers.

Born in Jamshedpur, Patel received his degree in electronics and electronics

communication from IIT in 1965 and went on to get his PhD in electrical

engineering from MIT. Subsequently, he taught at MIT and then moved to the

University of Utah. Later, he founded VLSI Group and Patil Systems in 1981.

Suresh

Rajpal



When HP entered India, the government had all sorts of rules, licenses and

regulations. The person who helped manage all that and give HP a headstart

toward becoming one of the largest IT companies of India was Suresh Rajpal. He

is the man who launched HP in India and took it to over $200 million in revenues

during his tenure. Also, at the height of his career in 1999, he quit to start

his own venture–e-Capital Solutions.

Team Samsung



A success story of 31 employees managing an over Rs 1,200-crore business–that’s

Team Samsung. With the highest-per-employee productivity of nearly Rs 40 crore

per employee, Team Samsung has leveraged the channel to form the largest IT

peripherals company. Other achievements include crossing the 3-million-monitors

mark by October 2002 to capture 52.5% of the Indian color monitor market. The

company has set up a manufacturing unit with a 4-million installed capacity,

even as the entire monitor demand in India is pegged at 2.5 million units

annually.

Sunil

Bharti Mittal



chairman & MD, Bharti Enterprises



From a cycle parts manufacturing business that he started in 1976 with

borrowed capital of Rs 20,000, Mittal has come a long way to head Bharti Group,

whose flagship company Bharti Tele-Ventures is India’s leading private sector

provider of telecommunications services. Under his stewardship, not only has

Touchtel become India’s first private sector telephone service provider to

cross the 300,000-mark, Bharti is also the first telecom firm to cross the

2-million mobile subscriber mark. Besides, Bharti rolled out IndiaOne–the

country’s first private international long-distance service leading to sharp

drops in STD and ISD rates. BusinessWeek named him ‘One of the Top

Entrepreneurs’ for Year 2000 and a ‘Star of Asia’ for Year 2001.

Veer Sagar



CEO, TCG Software Services (India)



He is an industry veteran in the true sense–with over 21 years’

experience in the information technology space and over 16 years at the helm of

various organizations. After starting his career at Dunlop, he moved to ICIM in

1984. Under Sagar’s "unobtrusive and friendly" style of functioning,

ICIM continued to flourish. In 1989, he left ICIM to join DCM Data Systems as

its president and CEO. Veer Sagar is remembered for successfully turning around

the ailing DCM Data Systems. It was under his leadership that the company

launched Cosmos/10, the world’s first i486-based system, and in April 1990,

the company bagged a $11-million order from the United States–then the largest

Indian software export order.

V

Rajaraman



IBM professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research



He returned from the US at a time when computer education wasn’t even on

the horizon in India. As an academician, he built that horizon. He mooted and

started the first-ever under-graduate course in computer science at IIT Kanpur,

in the face of stiff resistance–which came because there weren’t even any

books available on computers at the time. So Prof Rajaraman took the easy way

out (!)–he wrote them–a good 15 of them, actually. If the origins of this

industry lie in the education we received, then he is remembered as the guru who

helped Indian computer pros grow. Prof Rajaraman has also been in the faculty of

various prestigious institutes like IIT Kanpur, IISc Bangalore, Universities of

Wisconsin, California and Berkely. He has also been a visiting IBM Research

Fellow at the Systems Development Institute, Canberra. In 1997, Dataquest gave

him ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for contribution to IT. He landed the Padma

Bhushan in 1998.

Vinod Khosla



general partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers



Forbes calls him "One of the Movers and Shakers of the Tech

World". An influential VC of Silicon Valley today, 47-year-old Vinod Khosla

is best known for co-founding Sun Microsystems, the largest corporation founded

by an Indian. He also set up Daisy Systems, which was one of the first companies

to go after the computer-aided design software market. An IIT Delhi and Stanford

Graduate School of Busines alumni, he is on the boards of Asera, Corio Inc,

Juniper Networks, Redback, QWEST Communications and Zaplet Inc.

Vyomesh

Joshi



executive V-P (imaging and printing group) Hewlett-Packard



VJ, as he is known, has worldwide responsibility for all printing, scanning and
digital camera platforms and for ensuring the leverage from investments in

inkjet, laser and LEP printing technologies. He also leads HP’s digital

imaging strategy and is responsible for key initiatives to transform the

commercial printing market through digital publishing. He became the

vice-president and general manager of the former inkjet imaging solutions

personal imaging and printing organization in 1999 and had responsibility for

all inkjet printing and imaging platforms. He also led the HP initiative on

digital imaging appliances, infrastructure and services.

Vinod Dham



CEO, Silicon Spice



Known to the world as the ‘Father of the Pentium’, Dham left Indian

shores on an engineering scholarship at the University of Cincinnati, with the

proverbial $10 in his pocket. After working with NCR–a chip design company in

the US–he joined Intel to lead the Pentium team. Subsequently, he went on to

set up Silicon Spice to develop VoIP solutions for the communications market.

His latest venture is NewPath Ventures, a tech company incubator that proposes

to set up five hybrid Indo-US companies that will focus on chip-making, embedded

software and system design.

Vivek

Paul



president, Wipro Technologies



Drive. That’s the word that comes to mind when one thinks of Vivek Paul.

He’s not old, but the swathe he’s cut in his professional life might well

fool you into thinking he is. After a BE from BITS Pilani, Paul left for the US

for an MBA from Amherst. After a few jobs, he landed up at GE–where he would

spend the next 10 years of his life. In 1989, he was a member of the first GE

evaluation team that came and started GE’s outsourcing relationship with

India. Later, he helped identify, launch and for a while headed the Wipro-GE

Medical Sytems JV. In 1996, he returned to GE to run its global computerized

tomography business–which became a case study in global sourcing. In the three

years since he’s taken over as president of Wipro Technologies, he’s grown

the business by 45% and operating profits by 50% almost every year, plus given

the company international branding like never before.