IT Man of The Year 1998

The brooding looks, the slightly tilted face, leaning forward to catch every little word, phrase and nuance, the quick jerk of the head and the tall, lean bearded face sits back to think for a moment. Having thought, there are few pauses, corrections and errors. The words, when they come out, are correct, precise, and even philosophical and always with a high dose of humility. There is a deep convincing tone that takes even the mundane to higher planes of existence, suspends it for a moment and then brings it back, so gradually back to ground reality. The higher plane of philosophy combined with a highly humanistic attitude to every action of his life, his personal quest, his professional strides and his all-encompassing spirit of Passion. The spirit that created an edifice called NIIT, driving the lives of 3,500 people, a billion dollar market cap (even if it was for a short while), and the most profitable listed IT company in India. Situations that made him a role model for aspiring businesspersons and the DATAQUEST IT Man of The Year 1998. Meet Rajendra S Pawar, Vice-Chairman of NIIT, philosopher to the core and businessman to a fault.

Everything about Pawar is Pre-cision, Passion and Philosophy. Rarely does he waste a word or a minute. He breaks up every little problem into minute and discrete parts and then tackles them one by one. "So what if there are problems," he shrugs when asked about his 16-year tryst with computer education. Precision. Rather than talk about the industrial versus the information age, he breaks it up again. "It is atoms versus bytes," he says. "Atoms are products of machines and bytes are products of the mind." From there he takes a mental leap to the more macro issues: "It is more difficult to manage a byte economy as compared to an atom economy." At his own level, he is working on the bytes rather than the atoms. "I am fascinated by the mind," he says and then reels off: "Brain research, knowledge management, left brain-right brain, these fascinate me." At the bottom of it all, it is the desire to understand the way the mind works which bothers him a lot.

An early misadventure with a senior manager in Pawar's earlier job taught him the value of people. "I will never look past a person," he says, without wanting to go into specifics about the past incident. "I have no hesitation in shaking anybody's hand." And at the same time, he is upset most about people when they do no live up to their own words. "At an individual level, saying that they will do it and not do makes me upset," he confesses.

"People is the big word," says Sanjiv Kataria, Director, Corporate Communications, at NIIT, who has worked with the company for 12 years now. The number of people that Pawar meets within NIIT is more than anybody else. The typical style is to call some of the members of the region that he is visiting for a 'post-dinner' coffee bull session. "As a leader, we have to make ourselves vulnerable," says Pawar, adding, "I get challenged at the lowest levels in the company." So every Friday, Pawar walks into the induction program at the company and takes a session. The session has one very simple question: What is the one thing that gets you upset and angry at NIIT? The idea, he says, is to infect their minds with the thought that it is OK to have a defect. Identify the defects and build the courage to face them. The principle is really simple. If you can change yourselves, you can change the world. And the only way to change yourself, is to first accept the defect.

And then there is this Passion. And it scorches you. In everything that he touches, whether it is about driving the business policies, or about fighting competition, or in feeling that he is #1 or even in inquiring about some employee's father's heart condition, there is total, undivided, unqualified attention. The passion also emanates from the feeling of being the very best in whatever he chooses to do. Whether he is evangelizing education or hardselling quality to government bureaucrats, or if he is lecturing a bunch of kids (the younger the better, according to him) on values. The passion also comes through when he is talking to his employees and when he is espousing the cause of information technology amongst politicians. "Even if you ignore the logic in what he says, his forcefulness convinces you that it is coming from the heart," says a former associate who has worked with him for a considerable period of time. As a result, clinical analysis gets supplemented by the pit-of-the-stomach emotion, and opposition to any idea gets rather weak. "It is very difficult to disagree with Pawar," says another industry captain. "You always feel that the guy is so emotional about the whole thing that he may actually get upset." Pawar dismisses that notion with a wave of his hand. According to him "managing two opposite, contradictory points of view and remaining sane at the same time" is what gives his idealism a touch of reality. On more than one occasion with the writer he speaks of "head in the cloud and feet in the sand" to be representing his dogma.

Talk to him about business and you will hear him once again splitting the issue into manageable parts. Ask him about issues such as protection and he says: "To enable intrinsic national competition, there should be no protection at all." From importing technology, we should be net producers of technology, he says. "Once we do that, issues such as import restriction etc will vanish," he says. There is a pet theory that he espouses: "From things to thoughts." Before you think it is philosophy, he brings you right down by connecting the philosophy to NIIT. The company's thought programs such as LEDA, Computerdrome, ALC, software factories bear testimony to the power of thought that goes beyond the mundanity of running a business. Look at the people he likes working with-Dr Sugata Mitra, Principal Scientist ("He is really wacky!"), Behavioral Scientist Dr Amitava Mitra, CR Mitra (former Director, BITS Pilani), JR Isaac-people who have had little experience running a business or even working in an enterprise. However, the combined intellectual capital that NIIT packs in and nurtures paves the way for the company to constantly research and find better ways to impregnate the mind. Take a look at NIIT's Quality movement and you will find Pawar's signature all over it. The initial draw to Prof Philip Crosby and then the creation of IQL and IQF. While the former is a profit-making enterprise with blue-chip customers such as Airfreight, Bharti Cellular, National Insurance, IIS Infotech, Sahara etc, with 15 people operating out of Delhi, IQF is a not-for-profit endeavor with a stated aim of making the concept of quality penetrate the three rungs of bureaucracy, politics and school education. So much so that on Phil Crosby's first visit to India, Pawar personally ensured that the Indian ruling class, from the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to cabinet secretary and the entire committee of secretaries, met Crosby and were exposed to the 'first lessons of what Quality is all about.' Concurrently, there are close to 100 schools in Delhi city where IQF is active, seeding the idea of Quality amongst 30,000 children, an exercise that Kataria refers to as taking them from "awareness to action."

Along the way, NIIT has grown. From a Rs15.33-crore company in 1989-90 to a Rs656 crore edifice at the end of fiscal 1997-98. The high point came in May this year, when for a brief period, the market capitalization of NIIT crossed $1 billion, making it the Indian company with the largest market cap at that time. Even today, it ranks amongst the top three with Infosys and Wipro, the latter being #1. The quintessential Education Company today gets roughly half its revenues from non-education business. It is amongst the top five as far software export sweepstakes are concerned. It is amongst the larger domestic software companies, engaged in products as well as systems integration. It has one of the most respected R&D outfits amongst IT companies in India. Its staff turnover rate is less than industry average. It has consistently been recognized as one of the best practitioners of HR in the country. It is one of the few Indian companies which hire from MNCs, matching them in money as well as ambience. It is the only company which has the deepest management capabilities in the IT industry. "We can provide more CEOs to the industry than anyone else," says an NIIT staffer. It trains more youngsters than any other company in the country. It was one of the first IT education companies to create a virtual university, where more than half the students are from outside India. It made more profits than any other IT company last year. Its shareholders are happier than another company's. Its employees are happier than any other company's.

In fact the best paraphrasing of Pawar comes from a man who has known him longer than even his parents-President and CEO Vijay Thadani. Reminisces Thadani, "We did all the good and the bad things together, same college (IIT Delhi), same year (1972), same hostel (Jwalamukhi), same floor..." Thadani's pragmatism is complemented by Pawar's idealism. They are NIIT's Yin and Yang, Water and Fire.... "He (Pawar) is much more tolerant of me than I am of him," says Thadani. From day one, Pawar and Thadani have been equal partners in the business, same salary, same equity.... "He has worked at it (making me feel equal) more than I have," concedes Thadani.

What about life after NIIT? Pawar wants to teach (ironically, so does Thadani). Teach what? "Well, it could be anything. I will work always with the mind, the thing that fascinates me." As he himself says, "We are not trained how to manage thoughts." His next few years will be spent cultivating the Billion Dollar Edifice (plus-minus a few dollars), working at Quality, working with People (young and old). Working at his actualization, moving from bits to atoms, from things to thoughts.

L Subramanyan,





in New Delhi.

 

Rajendra S Pawar: The Philosopher-Businessman

Areas Of Interest:





- Foreseeing the trends and crucial directions in the deployment of information technology for quantum change in organizational effectiveness.




- Participating in major task forces and workgroups set up by the Government of India in the areas of technical manpower development and technology development.




- Playing a key role as industry spokesman and leading the premier computer industry association MAIT.




- Strategic top management consulting to organizations for architecting their automation strategies and to the Government for policy formulation.




- Creating and implementing a new model of self-sustaining education system now contributing significantly to the technical talent pool of the country.




- Studying in depth learning and applying multi-cultural concepts of quality in the Indian service industry.

Professional Experience:





NIIT Limited:
1981-Present.
Vice Chairman and Managing Director



Rajendra S Pawar is currently the Vice Chairman and Managing Director of NIIT Ltd, a publicly listed information technology services corporation, founded in India in 1981. NIIT Ltd specializes in IT Consulting, Systems & Application Software Development, Training & Education and Systems Integration.



The blueprint for NIIT was conceived and architected by Pawar in 1981. Over the past 17 years, NIIT has set many standards and has grown into a major IT services company with probably the largest range of services and products with a high brand equity.



HCL Ltd: 1976-79. He joined the newly incorporated Hindustan Computers Ltd, now the No.1 IT company in India, as part of the core team in 1976. After building up a strong base for the company at Bombay, he moved into the position of Corporate Planning Manager in 1979 and contributed significantly to the long-term planning and direction-setting of the corporation.



DCM Ltd: 1972-76. He joined DCM Ltd as Management Trainee in 1972. On completion of the traineeship period he took charge as Assistant Product Manager in 1974. He then took on the position of Assistant Sales Manager in 1975.



Larsen & Toubro Ltd: 1972. On completion of his BTech from IIT, he joined Larsen & Toubro Ltd as a Graduate Engineer Trainee.

Professional Activities Worldwide:





- Member, Electronics Committee, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)


- Member, Committee of Affiliated Associations & Divisions (CAAD), CII


- President of Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology


(MAIT, 1990-92)


- Chairman, CTD, MAIT (1989-90)


- Chairman, Quality Committee, MAIT (1995-1977)


- Ex-Officio Member of South East Asia Information Technology Organization


- Founder-Member of the National Association of Software & Service Companies (NASSCOM)




- Member, Working Group for World Bank Study on Software, Department of Electronics (DoE), Government of India (GoI)




- Founder-Member of MAIT


- Fellow, Computer Society of India


- Fellow, Institution of Electronics & Telecom Engineers


- Fellow, National Telematics Forum


- Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

- Senate Member, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi



- Chairman, Quality Committee, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)

Contribution To Government

Committees:





- Member, National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development (Constituted under the authority of the office of the Prime Minister of India)




- Member, Task Force on Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Dept of Electronics, Govt of India n Member, National Advisory Committee on DoEACC, DoE


- Member, National Steering Committee on Project 'IMPACT', DoE


- Member, National Advisory Board for Software Technology Parks, DoE


- Member, Advisory Committee on Employment Potential of Electronics, Institute of Applied Manpower Research




- Member, MITRA Steering Committee, DoE


- Member, Working Group on Adult Education in the Eighth Five Year Plan, Department of Adult Education


- Member, DoE delegation to Norway in 1985


- Member, Advisory Committee for Continuing Educational Program,


IIT, Delhi


- Member, Technological Development Council, DoE


- Member, Task Force on MIS & Evaluation, Ministry of Human Resource Development


- Member, Committee on Manpower Development, DoE

Recognition At National Level:





- In recognition of Pawar's services to the Computer Society of India and his sustained efforts for the promotion of excellence in the field of Information Technology and Computer Education, The Computer Society of India has conferred upon him the unique honor of Fellow of the Society, in 1994.




- His contribution to the IT Industry in India is highly significant. As President of MAIT in 1990-92, Pawar integrated MAIT activities into those of other leading industry associations in India.




- MAIT played a significant role in shaping IT policies of the Government of India, during his Presidency. MAIT's Internationalization was initiated by him with its being accepted as a Member of SITO (South East Asia Information Technology Organization).




- Pawar attended the 1991 and 1992 Annual Conventions of SITO and apprised the world of the rising potential and capabilities of the Indian IT Industry.

Education:





- BTech (Electronics) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi



During the period of his Engineering education at IIT, Delhi, he held various responsibilities, both in administrative and extra-curricular roles.





He was the Student Chairman of Student Affairs Council (SAC), the apex student Organization in IIT, and later held the coveted position of General Secretary of SAC during 1970-71.
He was the recipient of the special award for "Outstanding Contribution toward Corporate life on the Campus" in 1970-71. As an accomplished sportsman, he captained IIT Delhi Hockey Team in 1971-72 and received 22 Awards at the various IIT Annual Athletics Meets.





- Schooling from the Scindia School, Gwalior, in 1967, where he held the coveted post of School Prefect.

Personal Data:





- Born on March 19, 1951




- Married, with one son aged 17 years and two daughters aged 15 and 6 years.

 

Lifetime Contribution Award 1998

"If you enjoy what you are doing, then it is very likely that you will excel in it." It is indeed this spirit that has seen him excel in whatever he did, and made him the first choice among the panel members who have chosen him for the award for Lifetime Contribution to the IT Industry. He is Professor Hosakere N Mahabala, an outstanding teacher and researcher who has taught not only in the venerable IITs, but also to children in rural areas. A daily dose of humor, pursuit of excellence and treatment of life as a long learning experience has seen this 64-year-old professor make it to the top in his career and in life.

Equipped with a BSc (Honors) in Mathematics from Mysore Uni-versity (1955), Mahabala went on to do his diploma in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where he continued as a Senior Technical Assistant till 1959. Subsequently, he obtained his Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan and was later on awarded a PhD for his work on switching in tunnel diode flip-flop in 1964. Mahabala did a short stint as lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Waterloo, before returning to India. "At that time when jobs were hard to come by in India and people had advised me to apply for jobs only when advertised, it was a pleasant surprise for me when one day I received a telegram from IIT Kanpur offering me Assistant Professorship based on some references," reminisces Mahabala.

Far from feeling regretful about the decision to come back, he says, "It was my luck that I was involved with whatever happened in the area of computers in the early years." Talking of his other friends "who have done well in the US," he asks, "How many of them have a chance of advising somebody the equivalent of a Prime Minister there?" This is a privilege he enjoyed when he was a member of the Electronics Commission. "It has been very satisfying to be part of the computer revolution in India," he admits.

Back home in 1965, Mahabala initiated the Computer Science program at IIT Kanpur-a first in the country. "I always wanted to attend a tutorial, but was called on to give one," he says jokingly about his career as a teacher. "My first lecture was a disaster," he recalls. For all that he had prepared in three hours had been delivered in half an hour and one of the boys told him that he had even repeated. "But that was the challenge and I strived to make teaching more interesting. I even went to the extent of taking up a course in communications to perfect my teaching skills," he adds. Clearly, this challenging spirit had developed in his childhood days when he would take up doing knitting and cooking that his mother did. And all this, just to prove that "anything is possible."

This never-say-die spirit drew him close to the industry and computers, in addition to the academic side of things. For his academic life is checkered with several projects using computers. "Anybody would ask me if you can do 'this' with computers, and I will be working on it to prove that I can. There is always joy in solving these problems as with a jig-saw puzzle," he says. "It was fun every bit and I enjoyed the process thoroughly," he adds. For example, as part of the Knowledge Based Computer System project sponsored by the DoE and UNDP, Mahabala and his team demonstrated an application of expert system in health care, useful in the rural context. Called the Eklavya project, his team, in collaboration with the pediatrics department of St John's Medical College, Bangalore, developed a referral system to monitor children under the age of five. System integration on a PC guided a health worker to elicit case history in local language from the mother/guardian of a sick child brought in the primary health clinic.

Once a marketing executive of a lighting company approached him and requested him to develop an illumination software-which was a pre-requisite for his company to bid for a contract in the Asiad Games that were to be held in Delhi. The task involved designing algorithms from first principles based on technical material in the area of illumination and Genelac. The Indian company that approached him bagged the contract. Other such challenging and 'freak' examples of the use of computers by him include designing a system for range safety which was validated at ISRO, Sriharikota; a cutting tool advisor for Widia; power load dispatch system and a conflict checking in piping system for the Tatas; and a detonator location planner, to name a few.

Not stopping with his own involvement in academics and industry, Mahabala also tried to bring about a meaningful interaction of the two in his best possible way. After the successful initiation of the Computer Science program in IIT Kanpur, Mahabala was invited to IIT Madras in 1973 to be entrusted with the responsibility of setting up such similar challenging assignments there. He is credited with the setting up of the first National Computer Center for R&D in India based on a third-generation machine-IBM 370, system 155. This center was kept open for users from various companies such as BHEL, ISRO and Atomic Energy Commission.

Alongwith the shift to Chennai came in a new identity that is the hallmark of Mahabala even to this day-'the Mahabala shirt.' "People would not recognize me if I were to change this shirt now," he quips. It all started when he came to Madras and the regular shirts got sticky in minutes and he felt dry. So he chopped off the collar and looked for a thick fabric to keep cool. Although a practical solution to the then problem, it took some courage to wear a collarless shirt while meeting higher-ups. But it got accepted all the way to the Prime Minister level!

Once in Madras, in addition to introducing MTech in Computer Science, Mahabala also looked around for other exciting technologies in the world. With a keen interest in digital electronics, he was quick to identify the advent of VLSI (very large scale integration) activity and tried to encourage this in a big way in India. Soon followed the first VLSI Conference in India at IIT Madras. "We were able to convince DoE to support VLSI R&D in India, which helped us to teach VLSI courses including fabrication of chips using FPGA. It was indeed much satisfying to see our first Gate Array chip," he recalls with pride. Mahabala was also among the first to create awareness on the concept of 'Testing.' "It is sad that India wants to become a software superpower while testing is a much-neglected aspect in the Indian IT industry," he says.

Yet another area that he pioneered was multilingual computing, purely born out of an interest to adapt Indian languages to computers. "One day film star Kamal Hassan walked in and asked if he could add some titles in Kannada and Tamil. We came up with a decent animation of the film title and even provided an animation of a rocket, which was included in the film," he recalls.

During the IIT Madras days, Mahabala held several portfolios. He served as Head of the Computer Center, HOD of Computer Science, Dean of Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research and Dean of Academic Research. He was a member of the DoE working group on Microelectronics and member of the Indo-US Joint Scientific Committee on Microelectronics. He also served as President of the Computer Society of India for two years from 1986-88. Around the same time, he was among the board of directors of CMC Ltd. For the first time ever (and the last time too), the company paid dividends to the Government of India.

He is indeed a grand old man who has witnessed the six decades of change from the pre-computer era to the sky-rocketing speed at which things have happened in the industry. "I got my PhD before the advent of computers, but could not avoid the challenge of working with computers. The journey has been like a continuous ride on a roller coaster. New specializations every two or three years. As a result I must have taught more than 25 different courses in computer science," he reminisces. It is but natural then that his happiest moments have been when he has been with his students. And truly rewarding was his experience when he was adjudged by the students of IIT Madras as the best teacher in 1981-82.

But not content with teaching at the IITs alone, Mahabala wants to take computer literacy to children and the rural areas. After retirement in 1994, Mahabala has been involved in a lot of projects to promote these concepts. In his capacity as Advisor (Education & Research) at Infosys, he is conducting the CTY (Catch Them Young) program for 9th and 10th standard students and RRP (Rural Reach Program) in Kannada for school students from 5th to 7th standards in rural schools. "I enjoy speaking on computers to 5th standard children. I have found without exception even in rural schools, children of that age group are uninhibited, bright and eager to absorb new knowledge," he states. He has evolved an unconventional and interesting program, called CLASS, Computer Literacy and Studies in Schools, for training the teachers who impart computer education. The approach is to teach programming akin to problem solving. So much so that University Grants Commission has appointed him a member of the standing Committee on Computer Education and Development.

Typically his Mondays and Tuesdays are spent at Infosys Technologies, where he discusses his programs for school children with his student NR Narayana Murthy. Wednesdays and Fridays it is a visit to Ashok Leyland Information Technologies, while on Thursdays he is at EASY-a CAD tools development company.

An early riser, Mahabala starts his day with a walk to Lal Bagh where he meets his teacher, Professor Narasimhan, each day. After Taichi exercises, browsing the newspapers and breakfast, "I am off to misguide somebody," he says jovially about his consultancy services. A hobby cook, Mahabala has always enjoyed cooking for his two beloved daughters who are now employed in Microsoft and Intel. In fact, his excuse to people who ask him to relax is that "I have to work to buy two tickets to the US every year." For he and his wife make an annual visit to their daughters each year, coinciding with the Testing Conference where Mahabala is a regular participant.

A lover of architectural marvels, Mahabala has also designed his own house which he says is as 'old people friendly.' He is also interested in alternative medicine and treats members of the family with homeopathic and ayurvedic medicines. Having enjoyed his career and family life, in all, Mahabala is a contented man. Except for a few issues which 'bother him.' He is deeply concerned about the Quality levels in this industry and feels that only strong quality policies can make India a software superpower.

Other issues that disturb him are the way programming languages are taught here and the shocking state of BEs and MCAs not getting placed in this industry. He is also sore about the fact that the Government has not made effective use of IT to improve its efficiency and services. "I would like to see better governance through the use of IT in this country," he adds. But in all he is satisfied with the performance of the Indian IT Industry and is hopeful that the present lot of talented people will make it to greater heights in the years to come.

AKILA S,





in Chennai.

The Selection Methodology

This year's DQ Awards panel was chaired by Dewang Mehta, Executive Director, NASSCOM, who was the IT Man Of The Year 1997. Other distinguished members of the panel included Ravi Marwaha, Managing Director & CEO, Tata IBM Ltd; Dr Nirmal Jain, Managing Director, Tata Infotech Ltd, Anil Batra, Country Manager, Cisco; N Vittal, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Government of India; Pradeep Gupta, Managing Director, Cyber Media India Ltd; and Shyam Malhotra, Managing Editor, Cyber Publications.

Unlike the previous years, this time only one round of meeting was held where the award winners were decided. However, the meeting lasted for almost four hours over five rounds of tea. In the end, RS Pawar and Prof HN Mahabala turned out to be the unanimous choices of the panel.

Selection Parameters





• The individual concerned should have been associated with the IT industry for a reasonable period of time.




• The person should have been head of the organization that he/she was involved with or should have been the leader of the organization.




• The person should have contributed directly or indirectly to the general growth and development of the Indian IT industry.




• He/she should have also ensured a commensurate beneficial growth of his/her own organization.





• If the person belongs to the corporate sector (private or public), the company should have made a profit in the year in which he/she is being considered.




• The person being considered should not have been convicted by any court of law in India.




• If a person has already been 'IT Man Of The Year', he/she should not be considered for the next three years.

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