Bharat Entrepreneurs

Sam Pitroda was born in the year 1942, Titilagarh, Orissa. His father was a carpenter and his mother was a homemaker. Sam was sent to Vallabh Vidyanagar in Gujarat to finish his schooling. He then completed his masters in Physics in Maharaja Sayajirao University, in Vadodara. He went abroad to pursue Electrical Engineering in IIT Chicago.( Illinois Institute of Technology)

After graduating from IIT, he got employment in a small engineering firm where he developed his first patent. The next ten years in GTE, (General Telephone and Electronics) got him access to the kind of tools that would enable him to impact the lives of millions around him.

In 1974, Sam Pitroda and a couple of investors founded a company, WESCOM SWITCHING INC. He developed a revolutionary new system called as 580 DSS switch for which he spent nearly four years in perfecting it. Thus, in 1978, it was released to the world and it became an instant hit becoming one of the most successful systems in the market. WESCOM was eventually acquired by the firm Rockwell International for an incredible $40 million, with Sam remaining as the vice president of Advanced Technology and Engineering, in Rockwell.

Eventually, Sam acquired over 100 patents and also became a multi millionaire. By 1980, Sam’s thoughts shifted towards India.

India in the early 1980’s was struck with rampant poverty and there were no signs of accelerated development, either socially, economically or politically.

Does India, which is battling with poverty, need telecommunication?

Of what use is a telephone to the impoverished?

These were the questions which the higher authorities asked Sam. Sam, however was firmly convinced that Telecommunications is at the heart of every developing nation and that this would drive and eventually be the cause for India to develop. With no funds to back his venture, Sam had to resort to ingenuity in using resources to extend telephone network through out India.

Sam’s hard work and vision was not in vain. Firstly, while working in India, for India, he got ideas which helped him in acquiring 50 more patents. Secondly, the proliferation of the Yellow PCO boxes which you can find anywhere through out the breadth and length of the country, owe its very existence to the Telecom engineer, development guru, inventor, entrepreneur Mr. Sam Pitroda.

Popularity: 24%

Vivek Paul, born 1958, would turn 50 this year. Vivek was an alumni of the famous and prestigious Bits Pilani, Rajasthan.

He worked in GE (Jack Welsh personally recruited him) for 10 years and rose to the top. Then, he was offered a challenge by Azim Premji, to raise a 150 million $ software company to a billion dollar company. Vivek accepted the challenge and set up a goal of achieving 4 billion us dollars by 2004. So, in Ju ly 1999 Vivek joined Wipro. He introduced a completely out of the box business model. His previous experience with GE convinced him that he needed to first change the attitude of the employees more than anything else. He started a revolution in the Wipro company. He made sure that there was no “government job” kind of lethargy in the work environ. He made sure that business was ticking all round the year with less people on the “bench”. Because of his ingenuity, he was able to pick up the pace of the rev enue quickly. By 2004, though he was not able to meet the original target of 4 billion US dollars, he nevertheless took the company in the right direction.

In spite of senior managers from Wipro trying to convince him not to quit, he called it a day. Insiders feel that the actual reason for him to quit was the growing lack of challenge in building up the company further. Another reason could also be that he wanted to spend more time with his family based in the US, given his busy schedule so far. Whatever might be the actual reason, fact remains that Vivek Paul has moved on with his life. He is into venture capitalism. He joined TPG(Texas Pacific Group) a power house private equity firm and to seek new challenges to overcome.

Popularity: 6%