Adaptability and constant innovation is key to the survival of any company operating in a competitive market.
India's connection with philanthropy didn't begin with western influences. The connection with philanthropy is age-old and ingrained in our value systems.
The anti-Hindi agitation changed the entire face of Tamil Nadu with a local party emerging on the top, relegating the Congress.
Any institutions' alumni are key to its growth. We are focused on giving a global experience to our students.
A founder can carry an institution only so far, and then others have to step in, even the alumni. That's how an institution becomes one.
If you go to Wall Street, there is someone from Harvard, Stanford, etc, who relate to each other by the batch they studied in, the dorm they lived in, and so on.
Shiv Nadar University was established in 2011, and our first batch graduated in 2015. The first batch mostly had engineering courses and a B.Sc. programme in Mathematics.
My colleagues and I were engineers who worked for DCM's calculator division. These electronic calculators used digital integrated circuits, and then they started using chips. The advanced versions of those chips were used for programmable calculators, which were the forerunners of PCs.
After Independence, there were periods of very high taxation. So you didn't create wealth, how will you distribute it? When was the first time capital gains tax was introduced? It was 1992 March. Till then, everything was taxed one way.
If you look at the leading Indian IT companies, Cognizant is not active in business process outsourcing, and neither is Satyam.
When you are running a business, there is a constant need to reinvent oneself. One should have the foresight to stay ahead in times of rapid change and rid ourselves of stickiness in any form in the business.
To us, the definition of philanthropy is what we spend. A P&L account means expenditure, lines of revenue. There is a surplus; it goes to the balance sheet. A transparent foundation should disclose this.
Buffett gave significant portions of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Buffett made money for 50 years before he donated.
The IP is a completely different side of the IT, and that is what we want Vijayawada for.
The need is schools dedicated exclusively to the rural segment. If we have a child from a village and a city studying in the same class room, the former is bound to lag behind because children from the urban areas have a better start.
I was a very good student. But I didn't have the latitude to study more. I was never allowed to do anything cross-disciplinary. Why can't an engineering student learn physics?
Working with Roshni gives me lot of confidence. When I started SSN - in 1994, after a windfall gain from HCL-HP then - I was OK to do it alone. My brother, who was supposed to head it, passed away. We had a governing council to run it. That was a leap of faith, and we didn't know where we will get.
The SSN Institute will be expanded in areas such as liberal arts, social sciences, natural sciences, communications.
We need schools like Doon and Mayo for the poor.
I admire companies that give back to communities. It is an absolute essential for organizations to watch, mitigate, and improve their impact on the environment, people, communities, their health and overall well-being. But this is a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition.
