The Indian government has honoured Information Technology leaders wholesale, at the annual Republic Day 'Padma' Awards. While Wipro Chairman Azim Premji is honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman & Co-Founder, NIIT Group & Founder, NIIT University receives the Padma Bhushan. Also honoured with the Padma Bhushan are Infosys Managing Director and CEO, ‘Kris’ Gopalakrishnan and HCL Infosystems Chairman Ajai Chowdhry ( see Image of the day story alongside (http://www.indiatechonline.com/viewimage.php?id=214 ) . All four are Indian Infotech industry icons, besides founding or co-founding the IT companies they they continue to work with.
PremjiAzim Premji has led Wipro since 1966. Then a USD 2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company, Wipro Limited is today a USD 5 billion revenue IT, BPO and R&D Services organization with presence in over 50 countries. Premji was forced to leave his studies in electrical engineering from Stanford University, California, USA at the age of 21 to take over the family business when his father, M.H. Premji, suddenly died in 1966. He completed his degree in Electrical Engineering after a gap of over thirty years. In the 1980s Wipro entered the IT field, taking advantage of the expulsion of IBM from the Indian market in 1975. Thus, Wipro became involved in manufacturing computer hardware, software development and related items, under a special license from Sentinel. The company’s IT division became the world's first to win SEI CMM level 5 and PCMM Level 5 (People Capability Maturity Model) certification, the latest in quality standards.
Premji He recently pledged $ 2 billion of his shares in Wipro to philanthropic work. http://www.indiatechonline.com/viewimage.php?id=199
PawarRajendra S. Pawar is Chairman and co-founder of the NIIT Group, that encompasses two businesses—NIIT Technologies Limited, the software and services arm and NIIT Limited, the leading Global Talent Development Corporation. Set up in 1981, NIIT pioneered the computer education market in India, creating a completely new industry segment and taking it to consolidation and maturity. Mr. Pawar has played a leadership role in nurturing NIIT and building it into a leading Global Talent Development Corporation.
Mr. Pawar studied at the Scindia School, Gwalior and graduated from the country’s prestigious engineering institution, IIT, Delhi in 1972 where he pursued the B. Tech programme in electrical engineering and received the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT in 1995. He has also been awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree by the Rajiv Gandhi Technical University.
Jan 26 2011