Young Entrepreneurs from India making a difference(Way to go!)

Meet the world's youngest CEO

Here is an inspiring story of the World’s youngest CEO

                                            Suhas Gopinath

When 14-year-old Suhas Gopinath started Globals Inc ten years ago from a cyber cafe in Bengaluru, he didn't know that he had become the youngest CEO in the world.

Today, Globals is a multi-million dollar company with offices in the United States, India, Canada, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Singapore and the Middle East and has 100 employees in India and 56 abroad.

Among the several honors that have been bestowed upon this young man, the most prestigious is the invitation to be a member of the Board of the ICT Advisory Council of the World Bank..

In 2007, the European Parliament and International Association for Human Values conferred 'Young Achiever Award' on him. He was also invited to address the European Parliament and other business dignitaries assembled in the EU Parliament. He is also recognised as one of the 'Young Global Leaders' for 2008-2009 by the prestigious World Economic Forum.

Suhas is the youngest member ever in the World Economic Forum's history. The other members include the Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, Hollywood star Leonardo Di Caprio, musician A R Rahman, Prince of Brunei, etc.

In this interview from his office in Bengaluru, Suhas Gopinath talks about his decade long journey and his dreams for the future.

  Suhas Gopinath with former President APJ Abdul Kalam

•         On his childhood:

I come from a middle class family. My father worked as a scientist for the Indian Army. I used to study in the Air Force school in Bengaluru.

As a child, I was more interested in animals and veterinary science. But when I saw my friends who had home computers talk about it, I had this urge to learn and talk in their wave length.

But we didn't have a computer at home. In those days, computers were very expensive and we couldn't afford one.

So, what I did was, I located an Internet cafe near my house. With my modest monthly pocket money of Rs 15, I couldn't afford to surf the net every day.

I noticed that the shop was closed in the afternoon from 1 PM to 4 PM. So, I offered to open the shop for him after my school hours and take care of the customers.

In the bargain, he let me browse the net for free. That was the first business deal of my life and it turned out to be a successful one.

          Suhas with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates

•         On building websites using open source technology:

Once I got the chance to manage the shop and browse the net, I started building websites. It became my passion in no time.

I got hooked to open source technology after I started looking for e-books on how to build websites. They were not available as they were created in propriety sources.

So, I started using open source to build websites.

On getting the first contract to build a website

There is a freelance marketplace on the web where I could register and offer my services to build websites. I registered myself there as a website builder.

The first website I had to do was free of cost as I had no references. It was for a company in New York.

My first income was $100 when I was 13 for building another website but I didn't have a bank account. so, I told my father that I built a website and got paid for it.

I was not excited to get the money because money was not a factor that drew me to it. It was the passion for technology that attracted me. I used to build websites free of cost also. I was only a 9th standard student.

After that, I built my own portal and called it Coolhindustan.com. It was focused on NRIs. It was a portal where I wanted to showcase my skills.

After that, many companies approached me to be their web designer.

Suhas Gopinath speaking to students' at a conference in Austria

•         On buying his first computer

When I was in the 9th standard itself, I had made enough money to buy a computer for myself. At that time, my brother was studying engineering and my father thought he needed a computer.

In no time, I also bought one for myself. But we didn't have a net connection at home.

My spending hours in the net cafe working on websites did affect my studies. I spent the entire summer vacation after the 9th standard in the cafe.

On rejecting a job offer from the US

When I was 14, Network Solutions offered me a part-time job in the US and they said they would sponsor my education in the US. I rejected the offer because that was the time I had read a story about Bill Gates and how he started Microsoft.

I thought it was more fun to have your own company. Many US companies used to tell me that I didn't even have a moustache and they felt insecure taking my services. They used to connect my ability with my age and academic qualifications.

So, I wanted to start my own company and show the world that age and academic qualifications are immaterial. I decided then that when I started a company, I would recruit only youngsters and I would not ask for their academic qualifications and marks cards. I follow that in my company.

        Gopinath delivering a lecture at the DLD Conference

•         On starting his own company at 14

Soon after my 9th standard summer vacation, I started my own company, Globals Inc. I wanted the name Global or Global Solutions but both were not available, so I named it Globals.

I registered my company in the US as in India, you will not be able to start a company unless you are 18. It takes only 15 minutes to start a company in the US.

I became the owner and CEO of the company. My friend, an American who was a university student, became a board member.

I was very excited because that was what I wanted to do. From that day, I started dreaming of making my company as big as Microsoft.

•         On doing badly in school

In my pre-board CBSE exam, I failed in Mathematics. The school headmistress was shocked because that was the first time I had failed in any subject. She called my mother and said she was horrified by my performance.

At home, like any typical South Indian mother, my mother made me swear on her head that I would focus on academics.

I told my mother that the world's richest man Bill Gates had not completed his education. Why do you force me then, I asked her. She then said, I am sure his horoscope and yours are not the same!

I come from a family where entrepreneurship is considered a sin. My mother was quite upset. She wanted me to do engineering, then an MBA and work in a good company.

As per my mother's wishes, I took a four-month sabbatical from my company and studied for my board exam. I passed with a first class.

I still feel that you cannot restrict yourself to bookish knowledge. I believe that practical knowledge is more important.

In the first year, the turnover of Globals Inc was Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000). The second year, the turnover went up to Rs 5 lakh (Rs 500,000).

Suhas receiving the Incredible Europe Innovation Award at Vienna

•         On looking at Europe as a market

Till I was 16 or 17, I didn't tell my parents that I had started a company. I kept it a secret because I thought they would object to it. They only knew that I was a freelancer.

We used to build websites and also offer online shopping and e commerce solutions. We even gave part time work to a few programmers in the US when we got many projects but we never had any office.

When I was 16, I saw that there were enormous business opportunities in Europe as a majority of the Indian IT companies were working for American companies.

When I contacted a Spanish company, it rejected my offer saying Indians do not know Spanish. As an entrepreneur, you can't accept rejection, especially when you are young.

I hired five student interns from some Spanish universities and told them they would be paid based on their successful sales.

They were the people who met the companies and bagged the projects for us. By now, we decided to have a home office in Spain.

I replicated the same model in Italy. I contacted some Italian university students.

Suhas meeting with Sheikha Nayhan, Minister for Higher Education, the UAE

•         On going to Germany to talk about entrepreneurship

The American newspapers were writing a lot about me as the world's youngest CEO at 14 from India, from a middle class background.

It was a good story for the BBC also. I never expected to be in the limelight. For me, starting a company was like realising a passion of mine.

On seeing these stories, a B-school in Germany invited me to talk to its students on entrepreneurship. I was 17 then. By now, I had completed my 12th standard and had joined Engineering in Bengaluru.

When I was 18, we set up an office -- the European HQ in Bonn. Then, we moved to Switzerland. Six months back, we started our operations in Vienna as well.

That is how we spread our operations from a small Internet cafe to become a multinational company with significant operations in Europe, Middle East, the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, etc.

•         On registering a company in India at 18

The day I turned 18, I registered our company in India as Globals, opened an office and recruited four people. I opened the office next to the Internet cafe where I started my career.

By then, he had closed shop and joined a factory as an employee. Whenever I met him, I used to tell him, 'you made me an entrepreneur but you stopped being one.'

•         On moving to creating products

We wanted our company also to be a product development company and our focus was on education, like the software that manages everything about a child while in school starting from admission till he/she leaves school and becomes an alumnus.

It is a nasty software which students are going to be quite unhappy about! This software was aimed only at the Indian market. I want to be the market leader in ICT in education.

Our software is being used in more than 100 schools all over India, Singapore and the Middle East.

We are now in the process of raising funds. Once we do it, we will separate the company into two -- service and product development. I want to concentrate on products as I can't sail on two boats.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick

•         On meeting former President Abdul Kalam

I met Dr Abdul Kalam when he was the President of India. I was 17 or 18 then. My meeting was scheduled for 15 minutes but we had such an intense conversation that it went on for one-and-a-half hours.

I didn't feel that I was talking to the President of India. We talked like two friends. He was sitting in his chair across the table but after some time, he came and sat next to me. He isi such a modest person that it was a learning experience for me.

•         On being on the board of the World Bank

As per the wishes of my parents, I joined engineering but didn't complete my engineering: like Bill Gates! When I was in my 5th semester, the World Bank invited me to attend their board meeting. I am the only Indian on the board of the World Bank.

The objective was to explore how ICT can improve the quality of education in the emerging economies, by bringing in accountability and transparency in their financial deeds.

Robert B. Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, decided that they could not have only Americans on the board and needed people from across the world. As they were focusing on education, they wanted young minds to add value to the work.

He preferred a young mind from an emerging country and that was how I got the invitation in 2005. Not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be on the board of the World Bank. The invitation was the most unforgettable moment in my life. I report directly to Robert B Zoellick!

Some of the others on the board are the CEO of Cisco, the vice president of Microsoft and the CEO of SAP; all Fortune 500 companies and me, the only Indian!

I am helping the World Bank set policies on ICT in university education so that employability can be enhanced. My aim is to reduce the number of unemployed eligible youth in the world.

Right now, we are concentrating on Africa. Soon, I want to shift the focus on to India. It has been an amazing experience for me.

But I had to discontinue my engineering education at the time I joined the board, as I didn't have enough attendance in college!

                                               Suhas Gopinath

•         On his dreams for his company

I have always believed that IT is not just technology but a tool that can solve the problems of people.

That is what I want to do in my company.

I want my company to be a market leader in software solutions concentrating on education.

When I was younger, I didn't care about money. Now that I am responsible for my employees, I care about what we make. If I am not bothered about money, we cannot scale up our business.

When I started my company from a net cafe in Bengaluru, I never ever imagined that one day my company would be a multi-million dollar company and I would be on the World Bank board as a member.

What drives me is my passion and it has been an amazing journey so far.

IMPRESSIVE article I came across!!

Cheers!

Interesting mail i thought i should share !!

The Person who killed Gandhi
Nathu Ram Godse.-was the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi.
Every Coin has two sides. Till now we knew a single side about this person. This post attempts to find out about the truths of Nathu Ram Godse.

Nathu Ram was born at the beginning of this century on May 19, 1910.His father Vinayakrao was in the postal service and her mother’s name was Laxmi.Nathuram attended the local school at Baramati up through the fifth standard. Then he was sent to live with an aunt in  Pune so that he could study at an English-language school. During his school days, Gandhi was an idol to him.

In 1930, Nathuram’s father was transferred to the town of Ratnagiri. While staying with his parents at Ratnagiri, the young Nathuram first met Veer Savarkar, a proponent of Hindutva.

Nathu Ram along with Nana Apte published a newspaper “Agraani”.
Quoting an abstract from a play based on Nathu Ram describing himself -
“I never stole in my childhood, so there was no question of apologizing to my father. I never took a vow of celibacy as I was already practicing celibacy. I was moving around the refugee camps and helping the destitute with food and clothes. But I did not wander half-naked because the refugees were naked. I never spun yarn, never cleaned my toilet, never observed silence till I was hanged. There was only one common factor in Gandhi’s life and mine. We were both the cause of each other’s death. He wanted to live for his principles and I was prepared to die for my principles. ”

But the interesting part of the biography of Nathuram Godse starts on January 30, 1948. After the assassination of Gandhi
In a sense, I lived only for 655 days — from January 30, 1948 to November 15, 1949. But January 30 was an outcome of January 13.

The central government had taken a decision — Pakistan will not be given Rs 55 crores. On January 13 Gandhi started a fast unto death that Pakistan must be given the money. On January 13, the central government changed its earlier decision and announced that Pakistan would be given the amount. On January 13, I decided to assassinate Gandhi.
In his words -
“Time is eternal, indestructible. You can turn its pages but never, never tear them out. Gandhi has acquired some position in history which nobody can deny, not even Nathuram. The page will be there forever in fact. Sometime in the future, in some storm, the pages will flutter and there will be that same Gandhi’s page before the world. I don’t refute Gandhi’s theory of non-violence. He may be a saint but he is not a politician. His theory of non-violence denies self-defense and self-interest. The non-violence that defines the fight for survival as violence is a theory not of non-violence but of self-destruction. “ 
“The division of the nation was an unnecessary decision. What was the percentage of the Muslim population as compared to the population of the nation? There was no need for a separate nation. Had it been a just demand, Maulana Azad would not have stayed back in India. But because Jinnah insisted and because Gandhi took his side, India was divided, in spite of opposition from the nation, the Cabinet. An individual is never greater than a nation, Nana. But Gandhi has stared considering himself greater than the nation.“
on -”Jinnah wanted to be the prime minister..”

” But we never opposed a Muslim prime minister. In a democracy you cannot put forward your demands at knife-point. Jinnah did it and Gandhi stabbed the nation with the same knife. He dissected the land and gave a piece to Pakistan. We did picket that time but in vain. The Father of our Nation went to perform his paternal duties for Pakistan. Today, Muslims have taken a part of the nation, tomorrow Sikhs may ask for Punjab. The religions are again dividend into castes; they will demand sub-divisions of the divisions. What remains of the concept of one nation, national integration? Why did we fight the British in unison for independence? Why not separately? Bhagat Singh did not ask only for an independent Punjab or Subhash Chandra Bose for an independent Bengal? “

The immediate cause -
“I had written this before. At the time of Partition, when Suharawady surrendered only due to political pressure, but only Suharawady, not his followers…they went on with the massacre. Gandhi started his fast, the Hindus put their weapons down. I still remember that day. A poor Hindu told Gandhi, ‘I am putting down my weapons because I don’t want your death on my conscience but I am staying alone with my family in the Muslim area. That night, before leaving Hyderabad I visited his home. The whole household was screaming, weeping, his only eight-year-old son had been killed by the Muslims. He had no weapon to defend himself. He threw his son’s body on my lap and said, “Take his blood to your Mahatma. Tell him, if he goes on fast again, he can finish it by drinking not orange-juice but my son’s blood.” I could not say anything. Gandhi was the Father of my Nation. For a moment, I was tempted to pull out the Muslims from their homes and chop them down. But I controlled myself. Violence for self-defense is justified, otherwise it is an ill-cultured act. I returned to where Gandhi was staying but he had already left by car. Of course, there would have been no point in meeting him… he would only have prayed for both the killer and the victim. “ 

“I am going to assassinate him in the open, before the public, because I am going to do it as my duty. If I do it surreptitiously, it becomes a crime in my own eyes. I will not try to escape, I will surrender and naturally I will be hanged. ”
Godse assassinated Gandhi on January 30, 1948, approaching him during the evening prayer, bowing, and shooting him three times at close range with a Beretta semi-automatic pistol.^[3] Immediately after this, he surrendered himself to police, rather than running away. He said, “No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman”.
The sequence
It was 4.45 pm when I reached the gate of Birla Bhavan. The security staff at the gate was scrutinizing the crowd entering and I was a little worried about them. I mingled with a small group of people and sneaked inside.

It was 5.10 pm when I saw Gandhi and his close associates coming to the prayer place from his room inside. I approached the passage from where he was likely to climb the steps of the lawn, in such a way that I was covered by a few people.
Gandhi climbed the steps and came forward. He had kept his hands on the shoulders of the two girls.
The revolver was in my pocket, I released the safety catch. Though Gandhi was surrounded by people I was looking for an opening.
I wanted just three seconds more. I moved two steps forward and faced Gandhi. Now I wanted to take out the revolver and salute him for whatever sacrifice and service he had made for the nation. One of the two girls was dangerously close to Gandhi and I was afraid that she might be injured in the course of firing. As a precautionary measure I went one more step ahead, bowed before him and gently pushed the girl away from the firing line.
The next moment I fired at Gandhi. Gandhi was very weak, there was a feeble sound like ‘aah’ from him and he fell down.
Those who were close to me saw the weapon in my hand. They rushed away from the spot. Gandhi had fallen to the ground, I was standing and the crowd had formed a ring around us.
After the firing I raised my hand holding the revolver and shouted, ‘Police, police’. For 30 seconds nobody came forward and I scanned the crowd. I saw a police officer. I signaled to him to come forward and arrest me. He came and caught my wrist, then a second man came and touched the revolver… I let it go… 

“Gandhi used to claim the Partition would be over his dead body. So after Partition when he didn’t die, I killed him. My love for the motherland made us do it. I am not ashamed of it. Gandhi should have been honest to admit that his life was a failure. “ 
“Right from Pakistan and Bangladesh every Muslim is a converted Hindu. Gandhi’s appeasement attitude (towards the Muslims) went far too much. That was I killed him. Two hundred and fifty thousand Hindus were killed in Noakhali in October 1946. Hindu women were forced to remove their sindhoor and do Muslim rituals. And Gandhi said, ‘Hindus must bow their heads if Muslims want to kill them. We should follow the principle of ahimsa (non-violence).’ How can any sensible person tolerate this? “
(Black out… Sounds of wireless, Hullo, Victor calling. Victor calling… Gandhi killed in firing. IGP and home minister rushing to Birla Bhavan. Inform the PM).

I have just tried to provide unbiased information about the murder of India’s freedom fighter Mohandas. K. Gandhi and his assassin Nathuram Godse.
 
 
 I believe like every coin , every event also has two sides…. The view points of the different parties involved and I believe the actual truth hidden somewhere in between all the viewpoints…. Never Blindly believe anyone… 

Lots more to come!!

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