Azim Premji
Azim Premji
Azim Hashim Premjiis an Indian business tycoon, investor and philanthropist, who is the chairman of Wipro Limited, informally known as the Czar of the Indian IT Industry. He was responsible for guiding Wipro through four decades of diversification and growth to finally emerge as one of the global leaders in the Software Industry. In 2010, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by Asiaweek. He has twice been listed among the 100 most influential people...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth24 July 1945
CountryIndia
There's a reasonable amount of traction in college education, particularly engineering, because quite a lot of that is privatized, so there is an incentive to set up new colleges of reasonably high quality.
We run courses for government school teachers on Sundays. These teachers pay for their own food and stay; the kind of commitment you find in these people is remarkable.
You have students in America, in Britain, who do not want to be engineers. Perhaps it is the workload, I studied engineering, and I know what a grind it is.
You must get engaged with people who are far less privileged than you. I think you must devote your time if not your resources... Because it is very, very important from the point of view of the development of our country.
The responsibility of philanthropy rests with us. The wealthier we are, the more powerful we get. We cannot put the entire onus on the government.
All our hiring staff are trained to interview in English. They're trained to look for Westernized segments because we deal with global customers.
People have to take control of their own lives. Education is key because it also raises other social indicators like healthcare.
Even if a media of a TV is not available in a home, there's this concept of community homes, where a reasonably well-off villager will have a TV - and a nice TV - and he'll keep it outside the house in the evenings.
The test of our social commitment and humanity is how we treat the most powerless of our fellow citizens, the respect we accord to our fellow human beings. That is what reveals our true culture.
I think the most important reason for our success is that very early in our quest into globalisation, we invested in people - and we have done that consistently and particularly in the service business.
Talent is in short supply everywhere. At Wipro, we are training nonengineers to be engineers.
There are 600 districts in India. Every district in India has a teacher-training institute.
Being in the consumer business helps us groom talent in areas like marketing, finance and logistics. We can benchmark our outsourcing business to our consumer business and its best practices.
You cannot underestimate the value of luck in success in life. And I've really learned to appreciate that.