Dr. APJ Kalam

SEVERAL months back, after finishing an interview with Dr. APJ Kalam, and just before leaving his Rajaji Marg residence he made me repeat these three words in a schoolteacher’s tone: perseverance, hard work and patience.

This, he said, was alone the path to progress. Later, much later, I realised, that it were the very words he’s lived by all through his life. They are both philosophical and practical, quite like the world he grew up in as a boy in the island town of Rameswaran, in south India.

His father, a humble boat owner, Jainulabdeen, was a devout Muslim and a close friend of the Rameswaran temple priest. Kalam was brought up in a multi-religious, tolerant society; one with a progressive outlook. His father often quoted from Quran to make the young Kalam see the world without fear. He had seven siblings, and a doting mother who, at times, made chappatis for Kalam, while the others were given rice as Kalam’s day would start at four in the morning and end at 11 p.m.

His father wasn’t educated, but he wanted Kalam to study. Kalam would get up at 4 a. m., bathe, and then go for his mathematics class, which was taught by a teacher who took only five students in the whole session; and bathing before class was a condition he had laid to all his students. After his morning class, Kalam along with his cousin Samsuddin went around town distributing the newspaper. As the town had no electricity, kerosene lamps were lit at his home between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. But because Kalam studied until 11, his mother would save some for him for later use.

Being a bright student, Kalam always had the support of his schoolteachers. Schwarzt High School’s Iyadurai Solomon often told Kalam that if he truly, intensely desired something, he would get it. “This made me fearless,” said Dr. Kalam. And outside school, Ahmed Jallaluddin, who later became his brother-in-law, and Samsuddin, encouraged Kalam to appreciate nature’s wonders. So at once, while growing up, he was exposed to a religious and a practical way of looking at the world.

The flight of birds had fascinated him since he was a boy, but it was years later he realised that he wanted to fly aircrafts. After finishing school, he took up Physics at St. Joseph’s College, Trichi, but towards the end he was dissatisfied. When he discovered aeronautical engineering, he regretted having lost three precious years.But he was glad to have discovered Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy and F. Scott Fitzgerald and other English poets in his college time.

At Madras Institute of Technology (MIT), Chennai, where Kalam studied aeronautics, he learnt an important lesson: the value of time. He was leading a project on system design, when one day the principal walked into the class to see his work. He appeared dissatisfied and told Kalam that he wanted the project finished in the next two days; else his scholarship aid would be withdrawn. That unsettled Kalam. Years of his father’s hardships would come to naught. Kalam worked without food and sleep. On the last day, his professor came to check on his progress. He was impressed and said:  “I was putting you under stress and asking you to meet a difficult deadline,” recounted Dr Kalam.

Although Kalam has led several projects in his professional life, he’s treated each like his last. Such was his passion. No wonder, he’s always
led projects. His advisor, Major General R. Swaminathan explained Kalam’s success as a leader. “He has this unique capability of being a boss as well as a worker. He can take on any role with ease.”

When Dr. Kalam’s first major project SLV 3-failed the first time he was almost shattered. Also, around this time, Kalam’s childhood mentor, Jallaluddin, died. “A part of me too passed away…” said Dr. Kalam. But he never thought of quitting after SLV-3. “I knew that for success, we have to work hard and persevere.” And so, SLV-3 was launched again, this time with success. He drew strength from philosophy, religion and literature to tide by his professional setbacks; also a life with few companions. In time, he also learnt to deal with professional jealousy and uncooperative team members.

Success followed Dr. Kalam. Prithvi, Agni, Akash, Trishul and Nag missiles were huge successes. He was awarded Padma Bhushan and Bharat Ratna, and then he became the President of India; one of the few presidents who have touched the hearts of so many poor children in the country. Because he also came from a poor background, he knew the power of education in  changing one’s future.

Academics: BTech ( MIT, Anna University)

Did you know...

    * His favourite authors are Thiruvalluvar, Lillian Eichler Watson and Denis Waitly.
    * He enjoys Indian Classical Music and played table tennis and badminton in college.

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Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha

Homi Jehangir Bhabha (1909-1966)

BORN in Bombay, Dr Bhabha belonged to an illustrious family with strong nationalistic spirit. His parents took a keen interest in shaping his love for science and he had his own private library. He also picked up his creative instinct and aesthetic sense from his family, who valued fine arts,  and western classical music.

 At the age of 15, he passed the Senior Cambridge Examination and carried on with his interest in science for two years in Bombay before he joined Caius College in Cambridge in 1927 to study engineering. His love for physics was unusual. He wrote to his father from Cambridge in 1928, “I am burning with desire to do Physics. I will and must do it some time. It is no use saying to Beethoven you must be a scientist for it is a great thing, when he did not care two hoots for science. It is not in the nature of things. I therefore earnestly implore you to let me do physics”.

His exposure to Western science, in the labs at Cambridge during 1927-1939, motivated him to be associated with scientific developments, particularly in Physics. It was during this period that Bhabha carried out original research relating to cosmic radiation. His first publication at 24, fetched him the Isaac Newton Studentship to pursue his PhD. Between 1938-1942 he published 20 papers. In 1940, he got Fellowship of the Royal Society of Science, UK.

Back in India in 1939, Bhabha worked at IISc Bangalore, with Dr. CV Raman, His proximity to Nehru and his own charisma led to the establishment of two major scientific institutions: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Atomic Energy Commission.

As a physicist, he is known for his work on relativistic electron-positron scattering or ‘Bhabha scattering’ and theory of electromagnetic cosmic ray showers. Bhabha’s leadership of atomic energy programme spanned 22 years till 1966. Received  the Padma Bhushan in 1954.

Did you know...

* A painter, musician and an institution builder, he remained a bachelor, and when quizzed about marriage said, “I am married to creativity.

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Elattuvalapil Sreedharan

MEN sporting bright yellow safety helmets and fluorescent jackets and digging up busy roads,is a common sight in Delhi these days. The Delhi NCR region is connected like never before. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) project continues, full throttle. And the force behind this venture is Indian-born and educated Elattuvalapil Sreedharan.

Hailed as ‘The Metro Man’, ES, now 77, stumbled upon the job of Metro Chief, by chance. He was part of a search committee launched by the state government to locate a suitable person to head The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, as its Managing Director. The search did not yield even one suitable candidate, so the Government insisted he take up the position. ES very hesitatingly agreed stating that he was not interested in salary or perks, but he needs set-up free of political and bureaucratic interference to work. The Government agreed.

Thus started a journey, sans any frills and fanfare. He had no office, and not even a chair or phone to use. He worked out of a makeshift office room with a few of his close associates, who came with him from his earlier workplace, the Konkan Railway. The Metro Rail team built up gradually; general consultants were added, contractors engaged along the way and site workers, hired.

E Sreedharan declined any salary as DMRC chief and started work from a makeshift office sans even a phone and chair

 Engineering his way
The youngest of eight children, ES got very little parental care. But his only sister, now aged 101 and his elder brothers made up for it with their love and attention. Born in a remote village in the Palakkad district of Kerala, ES attended an ordinary school. He walked a long distance to reach it everyday.

As a student, he was bright and always topped his class. He also enjoyed building mud houses, bridges and roadways in the compound, an early expression of his engineering instincts. He went on to join Victoria College in Palghat and then graduated as an engineer from the Government Engineering College, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. He briefly taught civil engineering at the Government Polytechnic, Kozhikode, apprenticed with Bombay Port Trust for a year and later joined Indian Railways.

The 760 km long Konkan Railway Project was not only an engineering challenge as it involved construction of a bridges and tunnels over a rough terrain but a financial one as well. But under his guidance, the project was completed well in time and without cost overruns.

The Konkan Railway project put him in the spotlight, but one of his biggest challenges was the restoration of the Pamban Railway Bridge linking Mandapam and Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu. In 1963, 126 of the bridge’s 146 spans (distance between two supports of a bridge) were washed away by a tidal wave. He restored the bridge in 46 days against the target of six months by the Government.

Work ethics
A stickler for punctuality, he starts his day early; mediates and reads Bhagvad Gita, a two-hour daily ritual which he has been following for years. At work, he doesn’t stay back after 6 p.m., and doesn’t subscribe to late working hours. Every new employee of DMRC is gifted a copy of the Bhagwad Gita, regarded by the corporation as a self-management book and not a religious text.

He also understands the value of time; the Delhi Metro is 99.9% punctual. Detailed planning and analysis of the situation, followed by practical solution is his strategy for effective functioning.

Simple living and high thinking
For a man who takes on high-tech complex projects, his lifestyle has always remained simple A vegetarian, he is a frugal eater. He doesn’t consume milk products, but relishes bananas.

Academic: BE (JNTU)

Honours

    * Padma Shri
    * One of Asia’s Heroes by TIME
    * Degree of Doctor of Science
    * (Honoris causa) from IIT Delhi
    * Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French government
    * Padma Vibhushan

Did you know?

    * He has adopted children, donates award money to charity, and under his aegis, the DMRC has recently opened a shelter-cum-protection home for children in Delhi.
    * He has denied authorised biographies on him.
    * He was the captain of his college football team.

(As told by Anuj Dayal, chief PRO, DMRC to Urmila Rao. He has been working with ES for the last 12 years)

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Dr Raghunath A Mashelkar

D Mashelkar receiving the Padma Shri from President Dr. R Venkataraman.

 IT WAS a difficult journey indeed. I was born in a village called Mashel in Goa. My father died when I was six and my mother had to migrate to Bombay in search of a job. She was not literate and had to struggle very hard to make both ends meet. I went barefoot until the age of 12, and two meals a day was a great challenge.

I studied under street lights, making use of the cement benches at Janjira Motor Works around Chowpatty in Mumbai.

I would study up to 2 a.m., at the Central Railway station as the platform would be quiet after the last train for Gujarat left at 10 p.m. Basically wherever I could find place I would study. Life was so difficult that standing first in class became a necessity which continued throughout my career.

No guides or coaching class
I attended a Marathi medium municipal school and scored 87 percent marks in Class 7. I had stood first but to get into Class 8, I needed to pay Rs 21 as admission fees. It took me 21 days to collect the money. By then admissions to most schools were over and I had to attend Union High School, again in Marathi medium. And I am  glad because the teachers there had the right attitude, principles and  were very inspiring.

After Class 10 exams, I decided to quit studies and look for a job. Then I got to know that I had secured the eleventh rank out of 1.35 lakh students. This was unprecedented in that school. More so because I did not use any guide or attend a coaching class. The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Bombay chose me among five others and gave me Rs. 60 per month for six years. Then I did my BE in Chemical Engineering from University Institute of Chemical Technology better known as UDCT, Bombay.

PhD in three years
I had five offers for scholarships from the USA and Canada. But I was so impressed with Professor Sharma, 28, a student of PV Danckwerts, Shell Chemical Engineering Professor at Cambridge University, that I asked him if he could be my PhD supervisor. I completed my PhD in three years. I
This unusual combination resulted in both guru and chela (disciple), being selected, as Fellows of The Royal Society, for our respective work under resource constrained conditions. The second great honour for me as researcher is the foreign associateship at the National Academy of Science, USA. In 147 years of its existence, I am the only one who has been selected, and am proud because this was because of the research we did in India.

 Solving the unsolved
 All my life I have chased what are known as anomalies and discontinuities where I went for problems that gave me newer breakthroughs in terms of explaining what people had not been able to explain for several years. So for my post doctoral research work I chose to enter  a new field called non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, which I had not even heard of.  

I took the challenge of learning and mastering tensors and vectors at Salford and also taught there which kept me on my toes primarily because I took assignments where I knew nothing about but could still feel it. For instance I picked up a course on approximation techniques in Chemical Engineering where I did not know about perturbation techniques, variational calculus and so on. So I had lot of fun there, and used to tell my wife, “I don’t know why Salford is paying me?”

From academia to industry…
When I returned to India in 1976, we used to pursue research with great difficulty; no good equipment, no ease of foreign exchange, the journals used to come by sea-mail every four months. But we fought the odds and learnt that no matter what your constraints are, if you have the confidence to do idea-based research, sky is the limit.

Let me tell you an interesting anecdote. The rheogoniometer, the equipment on the basis of which I could carry out my research on Rheology of complex fluids, had to be imported. So I would have to wait for two years and do nothing. Instead I joined Indian Organic Chemicals in Manali, Madras, for a consultancy job at an annual fee of Rs. 15,000. I said, “You have imported reactors, which are just black-boxes for you. I will decipher them for you so that you understand the know-how and use it to increase your productivity, product quality etc.”

So a PhD student Ravindranath from REC Warangal (not a superstar from IIT!) and I worked on mathematical modelling and simulations. We wrote a series of papers (Paper 10, which is now textbook stuff and world famous for the work on reactors), and it was fun. The point is, I do not differentiate between fundamental and applied research. If not, how could Ravindranath get his PhD? How could I get Bhatnagar Prize for engineering science because of this work? If it was basic research how did industry make use of it? As Louis Pasteur, my hero said, “There is only fundamental science and its application.”

Innovation must be a way of life
My life’s purpose is to make innovation a way of life in Indian industry. I believe that the grand challenges of the future are going to be solved not by individuals, institutions, independent nations, but by a global network. I preside over the Global Research Alliance having over 60,000 scientists from nine countries where we look at big problems by pooling global resources. We address issues of climate change, water, inequality and so on to make an attempt in having an inclusive world through innovation using our understanding of S & T.
 

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Sam Pitroda                  (1942-present)

Sam Pitroda

SATYANARAYAN Gangaram Pitroda grew up in Titlagarh, a tribal village in Orissa, which had no piped water, electricity, schools or radios. His father, a migrant from Gujarat, who was educated only up to Class 4, nurtured the desire to make his children literate. So he sent him and his brother to school in Baroda. Sam completed his schooling from Vallabh Vidyanagar in Gujarat and finished his Master’s in Physics and Electronics from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.

As a young, energetic youth, Sam was deeply influenced by the US President JF Kennedy and America beckoned. But he was cash-strapped. So he procured a loan from the Orissa government, and took a boat from Mumbai to Genoa (Italy), a train from Genoa to London, a plane from London to New York and a bus from New York to Chicago.

He got a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
On his father’s initiation, he began a business called Wescom Switching with two friends in Chicago area in the early 1970s. Rockwell International bought it in 1979, and the sale earned Sam, a guy who never had money, a lot of money which he didn’t know how to spend. So, he made a trip to India - just to visit.

When he placed a call to his wife from a five star hotel to Chicago, the connectivity was very poor. He decided to fix it and India’s telecom destiny changed forever. He aspired to meet with the then Indian Prime minister, the late Mrs Indira Gandhi but turned down a 10-minute appointment given to him. Instead he sought an hour, saying that he can’t do much in 10 minutes.  89 months later he got the appointment. He flew in from Chicago and gave her a presentation, and eventually this led to the formation of the Center for Development of Telematics in 1984. India’s telecom destiny changed forever.

Academics:
MSc (Physics & Electronics)
MTech ( lllinois)

Did you know...

• As advisor to Rajiv Gandhi, he headed six technology missions on telecom, water, literacy, immunisation, dairy and oil seeds.
• He was founder and the first chairman of Telecom Commission.
• He holds around 100 key technology patents.
• He was responsible for India’s communications revolution and is currently Chairman - WorldTel.

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 Verghese Kurien   

Verghese Kurien (1921-present)

IN a letter to his grandson, featured in his book I Too Had a Dream, Kurien wrote, “I could have pursued a career in metallurgy and perhaps become the chief executive of a large company. Yet, I chose none of these because somewhere, deep down, I knew I could make a more meaningful contribution by working here in Anand, Gujarat.” This expression came after much struggle and much after he made an impregnable contribution to ‘Operation Flood’, which replicated the White Revolution pattern of the 1970s, and trebled India’s milk production within a span of two -and-a-half decades, to make India the world’s largest milk producer.

Kurien  was born on November 26, 1921 at Kozhikode, Kerala into an illustrious family; his father was a civil surgeon in Cochin. He graduated in Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940 and got a BE (Mechanical) from the University of Madras. After graduating, he joined the Tata Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946.
 

 After completing his Master’s in Science in Metallurgical Engineering from Michigan State University, Kurien had to serve in a rural region in India because his US study was sponsored by Indian Government. In May 1949, he was posted as a dairy engineer at the Government Research Creamery in Anand District in Gujarat. In his book, he wrote that at the start of his career, he hated Anand.

But around the same time, the infant cooperative dairy, Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union (KDCMPUL) - now famous as Amul - was fighting a battle with a privately owned dairy. Young Kurien was intrigued by a band of tenacious dairy farmers and volunteered to help to set up a processing plant. This marked the birth of AMUL.

More than his competence in bringing technical and administrative skills to the co-operative, his contribution was his commitment to the cause. Dr. Kurien empowered the Indian farmer combining development, technology, and marketing.

His association with building the co-operative society from ‘scratch’ gradually made him fall in love with Anand and today, he even wants his body to be cremated in Anand.

Awards & Honours

•Senior Fellowship in 1952 under Colombo Plan for advanced training in dairy plan design and engineering in New Zealand/Australia.
•Represented India in the International Dairy Congresses in Rome, 1956 and Copenhagen, 1962.
•Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1963.
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ARUN SARIN

ARUN SARIN  (1954-present) Former CEO, Vodafone

BORN on October 21, 1954 at Panchmari, Madhya Pradesh, Sarin was an academically bright student. He was equally good at sports like field hockey, boxing and various extracurricular activities. He wanted to follow his father's footsteps into the military by pursuing a career as a pilot, but when his mom protested, he applied and was accepted at IIT, Kharagpur.

He graduated from the IIT in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering in the top 10 percent of his class and received the BC Roy gold medal for academic excellence. He received a full scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate College of Engineering.

In the year 2003, Sarin became the Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone. When he resigned in 2008 from his post Vodophone was the world's largest mobile phone company by revenue. It was the firm’s large market presence in India that catapulted Sarin into the limelight. Currently he serves on the boards of Cisco and Safeway, Inc.

Academics
BTech (IIT)
MBA (Haas UC,Berkeley)

Awards
2002 - University of California at Berkeley, Haas School Business Leader of Year
2003 - University of California Trust (UK) Award 
 

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Sabeer Bhatia 

Sabeer Bhatia (1968-present) Pioneer of web-based e-mail

HE has done the unconventional ever since he decided to study abroad at the age of 19; two years into undergraduate education at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, he qualified for a transfer scholarship at Caltech, considered to be the world's most competitive scholarship.  After graduating from Caltech in 1989, he pursued an MS in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.

At the age of 27, Bhatia was no longer interested in working for others, and together with Smith, began chasing what many people in Silicon Valley deemed a “crazy idea” – a free e-mail service. They raised about $300,000 for their venture - Hotmail. Within a year, Hotmail had one million subscribers. So revolutionary was it that Microsoft bought it for  $400 million after 18 months.

Did you know?

• He was rejected by 20 venture capitalists before Draper Fisher Juvetson bought his idea.
• The original spelling was HoTMaiL

Award
TR100 by the MIT, given to 100 young innovators who are expected to have the greatest impact on technology.
 
Academics
BTech, BITS Pilani
BSc(Honours) California Institute of Technology, US
MS Electrical Engineering (Stanford)

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  Vikram Pandit

Vikram Pandit (1957-present) CEO, Citigroup Inc

BORN in Nagpur, Pandit was the Citigroup’s youngest CEO when he took over in 2007. The first Indian to achieve this feat, the job was touted as the toughest in the world due to the company’s poor performance.

A brilliant boy in school, he moved to US when he was 16. After finishing his Master’s in electrical engineering and MBA from Columbia University, he was determined to get a PhD in a different subject.

In those days, students preferred to either study medicine or engineering. And that was the time when his guide advised him to take up finance, as it was a good field. He followed the advice, and switched to finance.

For a brief span, he taught at Indiana University Bloomington, Columbia’s Business School. He stepped into the corporate world in 1994, as a head of Morgan Stanley. His administrative and technical skills, plus an ability to make himself indispensable to bosses like John J. Mack and Phillip J. Purcell, fuelled his career at Morgan Stanley, where he became the president. He dealt with the Institutional Securities Division, Worldwide Institutional Equities Division. For him, this was an interesting area to work on

“To do well you have to put a lot of yourself into it.”

Academics:

BS, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University  (1976)

MS, Columbia University  (1977)

MBA, Columbia Business School, Columbia University  (1980)

PhD, Columbia Business School, Columbia University  (1986)