Via Vali Jamal
It’s not just because of Azim Premji’s enormous wealth that he is compared to the American technologist turned philanthropist. Granted, the chairman of the technology-services company Wipro is India’s third-richest citizen, with a net worth of $13 billion, according to Forbes. He inherited Wipro as a small cooking-oil company when he was just a 21-year-old engineering student at Stanford University and has since overseen its growth into a global giant.
It is Premji’s unprecedented philanthropy, however, that recently has borne out the Gates comparison. Last December, Premji made the largest charitable contribution in modern Indian history: $1.95 billion to his rural-education foundation, to help train teachers and improve exams and curricula for 2.5 million Indian children in more than 20,000 schools. The Azim Premji University, a training and research institution in Bangalore, welcomed its first 200 students in July, and the foundation just announced plans to open 1,300 free schools across the country.
Via The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers | Foreign Policy
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Earlier & Related – Azim Premji at Ismailimail Archives:
- India: Azim Premji Foundation Donates $132 million (US Dollars) Towards COVID-19 Relief Fund via Forbes.com
- Azim Premji: Asia’s most generous philanthropist- Forbes Asia
- Forbes: Azim Premji’s Donation To His Charitable Foundation Rises To $21 Billion
- Apply now for IPN LaunchPad 2016 – a global conference for entrepreneurs and investors
- The Outstanding Achievement Award goes to Azim Premji | CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2014
- Spirit of Service: India’s Top Philanthropists, Azim Premji Remains Most Charitable Indian! | Trak.in – Indian Business of Technology, Mobile & Startups
- Azim Hashim Premji: The most generous Indian
- Giving back: Eight innovative philanthropists around the world – The Bill Gates of India
- Azim Premji: The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers | Foreign Policy
- Wealth must have a definitive social purpose: Azim Premji
- Azim Premji receives Padma Vibhushan award
- Gates and Buffett show rich Indians how to help the poor | John Elliott | Independent The Foreign Desk Blogs
- Azim Premji: The bare-bones billionaire – The Globe and Mail
- BBC News – Wipro’s Azim Premji makes $2bn Indian charity gift
- Azim Premji endows new university in Bangalore, Karnataka Legislature passes Azim Premji University Bill
- Azim Premji at Davos
- American Chronicle | India: Tackle Muslim societies then terror
- Couple of Articles on Azim Premji
- Charlie Rose with Azim Premji
- Dale Carnegie recognizes and honors Azim Premji and his team at Wipro
- New book about Indian Ismaili Azim Premji
- Ismailis in the News: Azim Premji
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