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Dr. Sam Pitroda

Dr. Sam Pitroda

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda 

Reading success stories of greatest professionals stimulates motivational enzyme within us and we all wish to emulate them on path of success.

Exactly with this aim  MBARendezvous.com - India's content lead MBA website is presenting you series of success stories of Professionals who have   carved niche in their own way and have become icons of Management Fraternity. 

Following above you will read today success story of Mr.Sam Pitroda  :  

Popularly known as the “father of Indian telecom revolution", Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Dr. Sam Pitroda is an iconic inventor, entrepreneur, development thinker and policy shaper. Presently the chairman of India's National Knowledge Commission he is also an advisor to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovations. He also worked as an advisor to the United Nations.

In 1992, his biography, 'Sam Pitroda: A Biography' was published which went on to become a bestseller on The Economic Times list for five weeks. Mr. Pitroda is widely featured in print and television media worldwide for his outstanding contribution in the telecom sector.

Born on May 4, 1942 in Titlagarh, Orissa, India, his parents hailed from Gujarat and migrated to Orissa. They were deeply influenced by Gandhi and his philosophy and consequently sent their children to Gujarat to imbibe Gandhian philosophy.

Pitroda completed his schooling from Vallabh Vidyanagar in Gujarat and completed his Masters in Physics and Electronics from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara. Later he went to the US and obtained a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. In 2010, he received an honorary degree from University of Illinois at Chicago.

Widely responsible for ringing the telecom revolution in India, Pitroda has spent four decades in the world of telecommunications helping bridge the global communication divide. His professional career has been divided among the three continents of North America, Asia and Europe. He is internationally acclaimed for his strategy of using telecommunication in nation building.

During the 1960s and 70s he was involved in developing digital switching systems in the United States which went on to become the key to global networks to integrate voice and data. In 1983 he designed his own computer-themed card game called Compucards. He returned to India in 1984 on the advice of the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi and founded the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT).

In the 1980s, he became an advisor during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi and helped transform India’s telecommunications and information technology infrastructure. He was the brain behind the introduction of the Public Call Offices (PCO) across the length and breadth of the country.

With a major part of his career dedicated to telecom development, Pitroda became the first founding Chairman of the Telecom Commission in India. He also supervised National Technology Missions related to Drinking Water, Literacy, Immunization, Oil Seeds and Dairy. In those roles he helped transform India’s developmental policies and philosophy.

During the 90’s, he worked out of Europe where he collaborated with the International Telecom Union (ITU) to help develop telecom infrastructure in developing countries to reduce the global telecommunication gap. As an entrepreneur Pitroda owns and runs several companies in the US and Europe and has more than 75 worldwide patents. He introduced microprocessors in telephone switches leading to digital switching and invented the Electronic Diary in 1975.

He is the founder and CEO of C-SAM, Inc, which has developed a suite of patented mobile transaction technology called OneWallet. The company has offices in London, Tokyo, and offshore development centres in Mumbai and Vadodara in India.

In 1993, Mr. Pitroda helped establish the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT) near Bangalore in India. The aim is to make optimum utilisation of India's rich and diverse traditional medicinal knowledge. Pitroda also serves on the IIT International Board of Overseers.

For his outstanding revolutionizing works the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recently conferred the World Telecommunication and Information Society Award to Pitroda in Geneva. He became the first Indian to receive this prestigious award for his dedication to promoting Information, communication and technology as a means of providing a better life for humanity and social and economic empowerment.

In 2010 Sambalpur University honoured Mr. Pitroda and in 2009 he was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi "Global Indian" award. The government of India conferred on him the Padma Bhushan in 2009 for his contribution to Science and Engineering. He was awarded the Skoch Challenger Lifetime Achievement Award for ushering in the telecom and IT revolution in India. In 2002 he was also awarded the Dataquest IT Lifetime Achievement Award.

Pitroda has been felicitated by Akhila Bharatiya Viswakarma Mahasabha (ABVM) for service to the viswakarma community in the year 2009. In 2008, he was elected as World Prominent Leader by the World Network of Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs WNYLE.

Currently, Pitroda has been appointed as the chief advisor to the new Mamta Banerjee led Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal.  With a plan to initiate paribartan in the Leftist ruled state, ‘Resurgent Bengal’ is to be the dossier for the state’s development to be followed by Mamta government. To this end, Pitroda will assist Banerjee and her team in creating a knowledge city in the state’s capital, Kolkata.

The 69-year-old telecom wizard has always been a great admirer of Mamta Banerjee and her work and has proposed to help Bengal in any way he could. Throughout his life Pitroda has lived mainly in Chicago, Illinois since 1964, with his wife and two children and keeps himself at an arms-length distance with the nitty-gritty of politics. He says, “I won't comment on the politics in the country. That depresses me. I just don't understand it. I am a doer. I work. That's it."

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