Muscat:

He’s one of the wealthiest men in the world -“ he’s India’s third wealthiest man and the world’s 36th -“ but what gives Wipro chairman Azim Premji immense joy and fulfillment is devoting time and money to philanthropy.

That, of course, is evident through the innumerable acts of generosity he has indulged in all through the 40 years he has headed Wipro. Premji, in fact, is one of the first industrialists in India to devote a significant portion of his wealth to philanthropy (he donated $2 billion for the purpose of improving education). This money has been used for activities of the Azim Premji Foundation that works to promote education in rural India as well as the Azim Premji University in Bangalore.

For Azim Premji, the chairman of Indian multinational Wipro, social responsibility is a serious vocation, which is why they have appointed a full time CEO for their philanthropy movement, as he revealed to Times of Oman in an exclusive interview, while also lavishing high praise on the Oman government for creating a business-friendly environment . /Photo by Jun Estrada

The Wipro founder, who considers social responsibility his greatest duty in life, sheds light on his philosophy of philanthropy thus: “I have been lucky to have created quite a lot of wealth and feel that it should be used for the betterment of the society.-

Azim Premji was in Oman recently on an official visit when Times of Oman caught up with him.

Why this emphasis on education?
Premji replied, “We figured that we have a certain social responsibility and decided to focus on one area. So we focused on education. Through our foundation we focused on school education in the villages of India. Since the beginning, we worked in close partnership with various authorities, to help contribute to the improvement of the quality of education. We found the need for change and the need for improvement in the education sector was the most pressing there. That’s why we’ve been single mindedly focusing on education for the last 10 to 11 years and the good thing is that we have found success.-

Informing that the group is scaling up its operations now, Premji said, “We are using Azim Premji University for training teachers and for training in leadership and community development. We are taking young people with about two to three years experience, preferably from small towns, in the hope that at the end of the two-year course they’ll go back and use the learning in leadership in the places they come from.-
The university, he informed, has around 68 world class professors on the role.

“We have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the talent we have been able to recruit. This goes to show that if we want to do sustained and honest work, people want to be part of the team. They think there’s a lot of pride, learning, and a sense of being able to contribute to that atmosphere,- he explained.
Premji believes that good education is crucial to building a just, fair, compassionate and sustainable society.

“We want to contribute significantly towards improvement of education in India, and through that towards building a better society. Next year we plan to launch a four-year bachelors’ programme.-

He is happy that his team has been making a difference.
“Our programme, called Wipro Applying Thought in School, has covered a million programmes so far accumulatively. The intent of this initiative is to improve the quality of education -“ so that opportunities and possibilities are expanded for everyone.-

Talking about a programme called Mission 10X launched in 2007 for engineering schools, Premji said, “India sees around 700,000 engineers graduate every year of which only a third are employable by the industry. The rest are not employable because the curriculum is primarily not current and professors are not taught well or up to date on technology. The Mission10X is basically a not-for-profit initiative created by Wipro to enhance employability skills of engineering graduates.-
Wipro has dedicated some 15 full time professors for this purpose from its training and leadership institute.

“We have also covered 30,000 professors. We feel if we can bring up the quality of teaching in the engineering students, the quality of students will improve, which in turn will result in the eligible students going up by 50 per cent,- he explained.
As for the philanthropy meet Premji hosted along with Bill Gates and Ratan Tata in Bangalore recently, he said, “This will be an annual event with workshops in between. There is a lot of wealth in our country. So we thought let’s together assemble corporates that have shown a track record of philanthropy and get some common understanding with them.

“We started off with this thought and now, as per the need, we have appointed a full time CEO for this philanthropy movement. Four to five of us are funding in terms infrastructure and people cost. We have formed four groups (education, healthcare, water and agriculture). Each group has a chairman who is a member of the large core group. We’ll have small workshops throughout the year so that more specialised discussion can take place.

“We are satisfied with the interest we got and what we are doing. We are all serious people because we didn’t want a tamasha. We had shown a track record of doing serious work and we hope to see success. We have started and plan to expand it. But we hope to do something which has a possibility of success.-

Recently, his wife, Yasmeen Premji, launched her first book, Days of Gold and Sepia and Azim Premji looks very proud of this endeavour. “I have read the book twice. It is an interesting book which is well written. I am not saying that because she is my wife. It has to be good; she has taken 20 years to write it,- he told Times of Oman.

On investing in India, Pemji said, “I think you have to have faith in India. It is a sound democracy. The voter is mature. Besides, the leadership is there in the country so it can change or get modified. Politicians can see the threat of survival and change themselves in terms of survival. Overall, I am optimistic. Besides, we wouldn’t be investing so much in India if we were frightened.-

About his impressions about Oman, he said, “I think it’s a country which has a great future. Government and companies are open to do business here, which is why they are open to meet companies.-

And at this note, he concluded: “I will back to Oman within a year.-

source: http://www.TimesofOman.com / Home> News / by Mrudu Naik, mrudu@timesofoman.com / September 13th, 2012