India's most generous billionaire, Azim Premji announced a brand new bequest to his eponymous philanthropic initiative, pushing his total commitment to $21 billionaire- one of the five largest private endowments in the world, and the biggest in Asia. With the donation, Premji is now amongst the world's most influential philanthropists including Bill Gates, George Soros and Warren Buffett. Last week, Premji announced that all earnings from approximately 34 per cent shares of India's fourth-largest software services exporter WiproNSE worth about $7.5 billion would be transferred to the endowment that supports the Azim Premji Foundation.
With this, Premji has committed earnings from 67 per cent of Wipro's shares to the charitable foundation. The Premji family and entities controlled by them hold a 74.30 per cent stake in the software exporter. The education-focused philanthropic initiative launched by the Wipro chairman over a decade ago, remains focused on improving the quality of teachers in some of the country's most remote locations and also runs the Azim Premji University in Bengaluru. Chief Executive Officer of Azim Premji Foundation, Anurag Behar said, “All our activities are scaling up substantially. The important point is that we need funds for eternity.”
“Azim Premji’s philanthropic activities have an overarching vision to contribute to developing a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society in India. To enable this vision, the Azim Premji Foundation works directly in education and supports other not-for-profits working in some specific areas through multi-year financial grants,” the foundation said in a press statement.
Focus on Education
Established in 2001, the Azim Premji foundation also supports other not-for-profits working in specific areas through multi-year financial grants. The Foundation's extensive fieldwork in education with close partnership with various State governments helps contribute to the improvement of quality and equity of the public schooling system. Its field strategy focuses on scaling up a network of institutions at the district and State levels to contribute to improvement in the school education system on a continued and sustained basis, a statement issued by the foundation.
The foundation will use the returns from Premji's bequest, including dividends to fund all activities, as well as new initiatives such as setting up a second university in North India. The university plans to increase intake of students by five times from the existing 1500 every year. It will also increase the field work in the most disadvantaged parts of Uttarakhand, Karnataka, and Rajashan to improve quality and equity in education. The foundation will also step up funding to other nonprofits.
Expansion
Over the next several years, the activities of the Foundation are expected to scale up significantly. The team working the field in education is expected to grow significantly from the current 1600 people, while the university will have 5000 students with 400 faculty members across multiple programmes. The grant-making activities will also continue to expand rapidly, growing three times from its current levels, supporting work across multiple domains of social importance in India, the statement said.
India's Fourth Richest Businessman
Born on July 24, 1945 in Mumbai, Azim Premji is one of the biggest names in the Indian business industry. He is a Gujarati Muslim and his family is originally from Kutch. His father, Mohamed Premji, who was known as the 'Rice King of Burma', was a famous businessman in his time. During the partition of India, Muhammad Ali Jinnah had invited him to stay over in Pakistan. However, his request was humbly turned down.
Azim Premji is married to Yasmeen Premji and they have two sons – Tariq and Rishad. Rishad is currently working as the Chief Strategy Officer for the IT business activities of Wipro.
Apart from being a business tycoon, he is the Chairman of Wipro and a well-known philanthropist. He is also the unofficial Czar of the information technology industry of India. According to Forbes, he is the wealthiest person in the country in the six-year span of 1999 through 2005. The same magazine also states that as of 2015, he is the 61st richest person across the world. As of 2014, his personal wealth totaled to 16.4 billion. Not only was he voted in Asia Week as one of the 20 most powerful men in the world, first in 2004 and then in 2011, but Time Magazine has twice enlisted him among as one of the 20 most powerful men in the continent.
Premji holds 75 per cent of the shares of his company, besides owning a private equity fund named Premjiinvest. It is responsible for managing the personal investment portfolio of the tycoon, which is estimated to be worth a billion dollars. Premji obtained a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. This is almost equal in importance to a graduate degree in engineering in India.
Premji's career began in 1966 when he had to cut short his education at Stanford University when his father passed away and he came back home to take charge of his father's company. Wipro at the time was working out of a small town in Maharashtra named Amalner and dealt in Sunflower Vanaspati, and its byproduct, a laundry soap named 787. Premji later diversified the company's offerings by starting the production of bakery fat, various kinds of lights and related products, toiletries made from locally available ingredients, hydraulic cylinders, hair care soaps and toiletries for babies. In the 1980s, he was able to understand the potential of information technology.
At the time, when IBM was shown the door, Premji changed the name of the company to Wipro and began making microcomputers so as to gain entry into the sector for high technology products. He collaborated with an American organisation, Sentinel Computer Corporation.
NGOs and Foundations
Part of some key charitable initiatives, Premji's life is testament to his belief of giving back to the society. He established the Azim Premji Foundation which is a major part of the philanthropic work done by him. It is a not-for-profit entity that aims to come up with contributions that can help in realising a level of universal education, which in turn, will lead to a society that thrives on values like justice, equality, humanity and sustainability at its core. Its basic area of work is as mentioned above, elementary education.
The Azim Premji Foundation is currently attempting to come up with proofs of concept that can change the very system in which the government-owned schools operate in India. Their emphasis is on improving the quality of education on offer and bringing the schools at par with the best schools across the country. Most of these schools are in the rural area and this is where the foundation has been focusing to a significant extent.
In December 2010, Premji promised to provide 2 billion dollars for making school education in the country better than what it was. He transferred equity shares, amounting to 213 million in number, from his company to the Azim Premji Trust. This was the biggest ever educational donation in the country. Meanwhile, the Azim Premji University was set up as per an act passed by the legislative assembly of Karnataka. Its main aim is to conceive and execute programmes that can help in the development of the overall educational scenario.
Azim Premji is also the first Indian to have signed up for the Giving Pledge campaign, a brainchild of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Its primary aim is to provide encouragement to rich people to come forward and commit a part of their riches to philanthropic activities. As of April 2013, Premji had donated at least 25% of his personal wealth to the said charity.
