ASPIRE

  Mohnish Pabrai is a successful Indian-American investor. He famously paid $650,000 (about ₹5.5 crore today) to have lunch with Warren Buffett. Pabrai founded Pabrai Investment Funds in 1999, which now manages over $1 billion and has grown by 517%. His own net worth is estimated at ₹1,202.7 crore. Born in Bombay - India, on June 12, 1964, Mohnish Pabrai later moved to the USA. He currently stays in Irvine - California. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from Clemson University and an MBA from the University of California. He started his career as a software engineer and later transitioned into entrepreneurship. His early career started in the tech industry, where he worked for several prominent firms, including Tellabs. He also served as a consultant and investment banker at McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs. He founded TransTech Inc., an IT consulting firm, which he later sold for $20 million (Today’s 171 crores) to Kurt Salmon Associates in 1999....

Ever heard of Neal Mohan? In 2011, Google offered him a staggering $100 million – approximately ₹ 450 crores – just to stop him from defecting to Twitter. Today, he leads YouTube as its Chief Executive Officer. His parents belong to Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. His father, Aditya Mohan, is an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus who moved to the United States in early 1970s to pursue PhD in Civil Engineering. Neal was born in Lafayette (Indiana State of USA) on July 14, 1973. He spent majority of his formative years in America. Later his parents returned to India in 1985. Neal was enrolled in St. Francis School in Lucknow in 1986. It was a dramatic change for him. A kid brought up in USA struggled to speak and learn Hindi. He studied there till Class XII before joining Stanford University for a BSc in Electrical Engineering. At St. Francis, Neal Mohan met some of the best friends of his life and he had a little software start-up which built software for other high school kids and teachers. That...

  Vaibhav Taneja sent shockwaves around the globe after he earned approximately Rs. 1195 crores as the total compensation from Tesla in 2024. This record-breaking salary has surpassed the high-profile tech leaders like  Satya Nadella  (approx. 680 crores) and  Sundar Pichai (approx. 92 crores). He currently serves as the CFO of Tesla and earns more than Rs. 13 lakh per hour. His journey from Delhi University to become the CFO of Tesla is both surprising as well as inspiring. It is the symbol of excellence and global achievement. His pay package includes the stock options and equity grants that he received after his promotion as CFO in 2023. Born in 1977 and raised in Delhi (India ), Vaibhav Taneja comes from a middle-class family. He doesn’t even have an Ivy-League degree. But he loved numbers. His methodical mind and his disciplined approach changed his fortune. Vaibhav Taneja earned his B.Com from Delhi University in 1999. He later became a Chartered Accountan...

Life, at its core, is a tapestry woven from the threads of our decisions. As Satya Narayana Nadella, the chairman and CEO of Microsoft, wisely puts it, "Life is a matter of choices, and every choice that you make….makes you.” Born in Hyderabad on 19 August 1967, Nadella hails from a Hindu family. His mother Prabhavati was a Sanskrit lecturer and his father Yugandhar was an IAS officer. The family's roots are traced back to Nadella village in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district (now Palnadu) from where Sayta’s grandfather had migrated to Bukkapuram. Nadella attended Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet. Interestingly, he failed to secure an IIT seat and did his BE in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka instead. He went on to earn an MS in computer science from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Nadella still serves on the board of trustees to the University of Chicago. Before joining Micr...

  Sundar Pichai: CEO of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google Sundararajan Pichai was born on June 10, 1972, in Chennai. Raised in a modest two-room apartment of Ashok Nagar neighborhood, Pichai’s early life was simple and disciplined. His father (Regunatha Pichai) worked as an electrical engineer and his mother (Lakshmi) was a stenographer.   Sundar’s earlier studied from Jawahar Vidyalaya and later from Vana Vani; both of which are respected schools in Chennai. His academic brilliance earned him a place at the prestigious IIT Kharagpur, where he graduated with a degree in Metallurgical Engineering and was awarded the institute’s coveted gold medal for academic excellence. Following IIT, he won a scholarship to Stanford University. There he completed his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering. Sundar earned his MBA from the Wharton School. Sundar Pichai’s professional journey began with McKinsey & Company as a management consultant. In 2004, he joined Google. In 20...

  Divya Narendra is best known for his role in the early development of Facebook and his later ventures. While this entrepreneur and technology innovator is not as widely recognized as some of his contemporaries, his influence on the social media landscape is undeniable. Through his work and determination, Narendra contributed to the creation of one of the world's largest social networking platforms, and has since embarked on various other business endeavors. Born in 1982, Divya Narendra grew up in the United States, where he attended prestigious institutions. Narendra was known to be deeply interested in technology and business right from his formative years. He went on to study Computer Science at Harvard University, which is where his entrepreneurial journey actually began. In 2002, while at Harvard, Divya Narendra co-founded a social networking platform called "HarvardConnection" alongside his fellow students, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss. The platform ...

  A conservative Tamil woman stepped into PepsiCo in 1994. A decade later (in 2006), she commanded the entire company as its CEO. Indra Nooyi's rise in the corporate world is a story of meteoric rise. Not only did she reach the top, she redefined it by becoming the first woman, the first woman of colour and the first immigrant to lead a Fortune 50 company. In the quiet corridors of a Chennai middle-class home, October 28, 1955 marked the arrival of Indra Nooyi. She attended Holy Angels School in Chennai, earned a bachelor's degree from Madras Christian College, and received an MBA from IIM Calcutta. But her ambition wasn't confined to textbooks. In her youth, she wielded a cricket bat and strummed a rock guitar, revealing a spirit as diverse as her intellect. Emigrating to the US in 1978, she obtained her Masters in Management from the famous Yale School of Management. She has been consistently ranked among the world's most powerful women by publications like Forbes...

Ajaypal Singh Banga, an Indian-born American, currently serves as the President of the World Bank Group. His distinguished career is marked by numerous achievements and leadership roles across global institutions. Notably, he collaborated with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as Co-Chair of the Partnership for Central America and served as a member of the Trilateral Commission. Banga is also a founding trustee of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum and a former member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Additionally, he holds the title of Chairman Emeritus at the American India Foundation and serves as honorary chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce. His contributions extend to his work with President Barack Obama, where he was a member of the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations in  2015 . From the cantonment of Khadki in Pune (where he was born on November 10, 1959) to the helm of the World Bank, Ajaypal Singh Banga'...

The story of Shri Thanedar could well be a story of a Bollywood movie. His rise from poverty in Belgaum to become an entrepreneur in Michigan and then becoming a Congressman in US is nothing short of a fairytale. Shri was born in 1955 in a village called Chikodi near Belgaum (Karnataka). Like any other lower middle-class child, he did some odd jobs to manage his family expenses. He managed to score only  55% marks in his std-10 . After getting a bachelor's degree in chemistry, he went on to do his Masters in the subject from the University of Bombay. He then had a brief stint as a scientist at Mumbai's Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. In 1979, Thanedar left for the US when he was 24. He studied for his PhD from the University of Akron in US. He got a doctorate in polymer chemistry. Additionally, he completed his Masters in Business Administration from Fontbonne University.  After working as a scientist and a scholar for some days, Thanedar decided to pursue entrepreneurship. In ...

Liberal Arts has turned out to be one of the popular and emergent option among Indian Students when it comes to higher education. Apart from being a flexible curriculum, it also offers students a chance to study subjects that one would normally not get a chance to study together. Liberal Arts study sounds like an answer to many problems students face with respect to their subject choices and career.  Some universities in India offering undergraduate programs in Liberal Arts. Following five universities in India offer undergraduate programs in Liberal Arts: 1) Symbiosis School of Liberal Arts, Pune. Admission Procedure:  Admission is done in two ways Option A – candidates have to appear for the  Symbiosis Entrance Test  (SET) or Option B – Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). Candidates need to first meet the eligibility criteria as set by SSLA. Eligible candidates will have to register and apply. Once the application process is completed, candidates will have to appear ...

Price: Rs. 399 Page count:320 Published:13 November 2014 Language: English Author: Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb The book depicts the story of a young Pakistani girl who courageously stands up against the Taliban in order to fight for the cause of girls’ education. She has been awarded 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in this field. The book is a “must-read” for those interested in promoting the educational rights of women globally. Also, it is must-read for all the girls out there who take education for granted. Malala was a bright student. She was groomed by her father who provided her with an opportunity to study in an English-medium school. Her father himself ran the school against the decree of Taliban. When she was a 15 year old, she was shot at by the Taliban terrorists. That was for speaking up regarding women’s rights to education. Before she was shot at, she was unknown outside Pakistan but a well-known public figure in Pakistan, having done a radio interview series whe...

Vinod Khosla was born to an army officer on 28 January 1955 in New Delhi. He studied at the famous Mount St. Mary’s School in Delhi. Later, he completed electrical engineering from IIT Delhi and had started the first computer club in any IIT to do computer programming. Afterwards, he did his MS in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University followed by MBA from Stanford University. In 1980, Khosla co-founded Daisy Systems, which created (computer-aided design) CAD system for electrical engineers. In 1982, he co-founded Sun Microsystems. Sun microsystems created Java programming language and within first five years, made $1 billion in annual sales. Satya Nadella was an employee in Sun before he joined Microsoft. In 2004, Khosla founded Khosla Ventures which today manages approximately $1 billion of investor capital. In 2010, Sun was acquired by Oracle for $7.4 billion. Vinod Khosla also challenged Intel's monopoly by developing Nexgen/AMD. He also conceptualized the idea ...

                                It all began in Stanford University where Larry Page and Sergey Brin were the PhD students. They were working on their PhD project based on PageRank algorithm. An Indian-American Rajeev Motwani was one of the co-authors of their paper on PageRank   algorithm . When Page and Brin decided to float their own company, they badly needed funds. It was then that they approached Kavitark Ram Shriram, an Indo-American Venture Capitalist. Ram signed the first cheque to fund Google. It was of about five -lakh dollars . And thus was born Google with Ram as the founding director and board member. Kavitark Ram was born in Bangalore and raised in Chennai. His father passed away when he was three. Shriram holds a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Loyola College in Madras University. Ram is also an MBA from University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. After moving to the U...

Indians are one of the largest international student communities in the United Kingdom. The UK has a global reputation for academic excellence. The students can also visit StudyUK section of the British Council Website to search for courses, institutions and scholarships. If you aspire to study in UK and cannot afford full tuition and living expenses, here are a few scholarships offered to Indian Students for undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the UK.  1) Chevening: All Chevening applicants must submit their education documents, references, and one unconditional UK university offer. The deadlines for these required documents are in the  Chevening application timeline . If you are conditionally selected for a Chevening Scholarship, it is essential that you submit these documents in order to remain in the process .   2) University of Dundee:   The university provides Vice Chancellor’s South Asia Scholarship of   £4,000 per year to Indian...

  The Merchant Navy is a perfect career for brave-hearts who yearn for adventure and money. The private and public sectors shipping companies offer the most lucrative careers in merchant navy with handsome salaries. Today, over 90 per cent of cargo is transported across the world through ships. With the spread of globalization,  Merchant Navy  will create some of the most promising jobs in days to come. The big plus of this profession is that you are working and travelling simultaneously; exploring new ports and countries around the globe. You get long vacations after your long assignments. And you can retire at the age of 30 with your pockets full. The starting salary of 50K per month can reach up to 15 lakh per month depending upon your job profile. An estimated 7% of the world’s mariners come from India. The top recruiters in Merchant Navy are  Maersk Line,  Essar Shipping Ltd, ABG Shipyard, Mercator Ltd, and the Shipping Corporation of India. You can a...

A man who returned from a world 🌎 tour was asked to name the most difficult part of his journey. "Stepping out from the house, he said." Beginning is the most difficult thing. Journey of thousand miles begins with a single step. Well begun is half done. Do not hesitate to step out from your house and begin your adventure. Do not wait for all the signals to become green 🍏. You are paid for your actions and not for your words. So stop talking and swing into action to make it happen. Every successful journey started with that single bold step. Once you start, it gets easier all the time. The way to succeed is to start sooner and work harder than your competitors. There is no day like today and today is the best time to start. And never forget what Robert Frost said. "The woods are lovely dark and deep, But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep." Ravindra Zinjurke 

Nothing is impossible. You can achieve anything that your mind believes. Many battles are lost outside the battlefield because there is lack of conviction, lack of self belief. Belief, that one can do it. Belief in ones capabilities is ones strength; tried and tested for generations.  Just imagine that you are walking on the road. It's evening time. And you see a snake on which you are about to step in. What happens. It scares a hell out of you. Your heartbeats increase. Your eyes widen. All your energy goes to your leg to prevent you from stepping on the snake. So many changes in a fraction of second. Afterwards you realise it was not a snake; just a piece of rope. Everything jumps back to normal. Simply because you believed it was a snake, so many changes took place in your body. That too in such a short time. That's the power of belief. So believe you can, and you will win. Let's take another example. A baby elephant which is tied with a huge chain. It tries to free ...

Quality human resource is the capital of knowledge-based economies. The western countries understood this long before and changed their educational system accordingly. We in India will have to do a lot of catching up. We should be teaching the curriculum of the future and not just the curriculum of the past. Curriculum that is relevant and responsive to the rapidly changing ecosystem. We have to re-design our schools and its learning pedagogies.  We will have to learn, adapt, and constantly evolve this design. We will have to re-design our curriculum in such a way that it will impart skill-oriented training which will help the graduates and post-graduates secure jobs in the future. We will have to shift our focus towards experiential learning and imparting broad range of skills, including cognitive and meta-cognitive skills (e.g. critical thinking, creative thinking, learning to learn and self-regulation); social and emotional skills (e.g. empathy, self-efficacy and collaboration);...