Gururaj Deshpande at XIME ..

It is indeed a great thing to meet one of the richest NRI Indians  and I was fortunate enough to listen to him and have lunch with him.

It was 24 th March 2008 and XIME played host to one of the richest NRIs ( a real techie to the core , not a coding techie or tech coolie.. !!)

Gururaj made his billions when he sold his company Sycamore networks in 1999 for $4 billion. He and his wife together manage the show. Both are alumni of IIT Chennai. They have contributed about $ 100 million to IIT Chennai besides setting up the Deshpande Centre for Innovation at MIT, Boston with a generous contribution of $ 20million.

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from the internet ::
Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande co-founded Sycamore and has served as chairman of the board of directors since Sycamore's inception in February 1998. He also served as treasurer and secretary from February 1998 to June 1999 and as president from February 1998 to October 1998.

Before founding Sycamore, Dr. Deshpande co-founded Cascade Communications Corp., a provider of wide area network switches. From October 1990 to April 1992, Dr. Deshpande served as president of Cascade and, from April 1992 to June 1997, he served as Cascade's executive vice president of marketing and customer service. Dr. Deshpande was a member of the board of directors of Cascade since its inception and was chairman of the board of directors of Cascade from 1996 to 1997. Dr. Deshpande also serves on the board of directors of Airvana, Inc., a provider of network infrastructure products used by wireless carriers, and as chairman of the board of A123 Systems, a leading supplier of high-power lithium-ion batteries.
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Gururaj has a great passion for social entrepreneurship when he is not designing optical communication networks.. A great philanthropist, he takes great interest in helping the socially downtrodden in the society, providing the mid day meals. Akshay Patra.

A down-to-earth person, Gururaj is very much into the new product development domain in a digital world, while his famous co-brother, the Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys, N R Narayana Murthy helped redefine the services domain in the country.

Whle speaking at XIME, he was very much passionate about the potential of innovation in the new world and the new high power Lithium-ion batteries which his latest company A123 systems is designing and which is being embraced by the automobile majors of the world, set to redefine the energy scene in the world.

People in the photo are Mr Deshpande, Mr Shenoy former Chariman, Board of Governors, XIME and former Chairman, ABB and Prof J Philip, President of XIME.

ge..