- Kanwal Rekhi
Kanwal Rekhi (born 1945) is an
Indian-American engineer ,businessman andmillionaire philanthropist .Kanwal was born in
Rawalpindi (then inBritish India , now inPakistan ). After thepartition of India , his family settled inKanpur ,India . In 1967 Rekhi graduated as anelectrical engineer from theIndian Institute of Technology Bombay ,India and in 1969 he received aMaster of Science degree fromMichigan Technological University . Kanwal has been a major donor to Michigan Tech, including a gift of $5 million for new computer science facilities. He worked as an engineer, systems analyst, and manager for many years before floating his first company,Excelan in 1982. Excelan was a manufacturer of smartEthernet cards, and was also responsible for the commercial growth of the internet protocolTCP/IP . The company merged with, and was acquired byNovell in 1989 and Kanwal was given a seat on the board.Kanwal was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1987 by the Arthur-Young/Venture magazine. He was named to the Board of Advisors to the President of Michigan Tech and in 1997 was honoured with a
doctorate in Business and Engineering. Kanwal is also involved in increasing the visibility of premier educational institutions in India. He gave US $3 million to IIT Bombay to help set up a new School of Information Technology, namedKReSIT (Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology), which opened in 1999.Kanwal is a past Chairman and trustee of
TiE , The Indus Entrepreneurs. He is also Chairman of theCentre for Civil Society , a think tank in India.References
* [http://www.mtu.edu/dedication/rekhi.html Dedication of Kanwal and Ann Rekhi Hall, Michigan Tech]
* [http://www.ccsindia.org/pro_k_rekhi.asp Bio details at Centre for Civil Society]
* Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap, "The Knowledge Coach", January 10, 2005 accessed at Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School [http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4562.html] August 30, 2006
* [http://www.itpeopleindia.com/20041011/people1.shtml Interview details with Kanwar by ITPeopleIndia]External links
* [http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/ Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, IIT-B]
* [http://www.expressitpeople.com/20041011/people1.shtml Sage of the New Age]
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