NEW DELHI: The tech czar, who cofounded India’s fourth largest software firm HCL Technologies, has spent $565 million for setting up schools, museums and university.
According to a report by Anu Raghunathan for Forbes, Nadar who was ranked the 14th richest tech billionaire and the fourth richest in Asia earlier this month, has a net worth of $13.7 billion. He set up Shiv Nadar University in 2011 investing $214 million to create a multi-disciplinary, research-oriented university spanning 286 acres near India’s capital city.
He makes all his contributions through the Shiv Nadar Foundation set up in 1994 with the purpose of “creating iconic institutions of excellence in learning across the education spectrum.” As he points out in his message about the foundation: “Education is, and will be the most powerful tool for individual and social change and we must do all that it takes to facilitate it.”
Take the Vidya Gyan initiative set up in 2009. It identifies the brightest students from 100,000 rural government primary schools across 75 districts in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It offers free education to 1,700 students through two residential schools in Bulandshahar and Sitapur. The schools are spread across 67 acres and feature computer, maths and science labs as well as football fields and basketball courts. The VidyaGyan schools are aimed at creating future leaders from rural India. – The Educationist Monitoring
The museums run by Nadar’s wife Kiran Nadar under the banner of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art are aimed at fostering an appreciation for modern Indian art. In the past year, art works from these museums have been invited for exhibitions to the Guggenheim, Gwangju in South Korea and the Rockbund Art Museum in China. The foundation has put in $144 million over the years toward museum initiatives. –The Educationist Monitoring