His book, Redesign the World – A Social Call to Action, is at once an incredulous concept and gives an achievable goal, that we should all approach it with the same conviction that he shows.
Perhaps we are not there yet but he has always been ahead of the times. A globally known telecom inventor, serial entrepreneur, development thinker and policy maker, he is the man who gave India the popping yellow PCO/STD booths. There’s a reason that he is called the Father of IT revolution in India – he laid the foundation for the country’s telecommunications and technology modernization in the 1980s. He has advised prominent Indian premiers and has served as the Chairman of India’s first Telecom Commission. Apart from being a successful entrepreneur, he is also a known philanthropist and chairs five major NGOs.
If that was not enough, he holds close to 100 worldwide patents and 20 honorary doctorates (PhDs), has published five books, numerous papers and is regularly invited to present lectures all over the world. He’s even dabbled in the fine arts.
A multi-hyphenate in the true sense with a story that deserves a ‘Marvelverse’ of its own, he is born Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Sam.
A Revolutionary is Born
Sam was born on May 4, 1942, to Shantaben and Gangaram Pitroda in Titlagarh, Orissa (now Odisha), a family originally from Gujarat. Gandhian philosophy was enshrined in the family’s belief system. To ensure that Sam could understand the importance of this philosophy, he was sent to Gujarat where he completed his formal schooling. He attended Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara to earn his graduation and postgraduation degrees in physics. It was during this time he met Anjana, with whom he would enter a life-partnership later.
In pursuit of another master’s degree and a life jacket of dreams, Sam took a boat to the US in 1964 and thus began the journey of an innovator, who would soon become India’s technology guru.
Sam did his second postgraduation in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1964 and went on to work for GTE in Chicago. In 1975, came a path-breaking Electronic Diary that would accord him the status of one of the earliest pioneers of hand-held computing.
With over 50 years in telecommunication, he has founded many businesses that include Wescom Switching, Ionics, MTI, Martek, WorldTel, C-SAM to name a few. Through C-SAM, which was later acquired by MasterCard in 2014, Sam became the pioneer of mobile transaction technology that can now be seen as mobile wallets and more. He holds around 100 patents, and we suspect he is not even close to being done yet.
Call of the Motherland
Sam was successful and had sizable wealth but his innovator spirit was still restless.
A trip to his home country, India, in the early 1980s, became the catalyst for his entry into the world of India’s development politics and his friendship with the then Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and her son, Rajiv Gandhi, and others of the ruling party. Phone calls to the US from India took forever and this prompted Sam to develop a more modern digital switching system that would stretch beyond cities and give communication access to rural parts. His idea found its credence and support from Rajiv Gandhi. In 1984, they worked together to establish the Center for Development of Telematics, commonly referred to as C-DOT.
Such was Sam’s commitment to the project that he served as C-DOT’s Principal Advisor, taking a token salary of only Re 1 per year. His vision was to retain India’s young talent.
In an article, he wrote, “Our engineers were conspicuously young, and they never seemed to sleep or rest. Most had been ready to leave India when this opportunity came along. Now they threw themselves into India’s future and worked with an energy that the underdeveloped world is not commonly supposed to generate.”
Sam became India’s most crucial warrior in the revolution and subsequent transformation of the country’s telecom sector that became the foundation for its ICT success story today. As vibrant yellow PCOS/STD booths connected the vastness of India, he found himself becoming an integral part of the Congress party. As an Advisor to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1987, he was instrumental in launching six technology missions, and in 1989 went on to become the first Chairman of India’s Telecom Commission.
The year 1990 would set off a sequence of events that would crush Sam. A major heart attack followed by the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the realization that he was penniless would bring his world to a halt. Looking back at the turn of events, one can say it was a temporary glitch.
A proverbial Phoenix, Sam restarted his life in the US and launched successful ventures such as World-Tel, C-SAM. Even cancer could not stop him, and in 2004, he returned to his beloved motherland again to work with the National Knowledge Commission and served as an advisor to yet another Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh. As a Cabinet Minister, he advised the PM on everything from public information, infrastructure and innovation to creating digital infrastructure for the enhancement of governance and public services. He has also served as the Chairman of the Smart Grid Task Force, as well as the committees to reform public broadcasting, modernize railways, deliver e-governance and other developmental activities.
He currently serves as the Chairman of The Pitroda Group (formed in 2013) and CEO of alpha-En Corporation, a clean technology company. He is also the Chairman of Indian Overseas Congress.
Humanity Above All
Sam’s various achievements and patents notwithstanding, his great legacy lies in his philanthropic endeavors that reflect his visions of a redesigned world where everyone is accorded chances and equality and equity are practiced.
He is the founding chairman of five non-profit organizations that include the Institute of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology near Bangalore in India that promotes ayurveda and The Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI) with a mission to forge, optimize and sustain knowledge partnerships between the people and institutions of higher education and research around the world. He is also the brain behind the India Food Banking Network (IFBN) that works to empower and support the food security mission in India. He is also associated with People for Global Transformation (PGT) and Action for India (AFI).
He is also a Founding Commissioner of the United Nations Broadband Commission for Digital Development and the Chairman of the ITU’s m-Powering Development Board that looks to empower developing countries with the use of mobile technology.
Sam has collected many accolades over the years. Among his richly deserved laurels is the Padma Bhushan by the Indian government in 2009 for his contribution to science and engineering. He has also won the International Engineering Consortium Fellow Award, the Business Process Innovation Award from The Economist and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award.
Family: The Motherboard
Fundamental to Sam’s success story is his family. One cannot help but notice the coincidences and happenstances. In 1966, Sam married Anjana and in 1967, he claimed the first patent. Their eldest son, Salil, was born in 1975, the year he patented the Electronic Diary and 1978 saw the launch of MTI and the birth of his daughter, Rajal.
Salil and Rajal have the family high-achiever gene. Salil attended MIT for a double major in Electrical Engineering and Economics and has an MBA from Harvard University, and is currently a private investor. He is married to Dr Arpita Patel, an endocrinologist, and they have a daughter, Aria. Rajal studied Economics at the University of Michigan and MBA from London Business School. She has also written a successful novel and is a fiction and non-fiction film producer whose work examines issues of race, class and gender.
As for Sam, his eight decades on this earth and achievements have not slowed him down.
Having published his latest book in 2021, this octogenarian is still showing the world how it’s done.