Inspiring Biography of Shiv Nadar

Shiv Nadar is a co-founder and former chairman of HCL Technologies Limited.

His story of starting HCL Technologies Limited in a garage and working his way up to become a billionaire is very inspiring.

Shiv Nadar is the third richest person in India.

Introduction-

Shiv Nadar was born on 14 July 1945 in Moolaipozhi, Tamil Nadu, India.

He graduated in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from PSG College of Technology.

Shiv Nadar started his career in Cooper Engineering Company. 

In 1967, he moved to New Delhi to work for the Digital Products Division of Delhi Cloth Mills, which was at that time the fourth largest company in India.

Shiv Nadar was not satisfied with his routine job.

He longed to do something challenging in his life and during this time he met Arjun Malhotra, a like-minded colleague.

Both of them decided to venture into the Personal Computer (PC) manufacturing business.

During that time, India had only a few personal computers. 

Shiv Nadar understood the potential growth of Personal Computers.

Starting Microcomp-

In 1975, Shiv Nadar along with his friends started Microcomp, which manufactured Digital Calculators and various office products like Televista.

Even though Microcomp was running profitably, he wanted to do something even more phenomenal.

Fortunately, during that time Uttar Pradesh government was encouraging entrepreneurs in the Information Technology (IT) field, which made Shiv Nadar to explicate his dream project to the UP government, to which the UP government readily agreed.

As a result, on 11 August 1976, HCL Technologies Limited was started along with the partnership of UP Electronics Board.

HCL was co-founded by Shiv Nadar and Arjun Malhotra.

During the first year, the company clocked an impressive revenue of 10 lakh rupees.

HCL manufactured India’s first microcomputer, HCL 8C.

Eventually, HCL expanded globally and also ventured into the computer hardware manufacturing business.

HCL believes in partnerships with other companies across the world as seen in its joint ventures with Nokia, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, CISCO, etc.

HCL is also a member of the World Economic Forum.

Shiv Nadar was awarded Padma Bhushan (the third-highest civilian award in India) in 2008.

He says that if one dreams big, some failures are inevitable and one must not get demotivated by those failures.

And risk taking abilities is highly beneficial in today’s world of numerous opportunities.

Milestones-

• HCL is the pioneer of computer hardware in India.
• First 8 bit computer system was launched by HCL.
• In 1978 the country’s first Personal Computer was built by HCL.
• HCL helped to build the Indian Stock Exchange, which changed the face of Indian capital market altogether.

Philanthropy-

• Shiv Nadar put aside 10 percent of his personal wealth for charity.
• He built many schools, universities, research centres all over the nation.
• Shiv Nadar started SSN Engineering College in Tamil Nadu, India which was the first educational institute to be awarded with ISO certification.
• And this college tied up with Carnegie Mellon for Post-Graduation Education.
• Shiv Nadar also built a residential school by name Vidyagyan in Uttar Pradesh to help rural children to get educated.
• He also started Shiv Nadar University, which is a full-fledged University in 2011 in Greater Noida.
• HCL also initiated project Samuday which intends to develop a sustainable, scalable, and replicable model for the rural parts of India.
• It also works with many NGOs for the betterment of society.
• HCL also runs the GO GREEN initiative to protect our environment.

HCL operates in 50 countries and is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.

HCL employs more than 153,000 employees.

HCL is the fourth biggest IT company of India.

The net worth of Shiv Nadar is around US$24 billion.

Infographic-

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Featured image credits: Shaik Mydeen/Wikimedia Commons

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