- +1-919 696 0721
- info@tpffoundation.org
- 8729 Gleneagles Drive, Raleigh, NC, USA 27613
I grew up in India. My family was at times very wealthy and at times incredibly poor. Somehow, I managed to complete my primary and college education (thank you to all my teachers and family for believing in a C student. Given all the politics in my family, I decided to start a new life. 50 years ago, I moved to the land of milk and honey.
I came to the US to get an education (a master’s in computer science). But one thing led to the next and then it was a job, and I married my wife Debbie. (One of my golf buddies once asked me - what is your greatest blessing - I thought for a moment and before I could answer him - he said "It is Debbie, she is your greatest blessing.” He is right).
From there I got to meet Luiz (my future business partner) and had the good fortune of starting a business with him in something I was passionate about—test tools for TPF (high volume transaction processing system). I thoroughly enjoyed this, and still do.
Along the way I had two miracles occur, Dinesh and Kavita - each bring tremendous pleasure to our lives. Their laughs are contagious. Sometimes, they think they know everything - I just smile. With Age comes wisdom and that is something I will always have over them that comes with age --- and that is something I have and will always have over them.
In the last few years, we opened a successful operation/business in India - a lot of hard work - but I have really got to become a Business Manager. I am now working on my exit strategy (one of three options - sell the company, hire a new COO and CEO, or groom the current senior managers) - one of these has to occur - and my time frame is 3-5 years.
This leads me to the next Act.
This act is about one my next passion - Giving.
As you know, charitable giving is not something new. Together, over the past 20 years, we have helped more than 5,000 primary school students receive an education in Bangalore India through the Thirupuvanam Foundation.
I know we are all incredibly proud of this work. And we are deeply indebted to all of you for the generous and continued donations you’ve made with both your time and money.
But it’s time to give back to the US.
This country gave us an opportunity - this is the most giving country in the whole world, and having benefited from its bounty - it is time to give back.
Establish the US entity TPF Foundation and use it as a passthrough for providing grants to both US based charities and to Indian based charities. This has been done from 2014 to the present.
We have identified several organizations in both the US and in India and we continue to contribute to these organizations. Within the US we keep our staff to zero, and the US organization is a passthrough organization.
We have a larger and more manageable organization in India, and that is the Thirupuvanam Foundation. This organization supports Education and other Heritage Projects.
Our goal is to spend at least 50% of TPF foundation funds on US based charities.
Great question. The answer is very simple , There are several organizations like this
http://www.giveindia.org
http://www.giveasia.org
and finally the greatest and best run charitable organization – http://www.gatesfoundation.org
We are working with Teach For India to get their Alumni to work with the Thirupuvanam Foundation to teach our teachers the modes and methodologies that they use to have an impact with Government Schools. A Fellow in TFI can only be there for 2 years, we are hoping to work with some of those Fellow Alumni to build our teaching capabilities, so that we can have a larger impact on Education in Bangalore, India.
We all came with nothing, we are going to leave with nothing. You really cannot take all this stuff and go anywhere.
Bill Gates said if I leave 5 million to my son, and he cannot make it with that much money — then why bother leaving him with 5 billion? I completely agree with this statement. The assets that you want to leave are values, not wealth.
So leave a bit to your 1 or 2 or 3 children… but let’s go help thousands more.
Please respond directly to me if you’re interested in being involved.
