The chief executive officer of Snapdeal, Mr. Kunal Bahl took to Twitter on the 28th of April, to start a discussion as to who in India is similar to Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Inc and SpaceX. He asked his followers which Indian entrepreneur has ambition, tech, and impact just like Elon Musk. He said that we need to see beyond the world of start-ups to find the answer. Someone who has transformed businesses and pioneered the innovation. He casted his vote by saying that it is no other than Mr. Nandan Nilekani.
So, who is Nandan Nilekani?
Mr. Nandan Nilekani is the founder and Non-Executive Chairman of Indian tech firm, Infosys. He has been the chief executive officer, managing director, president, and chief operating officer of Infosys which would imply that he has been one of the paramount figures in the growth of Infosys as the company is worth well over $100 billion USD.
After an extremely successful stint with Infosys, he left the firm to work with the government as took the role of chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a role which he was invited to take by then prime minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh. UIDAI is a government authority which started the Aadhar system, a single identification system for citizens and residents of India. The Aadhar card has been quite successful with close to almost every citizen and resident gaining one. Currently over 1.25 billion people have their own Aadhar card. Paul Romer, the chief economist of the World Bank described the Aadhar card as the worlds most sophisticated ID.
Mr. Kunal Bahl went on to say that whether it was Infosys, tech, UIDAI, or his work for UPI, he has always been a frontrunner in pioneering digital tech in India and has impacted the country in such a way that no other Indian has in recent times.
He went to say that although his personality isn’t very similar to Elon Musk, his work and impact in the nation cannot be understated calling him an inspiration.
Many of Mr. Bahl’s followers also replied to his tweet stating their opinions and one name that popped up a lot was Mr. Mukesh Ambani. His work with Reliance, especially, Reliance Jio cannot be understated. Mr Ambani’s Jio singlehandedly dropped the price of mobile data and mobile plans making it affordable for every Indian, which rapidly increase the digitisation process of the country.
