Dr Ajai Chowdhry | Founder | HCL Chairman | EPIC Foundation| Author of ‘Just Aspire’

Dr. Ajai Chowdhry | Founder | HCL Chairman | EPIC Foundation

• Dr Ajai Chowdhry is one of the six founder members of HCL. In 1995, He took over the reins of HCL Infosystems & created a 12,000 crore (US $1.6 Bn) organization over the next 15 years.
• In 2009, Dr Chowdhry headed a Task Force created by MEITY, which made path-breaking recommendations where the task force warned that the electronics import bill would exceed the oil import bill.

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Dr Ajai Chowdhry, one of the founding fathers of HCL, shares what it went like Building the tech giant company. He is making India a powerful electronics product nation and is the best at getting the best out of ordinary people.   In this episode, we learn about the fantastic journey of HCL. 

00:33- About Dr Ajai Chowdhry and his journey.

• Dr Ajai Chowdhry is one of the six founder members of HCL. In 1995, He took over the reins of HCL Infosystems & created a 12,000 crore (US $1.6 Bn) organization over the next 15 years.
• In 2009, Dr Chowdhry headed a Task Force created by MEITY, which made path-breaking recommendations where the task force warned that the electronics import bill would exceed the oil import bill.
• Ajai has been involved in investing in, nurturing and mentoring startups & is on the Board of the Indian Angel Network and has personally invested in more than 50 startups
• He has set up a Charitable Trust called Swayam, where he contributes to many areas, including education, women empowerment & providing relief during Covid to Delhi & Goa citizens. 

01:27- Let’s talk about HCL and what goes into making it a global powerhouse.

• We discovered that there was an excellent opportunity to enter Singapore with the hardware we had manufactured in Singapore. But the Strategy was very clearly around selling computerization rather than computers, so we took the whole idea of hardware, software solution, and service packaged it, and presented it as computerization.
• Even as it was basking in its success in Singapore, HCL planned an entirely new area of expansion, and it tapped into a territory that was lying unexplored in the country – computer education. 
•  In 1991, when India didn’t have enough foreign exchange. We were in the hardware business and didn’t have enough funds. That’s when a clear thought entered our minds – that we should globalize and in the very early days, we created a joint venture with Hewlett-Packard.

20:15- Tell me about the Epic Foundation and your vision to set this up.

• While India is making rapid strides in electronics manufacturing for global brands & products, Indian and Indian brands in electronics are slowly disappearing over the last 2–3 decades. 
• The market share of Indian electronics products is less than 10% in most high-volume categories. EPIC was formed to address this challenge.
• It was launched to revive the India Electronics Industry by creating Indian products and Indian Brands for Electronics products of national importance.
• EPIC Foundation was formed with strong support from Industry and academia with two primary objectives – To create “Indian” Electronics products and “Indian” Brands in High-Impact/High-Volume categories and to Drive demand for Semiconductor Chips by scaling the volume for these Indian Electronics Products.

27:33- What three lessons do you want our viewers to take away from the conversation?

• We need to change our thinking because we can do many things. Therefore, we need to get a world view. 
• We need to develop essential skills. You need to be a great salesperson. 
• Managing people is a critical job. Moreover, managing people who have the capability of being able to deliver what you want, but not necessarily the most expensive deal 

RESOURCES:

You can connect with Dr Ajai Chowdhry | on LinkedIn

Visit: https://www.epicfoundation.org/ 

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Thanks for listening! 

• Dr Ajai Chowdhry is one of the six founder members of HCL. In 1995, He took over the reins of HCL Infosystems & created a 12,000 crore (US $1.6 Bn) organization over the next 15 years.
• In 2009, Dr Chowdhry headed a Task Force created by MEITY, which made path-breaking recommendations where the task force warned that the electronics import bill would exceed the oil import bill.
• Ajai has been involved in investing in, nurturing and mentoring startups & is on the Board of the Indian Angel Network and has personally invested in more than 50 startups
• He has set up a Charitable Trust called Swayam, where he contributes to many areas, including education, women empowerment & providing relief during Covid to Delhi & Goa citizens. 
• He is also the Author of ‘Just Aspire: Notes on Technology, Entrepreneurship, and the Future’