Azim Premji donates half his wealth, set to hire
influenced by Gandhi's notion of holding one's wealth in trusteeship, to be used for the betterment of society and not as if one owned it", Premji said.
In 1966 Premji dropped out from his studies at Stanford on his father's untimely death (though he completed his Engineering degree in 2000) and came back to India to run the small family business.
"As Wipro became a globally successful IT Services firm, I began to seriously consider what I should do with my wealth, which had accrued from the success and market capitalisation of the company", Premji said.
"I became convinced that markets, public systems and philanthropic initiatives all had a significant role to play if the country was to have inclusive development, and that we needed to work purposefully towards establishing a more humane, equitable and ethical society for all our citizens," he added.
It was this purpose that made him decide he must focus his philanthropic initiative on trying to help improve the Public Education System in India, beginning with primary schools, for he strongly believed education is perhaps the most important social institution to empower individuals and shape a better society.
Premji said in 2009, they reviewed the experience and strategy at the Foundation and decided to scale up work and deepen support to the public schooling system by creating institutions, including those at district and state-level which work on capacity development of teachers and other people in the public education system, and also on other related academic and managerial issues.
