Forbes

86 | FORBES ASIA JULY 2016

FORBES ASIA

SAMPARK FOUNDATION

stems from his mother, Janak, a 12th-

grade English teacher who raised

three boys—he was the middle one—

on her own after her husband’s early

death. He says his mother always put

aside money for charity. “I don’t need

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to teach

giving to India,” he says heatedly. “We

Indians have been giving for years

even when we don’t have. To give

when you don’t have is bigger than to

give when you have. Giving is in our

blood. Stop preaching to India. Start

learning from India.”

So it’s unsurprising he’s not a fan

of the Giving Pledge, a campaign

launched by Buffett and Gates in

2010 to encourage rich people to do-

nate at least half their wealth. “The

giving pledge is input-focused. Just

by giving away 50% percent you’re

not solving problems,” he thunders.

“I want 50% of your mind. Philan-

thropy has to be very deep and very

innovative. It must create a larger

impact, and that’s not measured in

millions of dollars.”

Unlike most foundations, Sampark

has an expiration date. It will shut

down by 2025, he declares. He’ll also

spend every last rupee in the endow-

ment by then. “In HCL I was building

a company to last; here I am building

a company to die,” he says. “Its work

should stay. It should not stay. This is

a different experiment. It’s like this: If

you knew you had only three months

to live, you’ll live your life differently.”

Sampark’s immediate goal is to

expand the math and English pro-

grams to three more states. After

that Nayar will make everything he’s

learned publicly available to whoever

wants to introduce the project in a

new location, but under Sampark’s

guidelines. Then the plan is for sci-

ence programs for middle school

children. By 2020 Nayar wants to

take his model to schools in Africa.

“We are pushing ourselves intellec-

tually, and the purpose is the smiles

on the faces of the children,” he says.

“This is a recipe for bliss.”

they don’t show up, so you have to
start all over again.” Adds Nayar, who
visits the schools at least once a month:
“You go into a class. One guy doesn’t
know addition; another doesn’t know
division and another hasn’t attended
school in ten days.”
Sampark takes all this into ac-
count. It plans lessons for 120 days,
even though the school year is 200
days. And sometimes students come
to school only for the lunch. So the
lessons are planned for only two
hours of school—before and after
mealtime.
Nayar grew up in Uttarakhand, but
he went to the private Campus School
and then earned an engineering de-
gree from the University of Pantnagar.
After an M.B.A. from XLRI (Xavier
School of Management) he joined
HCL Ltd. in 1985. He quit in 1992 to
cofound Comnet, which specialized
in managing remote infrastructure.
Then in 1998 it merged with HCL
Tech, and his stake in Comnet was
converted to shares in HCL Tech.
By 2005 Nayar was all set to give
up his corporate career and jump into
social development. He started Sam-
park that year. But Shiv Nadar—the IT
billionaire who cofounded HCL Tech
(see box, p. 85)—asked him to run
the company. In the next eight years
Nayar boosted revenue sixfold, taking
it up to $4.7 billion a year. “In 2005
I wasn’t rich and famous. I was okay
and not famous,” he says.
The transformation at HCL and
his 2010 book, Employees First, Cus-
tomers Second: Turning Conventional
Management Upside Down, which
sold 100,000 copies, catapulted him
to corporate stardom. “I left the
corporate world after demonstrating
my intellectual powers, after demon-
strating that I could build a $1 billion
startup and after demonstrating that
I could transform a legacy company,”
he says. “But after you’re intellectual-
ly satisfied it looks like a meaningless
chase. The purpose of making higher
and higher profits wasn’t alluring to

me. I got tired of the quarterly earn-

ings reports and the corporate envi-

ronment. Where’s the purpose of your

existence?”

In 2013 he quit HCL and defined

his purpose as bringing smiles to a

million children. The vision now is

for 10 million. He devotes 80% of

his time to philanthropy while also

doing corporate consulting work; he

puts that income into the foundation.

(He’s also an avid Himalayan trekker

who treks up to 14,500 feet. His goal?

19,000 feet.) “My wife and I have

always wanted to do [philanthropy],”

says Nayar. “We were never lured by

the razzamatazz of corporate life.”

Anupama—she and Vineet were

high school sweethearts—has a

background in special education and

brings insights into pedagogy and at-

tention spans

Vineet says his philanthropic ethos F

118.9 million

K-8 STUDENTS IN GOVERNMENT

SCHOOLS

73.6 million

K-8 STUDENTS IN PRIVATE

SCHOOLS

1.1 million

K-8 GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

4.7 million

TEACHERS IN K-8 GOVERNMENT

SCHOOLS

3.8%

SPENDING ON EDUCATION AS A SHARE

OF GDP

59 %

SCHOOLS WITH ELECTRICITY

25 %

SCHOOLS WITH COMPUTERS

FIGURES ARE FOR THE 2014–15 SCHOOL YEAR,

EXCEPT FOR SPENDING, WHICH IS FOR 2015–16.

SOURCES: DISTRICT INFORMATION SYSTEM

FOR EDUCATION; NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF

EDUCATIONAL PLANNING & ADMINISTRATION;

INDIAN GOVERNMENT.

INDIA’S SCHOOLS

BY THE NUMBERS