Indian teenage CEO hopes to do a Bill Gates

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Wednesday, 05 November 2003, 20:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
BANGALORE: Seventeen-year-old Suhas Gopinath, chief of Globals Inc, lost his first big business opportunity to sign a pact with a Singapore-based outsourcing firm because he was too young under Indian law. "SingT Inc approached my company for outsourcing some 50 of their projects," said Gopinath dressed in a navy blue blazer sitting at his company's stall put up in Bangalore's premier IT event. "But I could not go ahead and sign the contract a couple of months ago as I am not a major yet," he said. Gopinath said his ambition in life had been to become a veterinarian -- until the computer bug bit him at the age of 14. "When I look around I see lot of guys of my age hanging out with their girlfriends. I do not feel bad as I have a mission to make my company another Microsoft," Gopinath said. "Bill Gates is my role model," he said. At 14, he developed his own web page called CoolHindustan.com, a portal targeted at Indians living abroad giving news, weather, voicemail and other features. Seven days after he put up his page on the Internet US-based Network Solutions Inc, a company owned by Nasdaq-listed Verisign which develops Internet services, acknowledged his ability and certified him as one of the world's youngest web page developers. "That was when I decided I should launch a company of my own and presently I have 60 students from all around the world working with me," Gopinath said. "Network Solutions gave me a sponsored trip to visit their facility in the US (in 2000) and later offered me a job. But I told them that was not possible as I wanted to run my own firm in India," he said. After that, Gopinath, who spends most of his spare time with his dog named "Bushy", set up Globals Inc with the help of three other colleagues and registered it in the United States. Now the firm helps their clients in applications such as web designing, storage management, online shopping, Internet security and credit card payments. "I wanted to develop a platform for youngsters to develop their talents and to help them understand and get exposed to technology," said Gopinath, who started out exploring a computer at a cyber cafe in India's technology hub of Bangalore, home to more than 1,000 foreign and domestic technology firms. "I did not register my company in India as one has to pay taxes and there are other hassles," he said. "The rates we charge are very cheap. If you want to set up your own site we charge only Rs 300. "Most of the projects we undertake are small ones which do not require a memorandum of understanding or any legal pacts," he said. His team members or employees are all below 22 years of age and some like Varun Kumar has earned only Rs 2,000 in two years. They work through the Internet and specific job functions are posted on message boards for each employee. The firm has a designated chief information officer, chief technology officer, chief operating officer and even a vice-president of human resources. So far their projects have fetched a total of Rs 30,000, which was split between all the members including Indian and foreign students living in the US, Britain and Canada. "The company is not a money-making machine. Only students below 22 can become employees. The aim as of now is to get more and more students to come on board," Gopinath said. Indian employees of Globals Inc work out of cyber cafes, where they have to pay Rs 15 an hour.

siliconindia