Sam Pitroda was born in Titilagarh in Orissa but spent most of his childhood in Gujarat. His father had studied till grade four only, but believed in letting children do what they wanted to, which helped in the grooming of the young Sam Pitroda. Pitroda grew up in a large family with seven brothers and sisters. His greatest asset is the friend circle that is spread across different countries. Sam has a collection of 20,000 business cards.

An innovator, Pitroda has fifty patents to his credit. But the biggest irony is that he never used a telephone before he went to the US and in spite of that he has a lot many patents to his credit. He has patents on digital switching, synchronization, tone generation, tone receiving, conferencing, and m-commerce. On the m-commerce front, Pitroda has ten patents and is currently working on a ‘wallet’, which would have all kinds of cards—credit card, debit card, health card, insurance card, and even the driving license. Everything is stored electronically and delivered over the air. Trials are going on in Japan, the US, and Europe, prior to the commercial launch.

Pitroda did his schooling in Anand Vallabh Vidyalaya in Gujarat, and then moved on to Baroda where he did his masters in physics and electronics. After that, he went to the US and did his masters in electrical engineering and immediately got a job in GTE which focussed on digital communications. In 1974, he left GTE and started his own company called Wescom Switching in Chicago which was sold to Rockwell International six years later. He joined Rockwell where he was head of telecom. He stayed with Rockwell for three years before he decided to leave and focus on India. In India, he made a presentation to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and worked with Rajiv Gandhi on telecom missions. He was instrumental in setting up C-DoT and was the first chairman of the Telecom Commission. He was instrumental in beginning the PCO revolution in India. In 1987, he became the technology adviser to the Prime Minister of India. After his stint in India, Pitroda went back to the US and worked on WorldTel, an organization initiated by ITU to help develop telecom infrastructure in developing countries. Currently, he is the chairman and CEO of WorldTel.

Pitroda has travelled extensively to around 90 countries and is currently busy giving talks to international audience all over the world. He is actively working on the digital divide and is adviser to Kofi Annan on the ICT Advisory Committee. He loves to paint whenever he gets the time. n