Kanwal Rekhi

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Kanwal Rekhi (born 1945) is an Indian-American engineer, businessman and millionaire philanthropist.

Kanwal was born in Rawalpindi (then in British India, now in Pakistan). After the partition of India, his family settled in Kanpur, India. In 1967 Rekhi graduated as an electrical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India and in 1969 he received a Master of Science degree from Michigan Technological University. He worked as an engineer, systems analyst, and manager for many years before floating his first company, Excelan in 1982. Kanwal has been a major donor to Michigan Tech, including a gift of $5 million for new computer science facilities.

Kanwal was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1987 by the Arthur-Young/Venture magazine. He was named to the Board of Advisors to the President of Michigan Tech and in 1997 was honoured with a doctorate in Business and Engineering. Kanwal is also involved in increasing the visibility of premier educational institutions in India. He gave US $3 million to IIT Bombay to help set up a new School of Information Technology, named KReSIT (Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology), which opened in 1999.

He is also Chairman of the Centre for Civil Society, a think tank in India.

[edit] References

Dedication of Kanwal and Ann Rekhi Hall, Michigan Tech
Bio details at Centre for Civil Society
Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap, The Knowledge Coach, January 10, 2005 accessed at Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School [1] August 30, 2006