Sudha Murthy

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Sudha Murthy

Born	August 19, 1950 (1950-08-19) (age 57) Shiggaon, Karnataka
Occupation	Social worker and writer.

Sudha Murthy (Kannada:ಸುಧಾ ಮೂರ್ತಿ)(मराठी:सुधा कुलकर्णी-मुर्ती), in Karnataka, India in 1950) is an Indian social worker and accomplished author. She is known for her philanthropic work through the Infosys Foundation. Among other things, she has initiated a move to provide all government schools in Karnataka with computer and library facilities. She also teaches computer science and writes fiction. Dollar Sose (Dollar daughter-in-law), a book originally she wrote in Kannada and later translated to English as Dollar Bahu was adopted as a television serial in 2001.

She did B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the B.V.B. College of Engineering & Technology, Hubli. She stood first in Karnataka for which she received a silver medal from the Chief Minister of Karnataka. She also completed her M.Tech. in Computer Science in 1974 from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, stood first in her class and received a gold medal from the Indian Institute of Engineers.

She was also the first woman engineer to be selected in Telco (now Tata Motors), Pune. She had written a postcard to JRD Tata complaining of the gender bias in Tata Motors (Telco then had a men-only policy) and she was invited for a special interview by Tata Motors. (Please see external link Aapro JRD). She was living in Pune from 1974-1981,later she moved to Mumbai. It was her savings of Rs. 10,000 that was instrumental in the founding of Infosys; Narayan Murty proudly mentions this fact.

On November 19th 2004, she was presented with the Raja-Lakshmi Award "in recognition of her outstanding contribution to social work" by the Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation, Chennai.

Mrs. Murthy is the wife of software industrialist N.R. Narayana Murthy, the sister of Jaishree Deshpande (wife of billionaire telecom tycoon Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande) and renowned Caltech astrophysicist Shrinivas Kulkarni, and the granddaughter of the late Shri Narayan Melgiri, a prominent 19th century Kannadiga advocate.

She has written many stories, mostly published by Penguin, which deal with common lives and her views on donations, hospitality and realisation. Some of them include Sweet Hospitality, Wise and Otherwise etc. She also focuses on social works and her husband Narayana Murthy's achievements.

In 2006, she was awarded the Padma Shri, a civilian award from the Government of India and received an honorary doctorate from Sathyabama University.