Gopa in 2006 |
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Gopakumar Kadinjipalli Periyadan (Gopa Periyadan) |
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| Born |
6th May 1965 (age 45) Kannur, Kerala, India |
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| Years active | 1986 – Present |
| Spouse | Radhika Gopakumar (1992 - Present) |
Gopa Periyadan (born Gopakumar Kadinjipalli Periyadan on 6 May 1965) is an engineer turned successful entrepreneur and business leader in Silicon Valley living in California. Gopa Periyadan was one of co-founders of GDA Technologies Inc,[1]one of the pioneering companies in Electronic Design Services(EDS) companies which was subsequently acquired by L & T Infotech Ltd[2] in March 2007. GDA is listed as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in USA by Inc Magazine its annual INC500 list in 2002 with a ranking of 283. Gopa is also a contributing author of several articles on technology trends, business analysis and current affairs.
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Gopa Periyadan was born in Vellur, Payyanur in Kannur district on 6 May 1965 to his parents P Ramachandran Adiyodi and Radha Periyadan and has attended elementary schooling in Vellur Upper Primary School Vellur (1977) and high schooling at Tagore Vidya Nikethan, Taliparamba in Kannur (1980). Completed pre-degree course work in Payyanur College, Payyanur, Kannur (1982) where he secured 4th rank in Calicut University. Gopa went on to complete his under graduate degree in Electrical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Surathkal[3](1986). He is currently in the 2011 graduating class of Global Executive MBA at Duke University, Fuqua School of Business, USA.
Gopa entered his career as an R&D hardware design engineer with HCL_Technologies. in Chennai (1986–1990) and worked on several computing I/O systems on mini-computers prior to globalization and liberization of Indian economy and relatively easier import of technology into India. During 1986 to 1999, held diverse management positions in corporations such as HCL India, HCL America, VeriFone, and Opti Inc. His knowledge lies in the areas of ASIC, System Product Offerings in Computing, Communication, and the Transaction processing industries.
During his tenure with Opti Inc, in Milpitas, California, he hit up on the possibilities of outsources electronic product development along with co-founders A G Karunakaran, Prakash Bare and Ravi Thummarukudy and went to create GDA Technologies Inc., one of the pioneering companies in Electronic Design Services (EDS) space. Founders led the company and grew it stand-a-lone with over 400 engineers over 10-years and the company was acquired by L & T Infotech Ltd during March 2007. At GDA, Gopa was Vice President and General Manager of System and Software Design Services. Currently responsible for the Business Development in North America, part of the Product Engineering Business Unit executive team at L&T Infotech, a premier Mumbai based product engineering and IT company with over 15,000 employees. As an entrepreneur with a strong technical background, Gopa's expertise is in system architecture, ASIC definition, logic design, hardware design and engineering management. His strengths include a deep management expertise on medium to large sized engineering, validation, and verification groups. He was an early adopter who had specialized in distributed development centers who can tap into geographic specific talent for high performing development teams.
Gopa is also a writer and a keen observer of technical and market trends. He has written a number of articles and has spoken in many forums including at Fokana 2000 at San Francisco and being a panelist in Vision 2047 conference in Fremont California during December 2009. During UPA-I Indian government term (2004–2009), Gopa Periyadan had written a weekly column SilconView in Politicsparty.com.[4] He was also a guest columnist in India Tribune (Chicago) for a few issues. In 1992, he married Radhika Gopakumar and currently lives in San Jose, California.
Along with his friend and business partner Prakash Bare, Gopa is also a co-producer of an upcoming Malayalam biopic film written and directed by P. Balachandran, Ivan Megharoopan.[6] The film is based on the life of Malayalam poet P. Kunhiraman Nair and is particularly based on his autobiography, Kaviyude Kalpadukal.