Azim Premji Journey | Azim Premji Birthday Special: From making soap, shoes to software company Wipro, Azim Premji Birthday Special: From making soap, shoes to software company Wipro

Azim Hashim Premji is an Indian business tycoon, investor, engineer and philanthropist who was the chairman of software company Wipro Limited. At present, he remains a non-executive member and founder chairman of the Premji Board. Azim Premji’s birthday is today. He is 76 years old. He was born on 24 July 1945 in Bombay which is now called Mumbai. Wipro grew so much under his leadership that by the 21st century, Premji became a world leader in the software industry. He was counted among the richest people of the world.

Prem ji comes from a Muslim family. Even after the partition of the country in 1947, his family preferred to stay in India. When Premji was born, his father established Western Indian Vegetable Products Limited. Premji went to Stanford University to study engineering but his father died in 1966. He suspended studies midway and returned to India to handle his father’s business and started manufacturing consumer products. Started producing products like soap, shoes, lightbulb, hydraulic cylinder. He officially completed his degree from Stanford in 1999 through the distance education system.

Premji changed the company’s name to Wipro in 1977, and in 1979, when the Indian government asked IBM to leave the country, he started taking the company towards the computer business. Wipro entered into several successful international partnerships in the 1980s to manufacture computer hardware for sale in India.

Later came the era of software. Make your company more attractive. Hired the best people. As software developers, his company did a great job. The price of its product was kept very low compared to America. His company Wipro started exporting custom software to the US. Due to which his business started growing globally. The stock market In the late 1990s, Wipro’s share prices skyrocketed and Premji became one of the richest businessman in the world. The company retained this position.

Premji is not only famous in the world in terms of wealth but he is also a charity and a philanthropist. He founded the non-profit Azim Premji Foundation in 2001. He helped expand computer-aided education to over 16000 schools through the Foundation to Advance Elementary Education in rural areas across India.