Inauguration of Rajeev Motwani Building at IITK and Launch of Two Venture Funds

A gem in the crown of IIT Kanpur, a marvel in the field of Computer Science, such was Late Mr. Rajeev Motwani!

Celebration of the 49th Birth Anniversary of Late Rajeev Motwani at IITK

• Mrs Asha Jadeja Motwani, wife of Rajeev Motwani and their daughters have donated $1.5 million on his 49th anniversary towards the creation of the lavish Rajeev Motwani Building at IIT Kanpur, which will house the most of the CSE Department at IITK and become a centre for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.
• There was also a workshop organized in the name of ‘Directions in Computer Science’, on December 19, 2014 in his honour where several eminent speakers and his well-known former students were invited to inspire the IITK junta.
• Mrs Asha also launched two venture funds:

ü The Rajeev Motwani Impact Fund — to support ground breaking ideas and technologies that are designed specifically for the bottom half of the economic pyramid, dealing with poverty alleviation, non-formal learning/education/tech for the poor, mobile health support.

ü The Rajeev Motwani Venture Fund- to encourage ground breaking disruptive technologies emerging from Indian academia to help the creation of the next generation mobile internet, the Internet of things, and the health net.

Rajeev’s Love for Start-ups

Rajeev had immense love to see academic ideas developing into business models to serve the world. He liked this sense of practicality everywhere he could find. Rajeev was active in the venture industry, and was known by his students and industry colleagues for his awesome ability to connect people: he was a catalyst in bringing teams together and getting companies started with a plethora of motivational and strategic guidance. Through Deutsche Bank, to which he had been an advisor, he became one of the first investors in PayPal, and Rajeev and Asha started a venture fund called Dot Edu Ventures in 2000. He was also a special advisor to Sequoia Capital, and was active in entrepreneurial student groups at Stanford, including Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students (BASES) and Stanford Student Enterprises. Motwani, along with Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Terry Wingorad published a paper in 1998 titled ‘What Can You Do With A Web In Your Pocket’ in which they announced they developed Google! Undoubtedly, Google is the most emerged start-up ever in the history of businesses!

Discovering Rajeev Motwani…

Rajeev was born to Hotchand Motwani, who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian army. Ever since childhood, he had an indomitable love for reading which could not be defeated even when he was supposed to shift to different towns many times due to his father’s job. His family used to walk miles to bring him books he could read and he always had stuff like 10 Great Scientists or Famous Mathematicians, etc. Probably that influenced the small child in a way that he always wanted to become one such personality. He graduated from the St. Columbia High School in 1978- an year before he completed his course! He ranked third in the north zone when he appeared JEE. Although he wanted to study mathematics, he joined the Computer Science Department at IIT Kanpur, in lieu of parental pressure. Little did he know what this twist in life has wrapped within itself? As soon as he started discovering how beautifully maths was entangled in everything he studied, he started delving into it more passionately. At the same time, his classmate Gautam Bhargava, at IIT Kanpur remembers him, “As a fun loving, rock-n-rollin’ party guy, a super-smart classmate. Hardly anyone in IIT-days called him Rajeev. To us he was, and still is, Mots, which was not short for Motwani, as you would expect, but rather short for Motwayne, after the younger brother of the movie star John Wayne!” Rajeev was a fan of Rock-n-Roll music and served as the ‘Audio Club Secretary’ at his IIT years. Give him any instrument, or even a glass and a fork, and he could entertain you with Chura Lia Hai…

He went to UC Berkley for his PhD and then later joined the Stanford University as Faculty in the Department of Computer Science.

Unfortunately, he died of drowning in his swimming pool at the age of 47 in 2009. He has to credit several awards like the Bergmann Memorial Award from the US-Israel Bi-National Science Foundation (1993), the Gödel Prize (2001), and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (2006) and many more.

Written by:

Priya Kumari