Hot seat

A real go-getter

For Abbas Sadriwalla, Chairman and CEO of The Wireless Logix Group, the driving force in all his ventures is his passion for success, says Shivani Shinde

When asked to describe his early days in India, Abbas Sadriwalla, Chairman and CEO, The Wireless Logix Group, smilingly remarks, “I was born in a Muslim family with a Catholic education in a culturally-rich Indian society.” The eldest son of Abdeali Dawoodbhai Sadriwalla, founder of the Rubber Industries India, he left for the US to pursue his dream of flying rather than run the family’s rubber business. However, the entrepreneurial bug and a desire to win against all odds could not keep him away from the world of business.

“My father expired when I was just 16 and we (siblings) were too young to run the business. We sold our stake in the business to our father’s partner and I decided to move to the US,” says Sadriwalla.

While in the US, doing odd jobs, he also pursued his dream of flying. “As a student of Mithibai College, Andheri, I would always see aeroplanes taking off and landing since the runway was visible from our classroom and would always wonder what a cool job it would be to pilot a plane,” explains Sadriwalla. But, when he was working hard to get his private pilot’s license, he realised that the instructors where not student-friendly. He then decided that after his training he would opt for instructorship.

His quest for learning and excelling in a particular field and love for technology made him an entrepreneur and an inventor. “The reason for me to excel in the field that I choose is because I have a passion for success. But success is not a goal in itself, it has to be shared with others so that the benefit can reach others too,” remarks Sadriwalla.

Another truth that he learned from life was not to be bitter about anything. “When my father was running the business, we had a comfortable upper middleclass lifestyle. But, after his death, we were left with nothing and people shunned us. That experience has made me realise that I should reach out to people in anyway I could,” says Sadriwalla.

While creating a niche for himself in the US, he always kept a positive spirit. “I never allowed anyone to look down on me. And I always believe in the ‘can do’ spirit,” says Sadriwalla. But at the same time he feels that it must be his father’s spirit that has been behind his skills as a businessman.

Sadriwalla believes that a good entrepreneur is one who can combine consummate business process with the latest in technology. Thus, it was not surprising that in the early 80’s, he ventured into the field of technology. He met with an Indian engineer, who had ideas but lacked business acumen. Sadriwalla soon started the business of supplying special purpose computers to the aviation industry in 1990, and launched a company called Application Designed Systems (ADS). This was the start of his career as an entrepreneur.

In 2001, before Wi-Fi technology had found commercial acceptability, Sadriwalla bought into a cybercafe business and later into a software development company called Moonrise (renamed Kiosk Logix) with a view to developing a platform to monitor and manage

wireless networks. “I have a very short attention span and want to do many things. It’s my dream to see that this wireless technology brings education to unschooled children in India and other countries within its reach,” says Sadriwalla.

“India is a great country with a rich cultural background, however it is always projected abroad as a third world country with poverty and other problems. This is not the real picture. I feel that this technology is apt for the country as India does not have the physical infrastructure but has contributed sufficiently in connectivity through fibre optics.” He further explains, “High speed Internet access is just a small part of the Wi-Fi technology and it can be utilised in many more fields like providing for virtual classes in the remotest areas of India.” He points out that although he has received a lot of positive response from Indian companies on Wi-Fi, the tradition of pushing pen and paper still exists.

Married to Deborah Covas, an American, he has two sons of eight and nine years respectively. Sadriwalla has equally diverse hobbies. In music he loves classical Indian music and pop. In sports he enjoys both tennis and golf.

When asked whether the pilot has soared up to his destination, Sadriwalla says: “I would like to say that I am just at the foothills.”