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A born entrepreneur

Vinita Gupta writes how the hard work, abilities, belief in clear institutionalised values and the able leadership of Praveen Kankariya, CEO of Impetus Technologies, made his organisation a success story.

Coming from a close-knit business family, Praveen Kankariya chose not to join his family business but instead worked hard to be on his own. In the 90’s opening a business in Indore was not an easy job, one needed to create both its context and its opportunity and Kankariya went ahead and did just that. He got the opportunity when he once visited the Free Press Journal’s office in Indore. There he observed lots of teleprinter machines being used to send news to different locations. One teleprinter could send news to only one location and manually the person had to key in the news text, and if something went wrong, the reporter had to again redo the entire typing job.

“It was a nightmare with these machines as there used to be delay in sending and receiving news, something that the newspaper industry could just not afford. Also, the quality of the printing was awful. Therefore, I decided to replace it with a PC-based technology,” says Kankariya.

That was when he developed a software and hardware based product called NewsServer for the newspaper industry. Developing this product was not an easy job for Kankariya as he had no capital even to buy a computer; he took the computer on rent and even requested the owner to allow him to pay the entire rent after one year.

Kankariya says, “It took a lot of trial and error to develop the NewsServer. As it was one-man company, I myself went to around 40-50 newspaper companies and sold the product.” But his effort paid off; a total of close to 215 installations of the product were made in India.” There was no looking back from then on, since real revenues were generated with the help of which he could grow the size of the company.

Innovative entrepreneur

A software by which applications written on Nelco could be converted into Unix was developed by Kankariya next. When he visited a major company to discuss about his innovation, they did not take him seriously; they even laughed at him as they believed it was impossible for a person from a small town like Indore to develop this software. He adds, “This incident really hurt me but I decided to prove myself and I worked all day and night to further develop the software and then called the company. Later they bought it.”

He further adds, “Challenges never made me lose hope, instead they motivated me to achieve my goals. And I was lucky to have a supportive family, though at times they used to wonder what I am doing and whether I would be able to earn money or not.”

After successfully starting Impetus in India, Kankariya moved to the US to start a US front-end in 1996. He realised that to be successful, the company’s products needed to be seen and experienced by international markets. During this period, he also worked with Aggregate Com-puting for a short while and later joined 3M Corporate Research Labs as a Distrib-uted Systems Architect. He adds, “These two years (from 1994 to 1996) were a very hectic period for me as I was working in the US company and at the same time handling my own firm in India.”

Motivating factor

There have been numerous incidents which shaped Kankariya as a person and a professional since the time he started his own set-up. For instance; the people whom he met and worked with, the places he visited in the process of selling his products and solutions; the unexpected hardships that came along the way; and the unexpected corners that helped in tough situations—all have a significant role in making him who he is and what he believes in today.

After completing his schooling from Daly College, Indore, he did his graduation from St Xavier’s College in Mumbai. One of his maternal uncles who was a freedom fighter, motivated him to join the Indian Air Force and hence he opted to be a pilot, but unfortunately he was not able to pass the medical test at the time. Later, another maternal uncle, a computer scientist in the USA, and one of his closest family friends, inspired and encouraged him to take up Computer Science engineering.

Kankariya realised his true interest and took up pursuing Bachelors Degree in Computer Engineering from Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science (SGSITS), Indore. In order to further develop his skills in the field, he went in for a post-graduation and got himself a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the Michigan State University. Later, he joined the Biome-dical Imaging Research Progr-am as a Research Assistant and then moved to Scientific Computing Associates on Parallel and Distributed Compiler Runtimes, a spin-off from Yale University. Here he met Dr Gelernter who was a huge inspiration. He decided to realise his dreams by putting his entrepreneurial qualities to practice by setting up Impetus in India in 1991.

For Kankariya, the people whom he works with have always been the greatest motivating factor. He adds, “My wife, who also works at Impetus, has always been a great support. She helped me start the Impetus-US operations with no capital and supported the organisation with all non-technical issues in the early years.”

Supporting social causes

Kankariya like his family is interested in social activities. During the Kargil war, Impetus although a small company at the time, contributed close to six lakh rupees to help the families of soldiers. His company has raised funds for an NGO named Parivartan, providing education to small children. He believes, education will make all the difference and it is necessary to at least teach the children how to read and write. The company also keeps on funding various social camps such as those on eye check-up, blood donations, etc.

Besides these, Kankariya enjoys windsurfing, playing squash and watching movies. He is passionate about staying fit and likes to exercise regularly. He also plays basketball, and other games with his two sons, Karan and Aditya, aged 12 and 7 respectively.