When an 11-year old asked Azim Premji what made him happy

The Wipro chairman has donated half his wealth to philanthropy

Wipro chairman Azim Premji has called on employees to stick to the company’s core values and finding common ground to deal with the business challenges ahead.

The company’s success, he said, enabled the making of a difference to some of the most disadvantaged people. “This is because almost 40 per cent of Wipro is owned by a philanthropic trust, completely focused on trying to contribute to developing a better world, including helping children like the girl I met in Sirohi,” Premji, 71, wrote in his new-year letter.

At the helm of Wipro for a little over five decades, he has donated half his wealth to philanthropy, working with several state governments to improve the quality of education.  Premji University also trains teachers and scholars who look at social work as a career and to focus on improving education and governance.

The Wipro chairman recollected his experience with children in Rajasthan in the letter, saying an 11-year-old girl asked him: “What was it that I (Premji) have done that makes me feel really happy and fulfilled?” 

“It is not as though this question has not been asked of me before. But, that moment and the question was suffused with the child’s genuine curiosity and pure heart, and so became a moment of great clarity and insight for me. The greatest fulfilment is in knowing that the work we are doing at the Foundation has some role in shaping confident, thinking, caring and ethical human beings like her,” he wrote.

Premji highlighted concerns such as political shifts globally, an unfolding environmental crisis and forces that want to shape the world into a place of exclusion, conflict and suspicion, that cannot be ignored.

“Once we start addressing these issues head-on, rather than ignoring them, I am confident we will continue to make progress. It’s not that only people in public life can play a part. Each of us in our own roles can make a difference, and we as a company can make a substantial difference,” went his letter.