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Dares to dream, strives to realise it

Staff Reporter

BHUBANESWAR: Suhas Gopinath, who has earned the distinction of being the world's youngest CEO, might be witnessing his dream, which many Indians don't even dare, coming true in September. The young manager could be operating from his Pakistan office at Lahore by then.

"Everything has been sorted out. I had a detail discussion with Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. He has promised to allot land near Lahore, where my company - Globals Inc. - will establish its branch in September this year," Mr. Suhas, who was here to address MBA students of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) on Friday, said.

A nightmare

Mr. Suhas shot to limelight when he became the youngest Indian to found a company at the age of 17. Now in his 20s, he seemed to have left behind the initial nightmare when his own web page called CoolHindustan.com was hacked and changed overnight into CoolPakistan.com.

"When the idea came to found a branch in Pakistan, objections came from Indian establishments. The Commerce Ministry objected that no Indian company could set up office on Pakistan soil. It is only when we impressed that we are not an Indian company and that we are based in California the technical hitch faded away," he said.The new establishment would function under the control of Pakistan's Industry Department and talent would be pooled from that country only, Mr. Suhas said. Addressing the international conference on `Entrepreneurship and innovation agenda for the 21st Century', he took the MBA students and faculty of the institution down the memory lane as to how as a school student he started surfing Internet at cyber centre and explored the world of network solutions from there.

Future plans

Operations of Globals Inc., registered in California's Silicon Valley, was spread over 11 countries with employee strength of 600. Mr. Suhas was denied permission to set up company in India as the government rejected his application saying he had not qualified the age criterion to do so.

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