NRI Gururaj Deshpande, Karnataka IT Engineer, venture capitalist

In March 2000 net worth: $13 billion-- Current net worth: $700 million

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NRI entrepreneur & philanthropist Gururaj Deshpande ("Desh"), who was born in Karnataka, son of a labor commissioner with the Indian government landed in Cnada in 1980.

Now Gururaj Deshpande is the Chairman of A123Systems, Sycamore Networks, Tejas Networks, HiveFire, Sandstone Capital, Sparta Group and sits on the Board of Airvana.

• In 1998, he started Sycamore Networks,went public in October 1999, and raised a market cap of $18 billion. He owned 21% shares and become one of the wealthiest self-made businessmen in the world. His net worth to a peak of $13 billion, making him the wealthiest Indian on earth. Sycamore’s share price has since plummeted from a high of about $200 to less than $5. .In May 2001, Sycamore's stock had fallen more than 90% from its peak. telecom network operators shifted to different technologies. Sycamore stuck with its initial product line, as new rivals like China's Huawei Technologies Co. entered the field. Dot-coms started failing and growth forecasts for Internet traffic were overstated, and there were too many companies in new network equipment.
• In 1990, Deshpande co-founded Cascade Communications and He sold Cascade to Ascend Communications for $3.7 billion in 1997
• In 1984, he moved to USA and he co-founded Coral Networks, a router developer. He left the company prior to its sale in 1993 to SynOptics he sold the company for $15 million.
• Before 1984, Deshpande started to work with Codex Corporation, a Motorola subsidiary located in Ontario, Canada which manufactured modems,

In 2010, Deshpande was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Co-Chairmanship of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

• -Gururaj Deshpandewith his wife Jaishree, donated $20 million to launch the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation (DCTI) at MIT
• -In 2011, the Deshpande Foundation gave $2.5 million to the University of New Brunswick to launch the Pond-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (PDC).
• -In December 2010, the Deshpandes gave a $5 million pilot grant to startup the Merrimack Valley Sandbox in Lowell and Lawrence.
• -Deshpande is also the Chairman of Akshaya Patra USA

• In Canada, he got his MS Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick and Ph.D in Data Communications from Queen's University in Ontario.