Meet the architect of the nations Aadhar Card who is also a billionaire

This tech-savvy billionaire is encouraging budding entrepreneurs with his tech venture capital Fundamentum.

The tech guru, Nandan Nilekani who is now the non-executive chairman of Infosys, has a 0.96% shareholding in the company (4,07,83,162 shares) and has a net worth of USD 3.6billion ( Rs 26882 crore). 

The man behind the mammoth Aadhar drive was most recently the Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in the rank of a Cabinet Minister.  

Nilekani co-founded a not-for-profit organization EkStep, which creates a learner-centric, technology-based platform to improve basic literacy and numeracy for millions of children.  

He has numerous feathers in his cap one of which is when Fortune magazine conferred him with “Asia’s Businessman of the Year 2003”. For innovative services in economy, economic sciences and politics he received the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter prize in 2005. 

In 2006, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. In 2017 he was awarded the 22nd Nikkei Asia Prize for Economic and Business Innovation. 

As an investor now, Nandan continues to contribute to the future of India. He is astonished by how Indian entrepreneurs identify original Indian problems and then solve these with the application of technology. He co-founded the Fundamentum, a USD 100 million venture capital fund aimed at technology companies. 

ShopX, RailYatri (co-investment with Helion), angel investment platform LetsVenture, Sedemac (an innovative leader in automotive electronics) and Power2SME (a B2B marketplace) are few of the startups in which Nandan has personal investments. 

The man who drove the tech revolution in India is now on a mission to improve the digital hygiene of the people. Nilekani's latest book is The Art of Bitfulness – Keeping Calm in the Digital World. “The book is not anti-tech but pro-you" reads the back cover of the book.