Sam Pitroda

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda (born 16 November 1942), also known as Sam Pitroda, is an Indian telecommunication engineer, and entrepreneur. He was the chairman of Indian Overseas Congress. He was born in Titlagarh in the eastern Indian state of Odisha to a Gujarati family. He was also an advisor to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and for the United Nations.

Early life and career
Pitroda was born in Titlagarh, Odisha, India to Gujarati parents.

In 1966 he went to work for GTE in Chicago. He is regarded as a pioneer of hand-held computing when he invented the electronic diary in 1975.

Return to India and later career
On a trip back to India in 1981, Pitroda was frustrated by how hard it was to call his family back in Chicago, and decided he could help modernize India's telecommunications system. In 1984, Pitroda was invited to return to India by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. On his return, he started the Center for Development of Telematics C-DOT, an autonomous telecom R&D organization. He had previously become a naturalized US citizen but renounced his US citizenship to take Indian citizenship again to work in the Indian Government.

In the 1990s Pitroda returned to Chicago to resume his business interests. In May 1995, he became the first chairman of WorldTel initiative of the International Telecommunication Union.

In 1993, Pitroda helped establish (with Darshan Shankar) the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition and The University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology near Bangalore in India. The foundation promotes Ayurveda, India's traditional medicinal knowledge.

In October 2009, Pitroda was appointed as advisor to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations with the rank of Cabinet Minister.

Pitroda founded the National Innovation Council in 2010. In August 2010, Pitroda was appointed Chairman of the National Innovation Council.

In 1992, his biography Sam Pitroda: A Biography was published.

He has been living in Chicago, Illinois since 1964 with his wife but travels to India every two months.

Controversies
During the 2024 Indian general election, Pitroda made remarks in respect of inheritance tax where he allegedly emphasised the need for a policy of wealth redistribution in India and provided an example of inheritance tax in the United States, stating that "If one has 100 million USD worth of wealth and when he dies he can only transfer probably 45 per cent to his children, 55 per cent is grabbed by the government. That's an interesting law." Congress Member of Parliament Jairam Ramesh distanced itself from Pitroda's remarks and said that they did not reflect the Congress party's position. In the lead-up to the same election, Pitroda also made headlines over his remarks in an interview to The Statesman where he said "We could hold together a country as diverse as India, where people on East look like Chinese, people on West look like Arab, people on North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africa (sic)".

Pitroda had earlier created controversy over his comments on the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots and 2019 Pulwama attack during the 2019 Indian general election. Soon after making his racial analogy comments, Jairam Ramesh announced that Pitroda had resigned as chairman of Indian Overseas Congress.

Awards

 * Dataquest gave Pitroda a lifetime achievement award in 2002.
 * In 2008, Pitroda was elected as a world prominent leader by the World Network of Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs.
 * In May 2010, the University of Illinois at Chicago college of medicine presented him an honorary degree.
 * The Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 2009 for his contribution to science and engineering.
 * He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in December 2016 for his contributions in the field of telecommunications technology & innovation by the American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI)