User:Guglani/sandbox

Sikhism spread widely in Panama immediately When Panama Canal was started in 1890 by American company. Panama got separated from Spain in 1821 and joined with Columbia, with which it remained till 1903.Construction of rail-road link between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was started in 1850. With the boom of labour opportunities, large no. of immigrants saw  Panama as a place for fortune. Sikhs came first as construction workers for trans continental rail road link.During 1864 ,Among the population of New Granda for which Panama City was part there of then, of 27.47 lac, 1.65 lacs were Indians including large no. of Punjabi and Sikh population. Many sikhs left Isthmus after completion of rail link but a large no. remained and got settled there.. Then when work on Panama Canal was started in 1890, they worked for digging canal as manual labourers, as very few machinery was available by that time.That was period when steam engine was just started.Punjabi and specially among them sikh labourers worked under odd conditions meeting challenges of yellow fever etc.Panama canal was competed in 1913 -14.By that time sikhs had maintained a weekly congregation , reciting Gurbani path ,in houses by rotation .Punjabi early settlers who came to Panama started working in jobs like watchmen or sold daily use articles as petty businessmen, till they were absorbed in Panama Canal construction work by American company.Many of those earned enough money by dint of hard work working in elongated hours to set up their own business or became land owners and did farming in fields and one among them Rattan singh built his financial company, and became founding father of Gurdwara Guru Nanak Parkash along with another Parkash Singh and many others which is established since 1986 Guru Nanak Birthday.

Not only that, one such weekly congregation resulted in forming Panamian medical and management corporation of higher education ( PMMC) which set forth best Medical degree programme in Panama.

Suneet Singh Tuli is founder of DataWind Company. He was born in 1968 to Lakhvir Singh, the head of an entrepreneur, Sikh family. He graduated from Toronto University in 1989 in Applied Sciences in Engineering.While being student he started working In his brother Raja Tuli's entrepreneurial firm, Widekom. He started work with the objective of developing sales of large size fax machines. He got large size fax machines recorded in Guinness book of world records. By getting boosting sale of 600 machInes in six months at Can $20000 ; Tuli brothers turned into millionaires.

In his second innovative venture, he started creating battery operated handheld printers and hand held scanners under the name of the DocuPort Company. These two companies were among first formed by people of Indian origin. in making public offerings on NASDAQ Most recently, Datawind's Aakash/Ubislate tablets have attracted worldwide attention due to its affordable price to weaker sections of world's population for empowering them with computational and internet access.

Awards & Recognitions

 * 1) Suneet Singh Tuli has been recognised by Forbes Magazine in its 2012 Impact 15 list as a Class Room Revolutionary
 * 2) Ban ki  Moon Secretary General of United Nations, while launching his product Aakash 2 tablet spoke about it being great enabler to transform people's lives,in educating and empowering poor  with internet and computing access.
 * 3) His company DataWind has been recognised as UK's most innovative mobile company for 2012 by U.K. Trade & Investment and also received Technology achievement award by Indo-Canadian chamber of commerce.
 * 4) MIT Technology review Magazine listed Datawind among first 50 of most innovative companies.
 * 5) Chief Khalsa Dewan honoured him on 65th and 66th World sikh educational conference in 2014 and 2016 consecutively and in 2012 he has been recognised as Enterpreuner of the Year at World Sikh awards.