VIJAY BHASKAR REDDY DINNEPU 36
PALLI, KARNATAKA CEO, Vinfinet Technologies
WITH ONE HAND typing furiously on a BlackBerry, another clicking away on an iMac, Vijay Bhaskar Reddy Dinnepu, 36, CEO of Vinfinet Technologies ( VT), a Bangalore- based IT firm, takes to technology like fish to water. One can scarcely believe the winner of 2011 Samsung Innovation Award never saw electricity till the age of 12. “I was born and raised in Palli, a small village in Kadapa district, Andhra Pradesh, in a family of poor farmers. Being deprived of technology in my childhood made me hungry for more of it,” he says.
Dinnepu completed a BTech in Chemical Engineering from Sri Venkateswara University in 1997 and MTech in Computer Science from IIT- Madras in 1999. He went on to work at firms such as LightSand Communications, Wipro, LVL7 Systems, Intel and Cisco. But a void remained. “I lived in the US for almost two years and could have settled there. But I had a conscience- call— that I should use my success to help others,” he says. He returned to Bangalore in 2003, and realised he could give back most by extending to his community the benefits of technology. His mind made up, he left Cisco in August 2010 to set up VT, which builds cost- effective IT solutions for agriculture. Its first product, Kisan Raja, was launched in early 2011. “It’s a GSMbased software that makes a cellphone work as an irrigation pump switch,” says Dinnepu. At Rs 5,000 per unit, it’s already being used by over 500 farmers in the state.
“VIJAY IS ONE OFTHE FEWWHO LEVERAGE THEIR TECHNIC ALABILITIES TO SOLVE SOCIETAL PROBLEMS. HE’S ALEADER WITH ACLEAR VISION.”
Satya Dillikar, Cisco Systems