MUMBAI: Amba Preetham Parigi, better known as ENIL’s managing director A P Parigi, and the father of Radio Mirchi, has been named the 2009 William F. Glaser ’53 Rensselaer Entrepreneur of the Year. The award will be conferred on Parigi by the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship in the Lally School of Management & Technology, Rensselaer’s business school, at a special ceremony in April 2009.
Established in 1990, the William F. Glaser ’53 Rensselaer Entrepreneur of the Year Award salutes successful entrepreneurs who, in turn, are important role models for the students of Rensselaer. Those honored with the Award bring the world of entrepreneurship into Rensselaer’s classrooms and laboratories, sharing their experience and wisdom with all students.
The Entrepreneur of the Year Award is a cornerstone of the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship’s extensive roster of programs. The Center was established by a Rensselaer alum to infuse and foster an “entrepreneurial mindset” across the Rensselaer campus.
The celebration will take place, appropriately, at Rensselaer’s state-of-the-art Experimental Media Performing Arts Center.
Parigi is credited with developing Radio Mirchi, India’s largest private radio network, into a power brand and one of the fastest growing media platforms, with a footprint of more than 200 million people across 32 cities, and broadcasting in 10 languages throughout India, within seven years of inception.
“He is a man of great humanity with profound commitment to “giving back.” As a citizen of the world, Preetham Parigi serves as a fitting example of the compassionate entrepreneur “states David Gautschi, dean of the Lally School of Management & Technology.
“Parigi recognized a huge need in India that radio could fill, and had a clear vision as to how radio could deliver value to a population ready to receive it. More important, he figured out how to make it sustainable. His success in engineering Radio Mirchi’s meteoric rise is all the more impressive given the extensive state restrictions and steep licensing requirements often associated with the industry,” says an official release.
Parigi joins such illustrious past recipients as: Warren Bruggeman ’46, former vice president and general manager of GE’s Nuclear Business Operations; Fred Smith, chairman, president, and CEO of FedEx Corporation; James Crowe, CEO of Level 3 Communications; Paul Severino, founder and chairman of Bay Networks; and Tom Le Fevre, co-founder ofIntuit.
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the nation’s oldest technological university. The university offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in engineering, the sciences, information technology, architecture, management, and the humanities and social sciences.