Mumbai (in India)-based banker Uday Kotak is now eyeing a role for himself in the education sector with plans to set up a foundation for promoting education for under-privileged children.
Kotak's initiative will be spearheaded by his aide Shivaji Dam, who was instrumental for setting up the group's life insurance arm, and is, currently, a member on the board of Kotak Mahindra Bank. Talks are on with some NGOs for possible partnerships. While the size of the corpus is not known, it is believed to be over Rs 100 million. Efforts are on to provide language training (notably in spoken English) to help under-privileged children so that they could be employed in sectors like ITeS.
Kotak, an alumnus of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Sciences, is best known for his involvement in financial services sector having set up Kotak Mahindra Finance in 1986. This foray into the bill discounting business was followed by entry into several other segments like investment banking and securities trading.
Microsoft boss Bill Gates has a foundation which funds AIDS/HIV prevention, while back home the Azim Premji Foundation (APF) is in the education sector. Incidentally, Kotak's decision to bring on Dam is akin to the APF where Dileep Ranjekar, a career Wiproite plays a key role in the running of the foundation.
