Driven, inspirational and encouraging are words that represent entrepreneur and philanthropist Naveen Jain. Rising from humble origins, he has amassed immense wealth through technology and innovation.
Being most relaxed in an environment that allows him to use his imagination and go beyond the limits that society places on our dreams; Naveen Jain is a true innovator.
It is immediately apparent after starting a conversation with Jain that he is highly intelligent, yet his geek like personality is charming with the power to attract and hold your interest. In order to dissect how one man with so many ideas became the world leader in new technology, you must delve into his childhood.
Born in Uttar Pradesh, India and surrounded by poverty, his father was a civil engineer with the Indian government but refused to accept bribes, therefore the family was forced to relocate every 6 months to escape the corrupt government. Through it all, Jain never lost sight of his passion for education and innovation.
As a youth, Jain attended a school that had no tables or chairs which required him to sit on the floor to do all of his work. This did not deter the young Naveen Jain from maintaining his focus on something bigger than his environment.
While the family continued to survive on the meager salary of his father, Jain began to drown himself in education. He graduated with an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee and relocated to Jamshedpur, where he received an MBA from XLRI School of Business and Human Resources.
In 1983, he was accepted into a business exchange program and with less than $100 and unable to speak the English language, Jain relocated to the U.S.
After bouncing around from many start-up companies he soon landed at Microsoft as a Program Manager. It is during this time that Jain began to build the foundation for his first startup – InfoSpace.
So began the birth of an innovative genius, Naveen Jain.
Visionary
Our ideas may either work brilliantly or fail miserably, but they belong to us. Naveen Jain envisions a world where we can use science, technology and innovation to tackle global challenges like health, education, poverty, agriculture and energy. Through his vast companies (past and present), Jain and his brilliance are on the right track to solve our world’s biggest challenges.
Imagination and wisdom are key elements that allow Jain to think in a space of what the future could or will look like. Did he give us a prescient warning when he founded InfoSpace? Jain predicted the future with smartphones before they were ever imagined by Steve Jobs in his Washington Post interview in 2000 “Cellular phones are likely to be the device for people to get information, conduct commerce and manage their lives. Most people can’t imagine the new versions of cellular phones and services that allow them to get access to their calendar, address book, email, stock quotes etc. They will be able to conduct commerce directly from these devices.”
Read the entire article here: Washington Post
Naveen Jain
Founder Moon Express, Viome. BlueDot, Intelius & Infospace
Board of Directors: Singularity University, Xprize
By | Tori Tolbert
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