F. C. Kohli
FAQIR CHAND KOHLI (F C KOHLI)
Faqir Chand Kohli is universally regarded as the father of the Indian software industry. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, one of India's highest civilian honours, for his contributions to the Indian software industry. FCK, as he is popularly known, is a visionary who has been instrumental in two different engineering revolutions in India - Power Engineering and Software Engineering.
He is currently on the executive board of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the company that he joined in 1969. He has been the architect and the driving force of TCS’ phenomenal success. TCS is the first real Indian multinational, and led the way for every other software company to follow. TCS continues its leadership position and grows year on year in sales and profits without any surprises. Its blue-chip roster of Western clients makes it the envy of every other company, and it has a large domestic base too.
Dr. Kohli was born on February 28, 1924. After obtaining a B.A. and B.Sc. (Hons) at the Punjab University, Lahore (now in Pakistan), he joined to Queen's University where he obtained a B.Sc.
(Hons) in Electrical Engineering. He went on to complete a M.S. Electrical Engineering Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1951 he returned to India and started working for the Tata Electric Company, advancing until he became Director of TCS, India's premier Information Technology organization in 1974.
His current brainchild is to use computer aided sounds and images to impart basic literacy (see CBFL below), particularly to illiterate adults, in a matter of months. He also encourages an increase in hardware availability in India to support the Indian software industry and improved access to technology in rural areas.
Dr. Kohli received many national and international awards and honours, among them an honorary doctorate in Engineering from University of Waterloo.
PROFILE
Before returning to India, Kohli joined the Canadian General Electric Company as an engineer and subsequently worked with Ebasco International Corporation, New York. In India he took up the appointment of chief load dispatcher with Tata Electric Company. He advanced to the position of general superintendent in 1963 and deputy general manager in 1967. In 1966, he was also appointed as senior consultant to Tata Consulting Engineers and in 1969 was appointed as general manager of Tata Consultancy Services.
He was appointed as director in charge of Tata Consultancy in 1974 and deputy chairman in 1994. He is also a director on the board of Tata Sons Limited, Tata Industries Limited, Tata Unisys Limited, Tata Electric Company, Tata Honeywell Limited, Bradma of India Limited, Airline Financial Support Services India Private Limited, Tata Technologies Limited Singapore, Investor Services Of India Limited, Triveni Engineering Works, Abacus Distribution Systems and Airline Software Development Consultancy India Private Limited. He is also chairman of Tata Elxsi India Limited and WTI Advanced Technology Limited.
COMPUTER-BASED FUNCTIONAL LITERACY (CBFL)
Nearly 350 million Indians cannot read or write. The 'computer-based functional literacy' (CBFL) programme is a new-age solution to an age-old problem. This programme is the brainchild of FCK.
Kohli felt that pictures, faces, and words are all icons. And if we relate, words with sound patterns, then it would stick in the mind. He says, “Maybe someone in the world has tried this out, but not in this manner”.
Starting in early 2000, Kohli with three TCS engineers and a linguist -- prepared a vocabulary of 500 words. He also prepared the lessons in a month or so. Then they experimented, and the first lesson was given in a village called Medak, outside Hyderabad. After 8 to10 weeks (thrice a week for 1.5 hours each) people started reading the newspaper. As a next step a major experiment was carried out in Guntur, in the same state. This experiment was also a success. After that, his team experimented in other Indian Languages like Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, and Bengali and received
the same results. Kohli’s experiment was complete and after that his team told the government to take over.