|
Archive for the ‘Business Professionals’ Category
Posted On April 15th, 2024 By Celebrity Biographies
Early Life Of Srikanth Bolla
Born on July 7, 1991, in the quaint village of Seetharamapuram, Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. The story of Srikanth Bolla is one of resilience and determination from the very start. Despite facing the challenge of being born blind, Srikanth’s parents, farmers by profession, embraced his disability with unconditional love and support.
Educational Pursuits: Breaking Barriers
When Srikanth Bolla dreamt of studying science and math in school, he hit a roadblock. His school, citing state laws, denied him access to these subjects, fearing blind students like Srikanth would struggle with visual aspects like diagrams and graphs. Instead, they urged him to focus on arts, languages, literature, and social sciences. Undeterred by this setback, Srikanth, with the help of a teacher, decided to challenge this unfair policy. He took the school board to court and won. The court ruled that blind students should be allowed to study science and math in their final years at all state board schools in Andhra Pradesh, marking a victory for inclusive education.
Despite this win, Srikanth’s journey was fraught with challenges. Despite consistently scoring an impressive 98% in exams, he faced resistance when he applied to India’s prestigious engineering colleges, the IITs. Top coaching institutes, crucial for entrance exam preparation, refused to help him, citing concerns about the tough curriculum and his blindness. Undaunted, Srikanth remained determined. He boldly stated that if the IITs didn’t accept him, he didn’t want them either, showing his unwavering resolve and commitment to his principles.
Srikanth then set his sights on universities in the United States. His efforts paid off as he received offers from five prestigious institutions. Ultimately, he chose to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
At MIT, Srikanth pursued a degree in computer science. Despite the competitive academic environment and the challenges of being visually impaired, Srikanth excelled. He not only performed exceptionally well in his studies but also engaged in extracurricular activities, showcasing his diverse talents and unwavering passion for learning.
Upon graduation, Srikanth achieved another milestone by becoming the first visually impaired student in MIT’s history to secure employment at a leading technology company. This remarkable feat highlighted his exceptional abilities and determination to overcome obstacles.
In a remarkable display of resilience, Srikanth responded to the disregard he faced during physical education classes in school by representing India in cricket and achieving national-level recognition for his chess skills. His journey is a testament to his perseverance, resilience, and unwavering determination to break barriers and achieve success on his terms.
Igniting Change: The Rise of Srikanth Bolla
As Srikanth Bolla embarked on his journey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his entrepreneurial spirit took flight. Motivated by his own experiences as a person with disabilities and fueled by a desire to make a positive impact on society, he envisioned a venture that would not only offer innovative solutions but also uplift marginalized communities. Thus, the seeds of Bollant Industries were sown, a social enterprise aimed at revolutionizing the packaging industry while providing meaningful employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
Bollant Industries: Srikanth Bolla Industry
In 2012, Srikanth Bolla founded Bollant Industries, a trailblazing company specializing in eco-friendly disposable consumer packaging solutions. With a focus on addressing environmental concerns and promoting social inclusion, Bollant Industries stands at the forefront of innovation. By actively recruiting and training individuals with disabilities, the company fosters a culture of empowerment and equality. Srikanth’s entrepreneurial journey epitomizes his commitment to driving positive change through business innovation, turning obstacles into opportunities for growth and empowerment.
Making an Impact: Recognition and Growth
Under Srikanth’s guidance, Bollant Industries has flourished into a thriving social enterprise, transforming the lives of countless individuals with disabilities. His pioneering efforts have garnered widespread acclaim, earning accolades such as the esteemed National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. Srikanth’s unwavering dedication to inclusion and equality has set a new standard for social entrepreneurship, inspiring others to follow in his footsteps.
Srikanth Bolla Vision: Catalyst for Change
At the heart of Srikanth Bolla’s endeavors lies a profound philosophy: disability should never limit one’s potential. He envisions a world where individuals with disabilities are not only embraced but also empowered to thrive and contribute meaningfully to society. Srikanth’s determination, coupled with his empathy and compassion, propels his mission to dismantle barriers and create opportunities for marginalized communities.
Legacy of Inspiration: Shaping the Future
Srikanth Bolla’s legacy is one of resilience, innovation, and social impact. Through his visionary leadership at Bollant Industries, he has not only revolutionized an industry but also uplifted countless lives. His tireless advocacy for equality and inclusion serves as a beacon of hope for individuals worldwide, challenging societal norms and fostering a culture of acceptance and empowerment. Srikanth’s legacy will continue to inspire generations, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of social entrepreneurship and advocacy.
Did You Know?
On August 28, 2006, the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam met with a group of tribal students from the “Lead India 2020 Movement”. During the interaction, the President posed a question to the students, asking them about their aspirations. Among the responses, one visually challenged boy, was Srikant Bolla, studying in the ninth grade, who stood up and confidently declared, “I will become the first visually challenged President of India. Despite initial laughter from his classmates, the President recognized his vision and congratulated the young lad for his ambition.
GE was the technology company that hired Srikant from MIT. He politely declined though, saying that if he fails to become the President of India, then he would gladly come back and work for them.
Bollant Industries and Srikant Bolla were backed by the two great visionaries of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and the top industrialist Mr. Ratan Tata.
In 2022, the announcement of a biopic titled “Srikanth” was made, featuring Rajkummar Rao in the lead role as Srikanth Bolla. Subsequently, the trailer for the film was released on April 9, 2024.
Posted On January 26th, 2023 By Celebrity Biographies
Introduction
Gabrielle Bonheur Coco Chanel (1883-1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. She was the founder of the Chanel fashion brand, which is known for its iconic designs and luxury goods, including the “little black dress” and the Chanel suit. Throughout her life, Chanel was a trailblazer in the fashion industry and a symbol of independence for women.
Early Life of Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in Saumur, France on August 19, 1883. Her mother, Jeanne Devolle, worked as a laundrywoman and her father, Albert Chanel, was a street vendor. Her parents were not married and they sent her to an orphanage with her two sisters when she was twelve years old. She spent her teenage years in an Ursuline convent school in Moulins, France, where she learned to sew.
Career Beginnings
After leaving the convent school, Chanel moved to Moulins to work as a seamstress. She also worked as a café singer, where she earned the nickname “Coco.” In 1913, she opened a shop in Paris called Chanel Modes, which sold hats and other accessories. The shop was successful and helped her launch her first clothing line in 1914. Her simple, elegant designs, which featured jersey fabric and clean lines, were a departure from the ornate, heavily-decorated styles that were popular at the time.
Rise to Fame
Chanel’s fashion career took off in the 1920s. She opened a boutique called Chanel Modes at 31 rue Cambon in Paris, which featured her own designs. She also introduced the famous Chanel suit, which featured a collarless jacket and a skirt that fell just above the knee. The suit was a hit with wealthy, modern women and helped establish Chanel as a leading fashion designer.
In addition to her fashion designs, Chanel was also known for her jewelry and perfume. Her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, was launched in 1920 and is still one of the world’s most popular perfumes today. She also designed and sold costume jewelry, which was a new concept at the time.
Coco Chanel as a Businesswoman
Chanel was a savvy businesswoman and understood the importance of branding and marketing. She used her image and personal style to promote her designs and her brand. She was also one of the first fashion designers to create a fashion label and use her name as a brand.
During World War II, Chanel closed her shop and moved to the Ritz Hotel in Paris. She lived there for the duration of the war and was friends with a number of German officers. After the war, she was arrested and charged with collaborating with the enemy but was released without being convicted.
After the war, Chanel retired from the fashion industry, but her brand and designs continued to be popular. In 1954, she returned to the fashion world and presented a new collection. However, her return was not successful and she retired again in 1955.
Death and Legacy Of Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel died in Paris on January 10, 1971. She is remembered as one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century. Her simple, elegant designs, and her use of jersey fabric, revolutionized women’s fashion. Her brand, Chanel, is still one of the most recognized and successful luxury brands in the world.
Conclusion
Coco Chanel was a revolutionary figure in the fashion industry whose influence continues to be felt today. She was a trailblazer for women’s independence and her designs, along with her business acumen, helped establish her as one of the most iconic designers of the 20th century. Her emphasis on simplicity and comfort in fashion, as well as her use of jersey fabric, was a departure from the ornate styles of the time and set a new standard for women’s clothing.
Chanel’s brand, which includes not just clothing and accessories but also jewelry and fragrance, has remained relevant and successful for over a century. Her iconic designs, such as the little black dress and the Chanel suit, continue to be popular today and are considered timeless classics.
In addition to her fashion design and business acumen, Chanel was also known for her strong, independent spirit and her refusal to conform to societal norms. She was a feminist icon and a symbol of female empowerment, paving the way for future generations of women in the fashion industry.
Chanel’s impact on the fashion industry and her lasting legacy as a designer and businesswoman have been recognized by many. In 2015, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City held an exhibition dedicated to her life and work, entitled “Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life.”
References
- “Coco Chanel.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, Link.
- “Coco Chanel.” The Museum at FIT, Link.
- “Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Link.
Note: This is a fictional biography, it’s not meant to be used for any official purpose.
Posted On March 1st, 2016 By Celebrity Biographies
 Walt Disney
Walt Disney was an American entrepreneur, motion picture and television producer, cartoonist, animator and a voice actor. His contributions to the entertainment industry, in the 20th century, is unparalleled. He is known throughout the world and is regarded as the cultural icon in the animation industry. He along with his brother co-founded the famous “The Walt Disney Company” and also created the “Disneyland”.
Walter Elias “Walt” Disney was born on December 5, 1901, at 2156 North Tripp Avenue in Hermosa section of Chicago, Illinois. He was born to Elias Charles Disney, who was Irish-Canadian, and Flora Call Disney, who was of German-English descent. Elias married Flora on January 1, 1888, in the place called Acron in Florida. It’s located roughly 40 miles from where Walt Disney World was later developed. Walter was one of five children. He had three brothers and a sister. He lived most of childhood in Marceline, Missouri. It was here that he developed an interest for drawings and paintings, mostly inspired by his neighbor’s horse called Rupert. Walter also developed an interest for trains soon after, as his uncle Mike Martin was an engineer with the railroad and his route included going through Marceline, where he would signal Walter and his brother, either by waving or by a long train whistle, followed by two short ones. Hearing the signal the two brothers would run to a high ground and watch the train go by.
Walt Disney and his younger sister Ruth joined the new Park School of Marceline in the year 1990. However, in the year 1911, the family had to move to Kansas City where Walt and sister Ruth joined the Benton Grammar School at 3004 Benton Boulevard. It was at this school that he met Walter Pfeiffer, who came from the family of theater experts. He introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville (which is a performance made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill, a popular genre from 1880 to 1930’s.) and to motion pictures. Soon Walter was spending a lot of time at Pfeiffer’s house and at Kansas City Art Institute. In July 1911, Walt’s father Elias bought a paper route for “The Kansas City Star”. Walt and his brother Roy took the responsibility of delivering the newspapers. The duo delivered the morning newspaper called the Kansas City Times to over 700 people and then delivered the evening edition to 600 people. Walt would wake up at 4:30 A.M. and would deliver the newspapers till the school bells rang. Then he would distribute the evening edition since 4 P.M. right up till supper. He used to get so exhausted that he often slept in his class and his grades dropped drastically. He continued delivering newspapers for nearly six years and then his family moved to Chicago in 1917. Here Walt attended the McKinley High School and took the night classes at Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He became a contributing cartoonist for his school paper, drawing patriotic subjects from World War I. When he was 16, he dropped school, in hopes of joining the army, but he was rejected on grounds of being underage. So Walt joined Red Cross instead, and soon he was sent to France where he drove an ambulance for a year. In 1919, Walt came back to Kansas in search of a job. But nobody hired him either as an ambulance driver or a cartoonist. His elder brother Roy, who was working at a local bank at that time, got him a temporary job at Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio. Here he met the cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks, and soon the idea of starting their own company came into being. They opened the company called “Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists” but it was short lived and soon Walt has to leave it, to temporarily work at Kansas City Film Ad Company, in order to earn some money. He started making cutout animation based commercials here and readily became interested in animation. He soon switched to cel animation from cutout animation as it proved to be more efficient for him and decided to open his own animation business from there.
Walt Disney recruited a co-worker from Film Ad Company, named Fred Harman, as his first employee. Together they created modernized fairy tale cartoons called Laugh-O-Grams. These cartoons became immensely popular because of which Walt was able to purchase his own studio which he named as Laugh-O-Grams. He hired few more artists and animators for the studio, including Fred Harman’s brother Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and his previous business partner and now a close friend Ubbe Iwerks. They did great initially, with their seven minutes fairy tale acts called Alice in Cartoonland, which consisted of both live performances and animation. However, the studio’s profits were not high enough to pay the high salaries of the staff, leading to unpaid debts and eventual bankruptcy.
Walt and his brother Roy moved to Hollywood, and two months later, they pooled in their money and started a studio. Virginia Davis, who was the star of the Disney’s live-action performances, also moved to Hollywood with her family on special request of Walt Disney. So did his old partner Ubbe Iwerks and family. Here the three began the Disney Brother’s Studio. Walt hired an ink-and-celluloid-paint artist named Lillian Bounds in the year 1925. They fell in love and got married in the same year.
Walt and Roy needed a new distributor for their series called Alice Comedies. So they contacted New York’s distributor Margaret Winkler, who was really keen in this distribution deal. The first episode of the series was called “Alice’s Day At Sea” and was delivered on 26th December 1923. The Disney brothers earned $1500 for it and soon the series Alice Comedies was a reasonable success. However, the idea of live performance and animation started losing popularity and the series ended in 1927. A year before that, Charles Mintz, who was the husband of Margaret Winkler and also the producer, ordered a new series to be produced through Universal Studios through Disney’s Studio. This led to the birth of “Oswald, The Lucky Rabbit”, which was an instant success. Its main character was drawn by Iwerks and the character became a popular figure. In February 1928, Walt Disney went to New York to meet the distributors, in order to negotiate higher fees for producing the Oswald series, but he got shocked to learn that Winkler and husband Mintz stole the rights to Oswald series along with most of Disney’s animators except Iwerks, who refused to switch allegiance.
Disney brothers and Iwerks didn’t lose hope and right away, they started creating a new character, based on a pet mouse that Walt adopted while working in Laugh-O-Grams studio in Kansas City. Walt and Roy, and their wives and Iwerks soon produced three new cartoons with it’s the main character called “Mickey Mouse“. All of Disney’s shorts were silent movies and the first short featuring Mickey Mouse was no different. It was called “Plane Crazy”, but Disney was unable to get any distributor for this short. So he produced another one called “The Gallopin’ Gaucho”, however that suffered the same fate as well. Not disheartened, Disney produced third short featuring Mickey, which was called “Steamboat Willie”. This time, however, it was not a silent movie. A businessman, Pat Powers saw the potential and agreed on taking the distribution. He also provided Disney with a Cinephone, which is a sound synchronization process. Soon his short Steamboat Willie became a big success.Disney applied the same tricks to his previous two Mickey’s shorts and those two shorts became a success as well. In the early 1930’s, Mickey Mouse overtook Felix, The Cat, as the most beloved cartoon character.
Walt Disney released a new musical shorts series in the year 1929, called the Silly Symphonies. It was entirely drawn and animated by Iwerks and the series became successful as well. At this time, however, Walt thought that he was not getting a good share of profits from Pat Powers, so in 1930, he signed a new deal with production house “Columbia Pictures”. By the year 1932, Mickey Mouse became a very popular character but Silly Symphonies started witnessing downfall in popularity. It was also the time when Mickey Mouse had a rival competition in Max Fleischer’s cartoon character Betty Boop which was being admired by theater audiences. In April 1931, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of Disney’s shorts but “United Artists” took in that job soon. In 1932, Herbert Kalmus completed his work on the first three-strip Technicolor movie camera. He got Disney interested in technicolor and soon Disney re-shot a black and white short of his in technicolor called “Flowers and Trees”. It became a super hit and went on to get it’s Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. Soon, all Silly Symphonies cartoons were in color. Walt struck a deal with Technicolor for five years that he would have the sole rights to use the three-strip Technicolor process. In 1933, Disney created his most successful cartoon short of all time, labeled “The Three Little Pigs”. It’s song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” went on to become the anthem during the Great Depression. The cartoon ran for months in the theaters and soon Disney realized that the reason behind such a big success was the strong, emotionally gripping storyline in the cartoon. So he opened a “story department” in his studio, separate from his animators, who focused on building and developing great stories for the shorts production.
In November 1932, Walt Disney was awarded a special award for the creation of Mickey Mouse. Soon, the series was switched to color and all the supporting characters in the series like Donald Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, Pluto came into existence. Donald Duck went on to become Disney’s second most popular and successful cartoon. On 21st December 1937, Disney released “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” which was premiered in Los Angeles and was the first full length animated movie in America, made in color with Disney’s quality expectations. It instantly became a huge success in the theaters earning over $8 million on its release. The movie earned Walt Disney a total of 8 Oscars and thus began what people called “The Golden Age of Animation” for the studio.
Walt Disney was able to open a new campus for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank on December 24, 1939. While the Feature Animation staff worked on full-length feature projects like Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Wind in the Willows, the short staff kept working on shorts for Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto series. Disney’s animator, Fred Moore had to redesign Mickey Mouse during this period, as Donald Duck overtook Mickey in popularity charts. In 1940, they released Pinocchio and Fantasia, but both the movies failed and were financial setbacks for the studio. They tried to bounce back with an inexpensive feature called Dumbo, but during this period, Disney’s staff went on strike resulting in a major setback for the company. During the World War II, they released Bambi, but it also failed to perform. However, Disney re-issued Snow White in 1944 which was successful and resulted in his seven-year re-release tradition. After the war, Disney studio was able to recover enough to launch their feature animated movies Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. At this time though, Disney Studios shorts were losing popularity as people had a new favorite cartoon character called Bugs Bunny. But at the same time, Donald Duck’s popularity also rose making it replace Mickey Mouse as Disney’s star cartoon character.
Walt Disney once again paid attention on full length animated features and release Cinderella in the year 1950. At the same time, the also released a live-action film called Treasure Island. This was followed by the seven year reissue of “Alice in Wonderland” in 1951, “Peter Pan” in the year 1953, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” in 1954, “Lady and the Tramp” in 1955, “Old Yeller” in 1957, “The Shaggy Dog” and “Sleeping Beauty” in 1959, “Pollyanna” “Swiss Family Robinson” in 1960, “The Absent-Minded Professor” “The Parent Trap”, “Babes in Toyland” “101 Dalmatians” in 1961 and Son of Flubber in 1963. “Mary Poppins” in 1964 was last major success that he produced himself.
Walt Disney used television media to great extent as well. His miniseries on Davy Crockett was a big hit. In 1955, when they started airing a new daily show called “The Mickey Mouse Club”, it was an instant hit with the children of all age. The show aired in various formats on TV until the late 90’s.
On a business trip to Chicago in the 40’s, Walt Disney got inspired for an amusement park. He began drawing sketches of his concepts and ideas. He envisioned this park to be a place where children could meet Disney’s employees. This concept later developed into a larger concept that would become Disneyland. Walt Disney spent 5 years into developing his amusement park. Disneyland finally opened on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, California and in his speech, Disney said “To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past … and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America … with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world”. He described the area of Fantasyland as “Fantasyland is dedicated to the young and the young in heart, to those who believe when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.”
Disneyland became a huge success. Children along with families would come, enjoy rides, explore the park and meet the Disney’s cartoon characters. The business boomed in a very short time as Disneyland became a tourist attraction site mesmerizing many from around the world. Disneyland spread its operations and new Disney World was opened up in Orlando, Florida. It was way bigger than Disneyland and again a success. Till date, Disneyland has branched out and opened it’s operations globally in major cities of Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo with Shanghai’s Disneyland to be launched in June 2016.
By the year 1960, Walt Disney and his empire was a major success. His company Walt Disney Productions was a household name and it became the major producer of family entertainment.
Walt Disney was a chain smoker throughout his adulthood, however, he made sure never to be seen smoking in front of children. He was working on his plans for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” (EPCOT, in short), which was to be built in heart of the Disney World in Orlando. It was then that he discovered that he had lung cancer. 10 days past his 65th birthday, on December 15, 1966, Walter Elias Disney, died of circulatory collapse which was caused by lung cancer. He was also working on “The Jungle Book” before his death.
After Walt Disney’s death, his elder brother Roy Disney came out of retirement and took control of Walt Disney Productions and The WED Enterprises. At the inauguration of Walt Disney World Resort in the year 1971, Roy Disney said in his speech “Walt Disney World is a tribute to the philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney…and to the talents, the dedication, and the loyalty of the entire Disney organization that made Walt Disney’s dream come true. May Walt Disney World bring Joy and Inspiration and New Knowledge to all who come to this happy place… the Magic Kingdom where the young at heart of all ages can laugh and play and learn—together.”
Walt Disney left behind a colossal legacy including numerous shorts and feature films, theme parks, an animation company, California Institute of Arts (CalArts) and not to forget the inspirations for millions of people to follow.
Posted On April 2nd, 2015 By Celebrity Biographies
 Larry Page
Larry Page, born as Lawrence Page is an American entrepreneur and a computer scientist. He along with his grad school friend, Sergey Brin, co-founded the Google Inc. in the year 1998. Google of course is the giant search engine which every internet user has heard of. Larry developed a ranking algorithm called PageRank which was used in the Google search results and consider to be one of the major ranking algorithm. Larry is currently the Chief Executive Office (CEO) of Google Inc. and also is the president of Google products and is responsible for Google day to day development and formulating product and services strategies. In a July 2014 issue of Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Larry Page was listed as the 17th richest man in the world with a net worth of $32.7 billion. He was also declared as the “Businessman of the year” in 2014 by Fortune Magazine. Larry Page is also a member of Board of Directors of the company, and has a keen interest in renewable energy and philanthropy. All his efforts has made Google as the most influential company of the digital era.
Early Life & Career
Lawrence Page was born to father Carl Vincent Page Sr. and mother Gloria. He was born on March 26, 1973, in East Lansing, Michingan, Unites States. Carl Page earned a Ph D. in computer science in the year 1965 and is considered as “pioneer of computer science and artificial intelligence”. He was a professor in Michigan State University while mother Gloria was an instructor in computer programming in the Lyman Briggs College in the same university.
With both parents as computer professionals, Larry Page had a keen interest in computers from the age of six. He used to play with the first generation personal computers, lying around in the home, left by his parents. With his elder brother’s help, Larry used to take apart the PC and other things in the home, just to see how it worked. His home was full of computer and science magazines, which increased his fascination for technology, even further. From the very early age, he knew, he wanted to invent things, making him very interested in business and technology. By the age of 12, he was sure of starting a company eventually, in the same field.
Larry studied in Okesmos Montessori School, Michigan from year 1975 and graduated in 1991 from East Lansing High School in Michigan. He pursued a Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering, with honors, from University of Michigan. He later then enrolled for Master of Science in computer engineering from the Stanford University.
It was during his PhD. in Stanford University that Page was in search of a dissertation theme and considered exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph. He completely focused on the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such backlinks as valuable information for that page. It was then when he met Sergey Brin, a fellow Stanford University student, who joined Page’s research in 1995 and initially nicknamed this research and search engine as “BackRub”. The search engine was operated on Stanford servers for many many months. The duo of Larry Page and Sergey Brin also published a research paper back then, called “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine”, which till date, is the most downloaded scientific paper of all time. To convert the backlink data gathered by BackRub’s web crawler into a measure of importance for a given web page, Brin and Page developed the ranking algorithm called the PageRank algorithm. They realized that it could be used to build a search engine far superior and advanced than those that existed back then. This new algorithm idea they had, relied on a new kind of parameters that analyzed the relevance of the backlinks that connected one Web page to another. Using their basic HTML programming skills, the duo Brin and Page, created a simple search page for it’s users. As their search engine grew popularity among Stanford users, they needed extra computer parts and servers to handle the necessary computing power to process the multiple queries. It was in 1996 that the initial version of Google (running still on Stanford servers) was made available to internet users.
The duo, called the search engine as “Google” which was derived from the mathematical term “Googol”, a term used for number 1 followed by 100 zeroes. It was to reflect their mission to organize the vast amount of data, their search engine was meant to explore on the web.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, now saw the prospect in this project and decided to incorporate a company. Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, wrote them a check of $100,00 to Google Inc., a company which was yet to come into existence. Raising a million dollar from family, friends and investors, Google Inc. was launched in September 1998. By the start of 2000, Google inc. office moved to the famous Mountain view office in heart of California’s silicon valley. Within months, Google had indexed more than one billion web pages on the web, making it the most comprehensive search engines of that time.
In 2001, Google Inc. hired Eric Schmidt as the CEO of the company while Larry page became the president of Google products and Sergey Brin became president of Google technology. Later in August 2004, Google Inc. held it’s first Intital Public Offering (IPO) which made both Larry Page and Sergey Brin, billionaires at the age of 30. In the same year, Google.org was found, which is the philanthropic wing of Google. They donate $100,000,000 each year, as on now, contributing towards challenging social issues and causes like global hunger and poverty.
In the year 2005, Larry Page led the acquisition of Android operating system for $50 million as his dreams was to enable every handheld computer users, so that they can access to Google search engine from anywhere. Larry page became passionate about the Android system and started to spend lot of time and effort into it. By 2010, Android became a market leader and one of the most popular operating system used on cell phones.
In April 2011, Larry Page officially became CEO of Google Inc. while Eric Schmidt stepped down to serve as the executive chairman of the company. As the new CEO of the company, his new goals were plain and simple. They were the development of greater autonomy for the executives overseeing the most important divisions, and higher levels of collaboration, communication and unity among the teams. He also declared a “zero tolerance for fighting” policy. By March 2013, at least 70 Google products and services were completely shutdown, while the remaining ones were unified on basis of appearance and nature. Larry started a project code-named “Kennedy” which was a project of “designing and developing a true UI framework that transforms Google’s application software into a beautiful, mature, accessible and consistent platform for its users.” All the remaining products were thus aligned with Larry Page’s aim of suite of products that can move fast. “Kennedy” project was a design revolution.
Larry Page has also ventured into computer hardware, with Google unveiling Chromebook laptop in May 2012. This laptop ran on Google’s own operating system called Chrome OS. He also is an investor with Tesla Motors. With a keen interest in renewable energy technology, Page promotes adoption of hybrid electric cars and other source of energy investments.
Awards and Achievements
in 1999, PC Magazine awarded Google, the Technical Excellence Award for innovation in web application development.
In the year 2002, Larry Page was named a “World Economic Forum Leader For Tomorrow” and jointly with Sergey Brin, was named by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Technological Review Publication as one of the top 100 innovators of the world, under the age of 35. The list then was called TR100 but the name has now been changed to TR35.
In 2003, Larry Page received a MBA from IE Business School, in an honorary capacity, “for embodying the entrepreneurial spirit and lending momentum to the creation of new businesses.”
In the year 2004, Larry Page and Sergey Brin received the prestigious Marconi’s Foundation Prize, which is given to honour significant contributions in science and technology. They were also elected Fellow of the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University.
Again in 2004, Larry Page was chosen as a trustee of X PRIZE board and he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
In 2005, Both. Brin and Page were elected as Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the year 2009, Larry Page received an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan, during a graduation commencement ceremony.
Personal Life
Larry Page married Lucinda Southworth on Necker Island in the year 2007. Southworth is a research scientist by profession. She is the sister of actress and model Carrie Southworth. Larry Page and Southworth have two children, born in the year 2009 and 2011. Larry’s brother Carl Page Jr. is also an internet entrepreneur.
ALTHOUGH larry Page applied for the PhD in Stanford University, but he never got to complete it because of his business ventures, followed by Google’s responsibilities.
In 2014, Page was declared as the most daring CEO and the Businessman of the year by the Fortune magazine.
As Google’s Chief Executive Officer, Larry Page plans to make Google “a big company that has the nimbleness and soul and passion of a start-up.”
Posted On December 15th, 2009 By Celebrity Biographies
 Bill Gates
The world famous entrepreneur Bill Gates was born as ‘William Henry Gates III’ in Seattle, Washington on October 28, 1955. Through amazing business strategies, technical innovations and aggressive competitive skills, he is accredited with building the world’s largest software company ‘Microsoft’. He also became the world’s richest man with his venture.
Early Life
He grew up in a middle-class family with two sisters. He was the middle one of the three children to his parents William H Gates and Mary Maxwell. His father was a lawyer, whereas his mother served as a teacher for a short time. His mother is now a prominent member in some of the important boards at Microsoft. He grew up in a family that encouraged competition and as a child, Bill usually excelled in the game of Monopoly. His family believed in charities and Bill would usually accompany his mother to various voluntary works in schools or community organisations.
Bill was an ardent reader as a child and spent hours with reference books such as ‘The Encyclopedia’. His behaviour became a huge concern to his parents at the age of 11 or 12. He used to be a very good student at school, however remained quite withdrawn at times. He started getting interested in computers at the age of 13 and read a lot of books related to technology. His parents encouraged community education and they enrolled him into ‘The Lakeside School’ in Seattle. He not only excelled in maths and science, but also topped with English and drama.
Introduction to Computers
A local computer company allotted some computer time for the students and the school eventually purchased the teletype terminal. Bill studied everything that a computer could do and he spent a lot of his time working on this terminal. He formulated the ‘tic-tac-toe’ program in the BASIC language of computers. At the Lakeside school, he befriended his senior Paul Allen since they had common interests in computers.
At the age of 15, in the year 1970, Bill Gates went into business with his friend Paul Allen and they developed a computer program called ‘Traf-o-Data’ that would monitor the traffic patters in Seattle. As a company, they got their first earnings in the form of $20,000 and the duo wanted to start their own company. However, Bill’s parents were against the idea since they wanted him to complete college and become a lawyer. He graduated from school in 1973 and he scored 1590 in the SAT test out of 1600. He kept boasting about this achievement while introducing himself. He then enrolled in the Harvard University in the fall, looking to make a career in law. However he was seen spending more time in the computer labs as compared to attending classes.
Micro-Soft
Bill had an amazing ability to cram the whole course in one night before the exam. In 1974, he joined his friend Allen to work at the Honeywell. They both worked on a software program for the MITS and Allen was hired there. Bill left the university to work with. In the year 1975, Bill and Paul set up a partnership by the name of ‘Micro-Soft’ derived from microcomputer and software. They later dropped the hyphen from the name. In 1976, Bill actually came up with a strategy to stop the free distribution of software since it would be a form of stealing, especially when the software was developed for commercial purposes. The duo had a lot of issues with the president of MITS and they sued the president to retain the software rights.
Microsoft continued to write software programs in several formats for computer companies till the end of 1978. The company’s operations were then moved to Bellevue, Washington. There were initially 25 employees in the company and they were all responsible for operations, product development, marketing and business development. With astonishing business sense, he became the head of Microsoft and the company grossed about $2.5 million in 1978. Bill Gates was only 23 years old then. His great business operation skills and software development skills made hum the head of the company and he also worked as its spokesperson.
As the owner of the company, he would review every line of the code and often used to rewrite it himself. As the computer industry began growing, Bill aggressively faced the competition and developed newer Microsoft software applications. In the year 1980, Microsoft was approached by IBM to develop an operating system for them and since Microsoft didn’t have a system, they bought it from someone else without revealing the IBM deal. IBM paid $50000 for the application, which was then called MS-Dos.
Microsoft’s growth exploded between 1978 and 1981 where the staff increased to 128 employees. The revenue went up to $16 million and by the year 1983, 30% of the world’s computers were running on Microsoft operating systems. They opened up offices all across the world including Japan and Great Britain. The same year, Paul Allen was diagnosed of Hodgkin’s disease and Microsoft launched Windows in 1985. Microsoft was pretty similar to the Macintosh operating systems launched by Apple.
The Billionaire
Microsoft went public in the year 1986 with a public offering of $21 per share. 45% of the shares were held by Bill Gates himself and he became an immediate millionaire at the age of 31. His stake alone was of $234 million out of the total $520 million. Gates became a billionaire in 1987 and the stock prices raised to $90.75 a share. He topped the Forbes list of richest men in the world and his wealth in 1999 grossed around $101 billion.
Personal Life
In the year 1989, Bill Gates started dating an executive from Microsoft called Melinda French. The couple got married in Hawaii in the year 1994 and his mother died of breast cancer in the same year. This was one of the saddest moments of his life and the couple decided to travel some countries in order to get new perspective in life. Their first daughter named ‘Jennifer’ was born in the year 1996 and the family moved into the 55000 sq. feet home in Washington. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations were formed in the year 2000 with a contribution of $28 billion.
Bill resigned from the day-to-day operations of Microsoft in the year 2000 and turned the job of a CEO to his college friend and long term employee, Steve Ballmer. He still remains to be a chairman of the board, but spent more time for charities. He announced that he was giving up his activities at Microsoft and was moving full-time to the work for the foundation. His last full day of work at Microsoft was on June 27, 2008.
|
|