Narayana Murthy's birthday: 5 unknown facts about the Infosys founder

Narayana Murthy's birthday: Infosys Founder Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy or NR Narayana Murthy, was born on August 20, 1946. Today is the 77th birthday of India's most celebrated business leaders. 

With a career spanning decades, Narayana Murthy is known for his management techniques and the billionaire never shy away to share his knowledge with young minds.

Mr Murthy was born in Sidlaghatta in Mysore, Karnataka to a middle class Kannada family. After his schooling, he enrolled in the National Institute of Engineering and graduated in 1967 he graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Later in 1969, he got his Masters degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur in 1969.

He married Sudha Murthy in 1978 and have two children Akshata Murthy and Rohan Murthy. Akshata Murthy is married to UK PM Rishi Sunak.

Also read: Why Narayana Murthy rejected Air India and two other jobs to join less paying IIM Ahmedabad

Today on his 77th birthday, let's look at some interesting facts of his life

1. Prior to Infosys, Mr Muthy worked as Research Associate and later as Chief Systems Programmer at IIM Ahmedabad. 

Also Read: 'Freedom to practice own faith….', Infosys founder Narayana Murthy speaks about how true democracy works

2. Mr Murthy and his colleague, Prof. Rama Rao had developed India's first BASIC interpreter for TDC 312, a computer manufactured in the late 1960s by Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and also worked on India's first time-sharing computer system.

3. He later started his own company Softronics, however, had to close down after 1 and half year as the firm did not achieve any success and joined Patni computers in Pune as General Manager in 1977. A year later, he married Sudha Murthy after dating for almost four years.

4. They both met through a friend. Prasanna, her colleague at that time used to bring her books that had Narayan Murthy's name on them, she had said on The Kapil Sharma Show. She joked, “I wondered if Narayan Murthy is some international bus conductor. I thought that he would look handsome and dashing, just like a film hero. But when he opened the door, I was like who is this young kid?"

4. Mr Murthy started Infosys with six software professionals Nandan M Nilekani, S Gopalakrishnan, S D Shibulal, K Dinesh, NS Raghavan and Ashok Arora in 1981 after borrowing ₹10,000 from his wife Sudha Murthy. Mrs Murthy currently is the chairperson at Infosys foundation.

5. Murthy has been honoured with Wharton Dean's Medal in May 2001 by the University of Pennsylvania, Max Schmidheiny Freedom Prize in 2001 by Max Schmidheiny Foundation at the University of St. Gallen. In 2007, he was awarded Ernst Weber Managerial Leadership Award. In 2008, he was awarded Padma Vibhushanb by the Indian Government. Moreover, he has also been Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship in 2009, Hoover Medal in 2012, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in 2017 and Founder's Medal in 2018.

Meanwhile, last year, when the company commemorated its 41 years of existence last year, Narayana Murthy revealed his biggest regret as a chairman of the company. He stated he was wrong that the children of the founders should not get involved in the company's management roles. Murthy said he was wrong in keeping the next-generation promoter group out of Infosys. However, yesterday he regretted keeping this belief for so long. And, said, "I was depriving this organisation of legitimate talent. I take back whatever I said."