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Ketan Sampat has a passion for computer science
and enjoys living in large cities. He shares his varied interests
that range from technology to trekking to dramatic arts
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Ketan Sampat,
President, Intel India
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Recently Ketan Sampat, the president of Intel
India, initiated a tree planting drive. As part of the programme
1,200 trees were planted around Agram Lake in Bangalore. Sampat
has had varied interests throughout his life. His love for the mountains
lured him to trekking programmes across the country. A keen appreciation
of drama led him to organise a dramatics competition in his engineering
days. Like most Indians, Sampat loves cricket and played for school
and college. His love for big cities springs from being born and
brought up in Mumbai. "I love large cities like Mumbai and
New York," says Sampat.
After completing his primary schooling at Montessori
Annie Beasant School in Mumbai, Sampat went to the Maneckji Cooper
School. He feels that the best part about academics at the high
school level was that one had the liberty to take any subject and
combine arts and science subjects. One could go in for Literature
with Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Extra-curricular activities were
a major priority for Sampat. "As I always secured one of the
top three positions in my class, my parents never questioned my
over involvement in extra curricular activities, like cricket and
dramatics in school."
Simultaneously, he pursued the ISC course from
Cambridge. In 1976 he joined Mumbai's Mithibai College for a one-year
Inter Science course. Later, Sampat sat for the IIT entrance examination
for which he prepared extensively. He was selected in IIT Bombay
and pursued a BE in Electrical Engineering with a specialisation
in Computer Science. What was the best part of life at IIT Bombay?
"The professors were all young and fully involved in the emerging
field of computer science and being at IIT Bombay's hostel with
lots of activities around further broadened my outlook," he
recollects with a smile. He was involved in the production of several
plays and also organised an inter-college dramatics competition.
"There were professional stage artists coming to our campus
during such competitions. Classical performances by some artists
were great fun," he adds.
Trekking in Kashmir, the Himachal and at several
forts in Maharashtra were refreshing breaks. "I used to go
on annual trekking camps to these places. They were all fun-filled
places, specially several forts in the Maharashtra region were great
places to trek. Kashmir and Himachal have spectacular surroundings,"
adds Sampat.
After passing out from IIT Bombay in 1982, he
left for the US to pursue an MS in Computer Science from Syracuse
University in New York State. How different was university life
in the US when compared to that at the IIT? "Besides engineering
I got exposed to students pursuing different subjects like Literature
and Social Sciences too." At Syracuse University Sampat took
an interest in Computer Language Theory and Artificial Intelligence.
After completing his MS in Computer Science in 1984, he got a job
offer from Intel and as Sampat says, "Intel is the only company
for which I have worked so far."
In his early days at Intel, Sampat was based at
Intel's facility in Portland, Oregon. He was employed in its development
tools operations division as a design engineer where his work consisted
of designing and developing tools. The 386 processor was one of
the important projects on which Sampat worked.
By 1987 Sampat was a project leader in the embedded
systems division of Intel where he worked on real-time operating
systems. He moved to Munich, Germany in 1991 to work for one of
Intel's customers.
"It was one of the most interesting times
in Germany as the Berlin wall had come down and the country was
uniting," says Sampat.
1992 found Sampat back in the US working at Intel's
newly established architecture lab. Here he conducted research on
the standard PC. He also worked on the then new concept of Internet
Telephony. In 1997, he shifted to the e-commerce division of Intel
and he worked there till 2001, when he moved to Singapore as director
of Intel's e-business group in Asia.
"It was again a very exciting move to Singapore
from the US as lots of things were happening in the Asian region
and I got to handle lot of management responsibilities," says
Sampat. 2003 found him returning home as the president of Intel
India.
For Sampat it was wonderful coming home after
all the years spent overseas. "India is the place where lots
of things are happening in the IT industry and it is a good opportunity
to be close to this happening place."
So what does Sampat do in his free time and on
weekends? "I like to spend my free time with my family and
especially with my daughter. I am presently in the middle of a biography
of Rabindranath Tagore and yes I am finding it quite interesting."
As Sampat guides Intel India into the future,
it is a large responsibility on his shoulders and he relishes the
challenge.
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