February 3rd, 2008
$27 Million is a substantial amount of money. That’s the amount GlobalScholar, an online tutor service, raised yesterday in a ‘B’ round funding after a $15 Million first round. Yet, this news would not have caught my attention had it not been for its CEO.
Kal Raman hails from Mannarkovil, a small town in Thirunelveli District, TamilNadu. His Mom raised him and his four other siblings through very tough economic conditions. She had to support the family with her earnings of Rs.400 a month.
One look at his profile now, shows that he’s come a long way since his tough school days. He has been the Director of Technology at Wal-Mart, Senior Director at BlockBuster, CEO of DrugStore.com and in his last assignment before founding GlobalScholar, he was a Senior VP at Amazon.com.
I’m getting Kal Raman on ‘The Kiruba Show‘ this week. You can actively participate in this podcast interview by one of two ways. a) Jot down your questions to him in the comments section below or b) Record your question in MP3 format and mail it to me at Kiruba @ Kiruba.com. I’ll make sure to include your questions as part of the interview and get Kal’s answers.
If you have better ideas on how this can be done, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to call me on my mobile at +91 98415 97744 or email me.
There are some interesting info about Kal. He’s a big Rajinikanth fan and even has his photograph at his Washington, Seattle office. He has sponsored orphanages that has benefited 700 kids in Tamilnadu.
I’m looking forward to connecting up with him.
7 Responses to “An India-Born Entrepreneur Raises Over Rs.100 Crores”
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Well, I’ve been subscribing since yest, and lookin fwd fr the podcast
My Question
1) The Punch line for the website says “Empowering the World to Learn ” Does it cover indian educational system also , if no then is there a plan to do that .Is there stiff competitions from company like Everonn systems and Educomp who are also k-12 educational website players in US.
Thank you .
My comment would be similar to the previous comment by Ganesh S. Do you think or can we know from Kal if he intends something for indian education.
Couple of ways…may be look at it for selected high schools as a test drive or atleast from rural education point of view?
Tamizhan endru Thalai nimirnthu solluvom.Frist of all my greetings to Mr.Kal. My question is
1) What is the Message for younger generation?
2) Did you plan to contribute to rural school education?
3) What is your dream?
Kribs,
I had always wanted to ask this question to the people who went from Rags to Riches. One common thread among them is Education.
They would have studied hard, went to engineering, then management school etc and made it big.
Now for the tough question, which many good students from poor backgrounds face.
Many poor students don’t go to college, because they want to help their families as soon as possible. Many drop out after school, to work and support their parents, and many more, even from middle income don’t pursue post graduation in US, for this reason. I am sure he would have had faced this situation too. (I know someone who got admission into a good US university with funding but didn’t join as he felt, he wanted to help out his family ASAP). Now what made Kal Raman decide on his course of action?
-Patrick Manoj
My question to Mr. Kal
Does globalscholar.com have any plans to provide a platform for providing/taking lessons in an online video format?
Regards.
Muthu
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