Samir Desai’s story is an inspiring one – it is the tale of a young man from a village succeeding against all odds and becoming an inspirational community leader in one of the most elite areas - a suburb of Boston. He founded SRC in 1985. SRC was a one stop systems company that grew from single founder to 600 employees, with about 75 million in annual revenue in 14 years without debt or venture money. “It was growing and profitable every quarter for our 14 year existence.” Desai was a founding member of TIE and has been actively involved in many community organizations. The Desai Foundation is the key sponsor for the annual Sensational India! Festival at the Peabody Essex Museum.  Desai details the story of his life which he divides into four phases, his life in the village, in the city completing his undergraduate degree, at IIT working towards a graduate degree and his building a career in the United States.  Each phase he says brought great lessons and he continues to learn.  Desai now has moved into the next phase of his life which he has dedicated to community service through the Desai Foundation. The Desai Foundation enriches communities through health, education, and cultural programming. The Foundation focuses on cultural celebration and tradition in the United States, while the focus in India is dedicated to bringing the rural villages closer to the 21st century in the areas of health, hygiene, technology, and vocational training.

Could you describe your early life – the first phase as you call it?

My early childhood was in a village in Gujarat. My father was in a transferable job and hence I was sent to be with my maternal grandparents in a village. There was no electricity, running water or paved roads.   

It was a simple life where I learned to live with little. There were really no dreams or ambitions since I was not very aware of the world around me. I really did not know what I could dream about. However, I learned a lot from my grandparents and my village life. My grandparents were leaders in the community, they taught me to be a leader and especially to succeed when presented with challenges. Most importantly, I learned to deal with choices I had been given and to make the most of them. I left the village wanting to be successful, though I did not know what success meant, or even what I wanted to succeed at!  

You then moved to the city for pursuing higher studies. How was that experience?

I left the village to join MS University in Baroda. It was a big cultural shift. I was unfamiliar with city life and I did not know English. However, I worked hard and did well. Unexpectedly my father passed away making me the head of the household at the very young age of 19.  Also I did not know the family very well since I had lived with my grandparents. It taught me to grow up really fast.

The experience that followed made me an excellent problem solver, while dealing in many grey areas and making decisions, I became good at multitasking and prioritizing.

As a family, we used to meet every night to discuss issues, and would prioritize and divide up work among my older sister, mother and myself. We basically had status meetings, where I had my first training in organizational development and delegation!

It was a time in life when I realized that success was the only way out and that in fact failure was not an option. That has been a key learning experience in my life.

What motivated you to come to America?

I had a great desire to travel and I wanted to see America. I was admitted to the graduate program in Industrial Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology.  There was much to be learned from that experience. When I graduated from IIT, my desire was to join a manufacturing company and become a top executive. But due to either my terrible interviewing skills or a poor economy, I could not find a job for three months.  Finally I got a job as a FORTRAN programmer at an IT company and that became the foundation for my career.

Later you founded Systems Resources and grew it into a very successful company. What was the secret to your success?

The secret to my success has always been the same – I have been in situations where I had no option but to succeed.  That always pushed me to climb on a ladder and get to the top no matter how tall the ladder is. I owe much to my background in the village. I learned leadership and people skills from my grandparents.

The company was run based on a few key principles. The customer is most important and hence our priorities were customers, employees, business partners, vendors, and stockholders, respectively. I visited every customer personally and met most of the employees informally and formally.

We systemized most of our processes to create efficiencies. Employees needed to have many different skills and had to be able to perform on many different tasks when needed. We were not worried about competition as much. We wanted just our share of market and we would go after it with single mindedness.

You were a founding member of TIE-Boston and you have coached many entrepreneurs.  Can entrepreneurship be taught?

I think entrepreneurship is a combination of nature and nurture. Successful individuals have an internal energy and tenacity that cannot be inculcated.  For the individuals where it exists, nurture can go a long way in helping them succeed. I have enjoyed mentoring people and it gives me great joy to see them succeed.

You have established the Desai Foundation. Can you tell us about the Foundation?

The inspiration for the Foundation was born on a vacation to Peru. The idea was to find a way to give back to society and share our experiences, resources, and talents to improve the overall quality of life for others. We set out to enrich local communities, as well as the community we are from, through health, education and culture. My children are very into the arts and hence supporting the arts was very important for me. We have been the prime sponsor for the Sensational India! Festival at the Peabody Essex Museum for over 5 years now. This festival has exposed over 14,000 people to India’s rich culture.

We sought to give back to the community we are from by creating Community Development and Education Centers. We now have two Community Centers in rural India, the Hansa Community Development Center and Shantaben Vidhyabhavan, to be inaugurated on March 2nd. We also work with another organization in a third location to offer similar benefits and services to the villages in that area. The community and education centers allow the Foundation and local NGOs to collaborate to provide low cost high impact solutions in the areas of essential healthcare, education and training that is lacking in the rural villages. The lack of these resources greatly handicap’s a community’s growth and sustainability so we seek to add value to the communities by increasing the skill set and general knowledge of the population.

What is your vision for the future?

We now have a blueprint for a community development center. It holds great potential for rural development. We would like to replicate the community development center model in ten other areas to improve the lives and health of more than 250,000 individuals. The Foundation’s successful model in South Gujarat demonstrates how well conceived, integrated programs for adults and children create an ecosystem for social and economic improvement.   

Through the use of our current programming and resources we have a reach of 50,000 individuals in rural India, we have touched the lives of 7,500 people with our health camps and we have performed roughly 25,000 treatments on villagers.  

We are raising funds to expand the Foundation’s reach and increase the viability of many more villages in rural India. We are hosting our first fundraiser for the Desai Foundation in New York, it is on April 9th. We are currently reaching out to those who would like to contribute to our efforts by purchasing tickets or a table for the event. For those who cannot attend we would greatly appreciate any assistance they can offer in the areas of contributing or fundraising. For further information about the Foundation and the fundraiser people are encouraged to contact me at Samir@thedesaifoundation.org.

What lessons would you like to share from your life with our readers?

I am not sure what I have to say is unique. But here are thoughts I would like to share.

•    Learn and absorb from everything and everyone that crosses your life.
•    Fear of failure can be converted to energy to succeed.
•    Believe strongly in Murphy’s Law. Things will go wrong; plans will have to be modified overnight.
•    Dedicate time and energy to succeed in everything you do in life – You can’t have success in just one area.
•    Deal with the cards you are handed – don’t keep waiting for the next hand.
•    No knowledge or contact you acquire is useless.
•    Ability to anticipate and also to deal with the unknown is the key to success.
•    Opportunities are always around you, just grab them!
•    Destiny is in front of you. You have to make a choice to follow it!

To learn more about the Desai Foundation please visit: www.TheDesaiFoundation.org.

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