Pradeep Kar

Pradeep Kar (born March 11, 1958) is the Founder, chairman and managing director of Microland, a technology company.^[3][4][5][6] Kar also founded and sold three technology companies, including Indya.com, which he sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation;^[7] Planetasia.com, India's first internet professional services company and Net Brahma Technologies.^[8]

Pradeep Kar
Kar, during a conference in 2016
Born	(1958-03-11) March 11, 1958 (age 67)[1]
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research
Occupation(s)	Chairman and Managing Director of Microland
Years active	1989-present
Spouse	Kalpana Kar[2]
Children	Pranika Kar[2]
Website	www.microland.com/about/leaders/pradeep-kar

Pradeep is also associated with the Bengaluru Literature Festival.^[9]

Early life and career

Kar graduated from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology in 1981, and then received a master's degree in business administration from S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research. He joined Wipro and soon relocated to US to run Sonata Software for three years. Returning to India he founded Microland, where he has served as the chairman until now.^[10][11][12]

He also started Planetasia.com, ITspace.com,^[13] Media2India.com, and Indya.com which were sold to take advantage of the dotcom bubble.^[14][15][16]

Kar has been recognized with the Indian Express ‘India Young Business Achiever Award’^[17] and was selected by the World Economic Forum as a ‘Global Leader for Tomorrow’.^[18] He has been featured in ‘Newsweek International’ as ‘Stars of Asia’ and in ‘Business India’ as ‘Stars of India’.^[19]

Boards and affiliations

Kar served as a Non-Executive Director of UBM plc.,^[20] a global events-led marketing and communications services business listed on the London Stock Exchange for 10 years from 2006 to 2016, and is on the Board of Telstra Telecommunications India. He is a member of the Provost's Council of Trinity College, Dublin,^[21] and serves as Chairman of the Governing Council of Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Bangalore.^[22] He was President of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Bangalore Chapter^[23] and Founding Member of the Bangalore Chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization. He chairs the Infrastructure Management Services Forum of NASSCOM,^[24] the apex body of the Indian software & services industry