A Legacy of Innovation: Honoring Sri M. Ramakrishnan and Smt. Malini Ramakrishnan through the Gift of Entrepreneurship Fund
The IIT (BHU) Foundation is proud to announce a generous family donation of $120,000 in honor of Late Sri M. Ramakrishnan, an alumnus of Banaras Engineering College, BHU, Varanasi, and Smt. Malini Ramakrishnan. This donation will establish the “M. Ramakrishnan and Malini Entrepreneurship Fund,” dedicated to supporting 1–3 promising students each year, selected by the I-3 Foundation, who aspire to build startups, develop prototypes, and launch their own ventures. Through this fund, future entrepreneurs will receive not only financial backing but also the inspiration of a powerful legacy.
Sri M. Ramakrishnan was born in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. His father, an eye surgeon, his mother, a homemaker and his five sisters doted on him, yet kept him grounded in family values, honesty, integrity and equality. He was influenced by the generosity and responsibility his parents showed toward extended family members in supporting their education.
In 1953, Sri M. Ramakrishnan moved far from his home town to complete his B.E. (Mechanical Engineering) degree program at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. After graduating in 1957, he joined the prestigious TTK Group and was sent to Germany twice, in 1958 and 1960 for specialized training in manufacturing. He trained in precision manufacturing techniques, learned German, survived on unfamiliar foods and most of all gained critical skills in factory operations, machining and the manufacture of specialized products.
Smt Malini is one of seven children and grew up in the large household of her maternal grandfather, a well known attorney in Mylapore in the heart of Chennai. She had a nurturing family where girls and boys were given the same opportunities and education. She graduated with a BSc. in Physics from Queen Mary’s College, Chennai in 1960. The early years she spent at her parents’ and grandparents’ family home taught her many lessons in leadership, management, relationship building, delegation and finance.
Sri M. Ramakrishnan and Smt Malini were married in 1960 and started their lives together in Chennai. Working at the TTK Group, with his newly gained skills in Germany, Sri M. Ramakrishnan went on to set up factories for the TTK Group in Chennai.
Sri M. Ramakrishnan was entrepreneurial and wanted to start his own company. To this end he needed to raise funds. In the absence of angel investors and VCs, his parents, in-laws and extended family offered seed money to get his startup company off the ground.
With the expertise he gained at the TTK Group, he boldly started his first company Prewo Pvt. Ltd., for machining and finishing valve tappets for heavy vehicles. He supplied finished tappets to Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors, Perkins Engines and later exported them to Germany and the U.K. This was a huge step to make the fledgling independent India self reliant, and increase critical foreign exchange inflows.
Initially his company procured raw tappet castings which were machined and finished at Prewo. As a backward integration, he set up another company Vispro Pvt Ltd., for the manufacture of valve tappet castings. It was a challenging project as the narrow tolerance for the composition of the castings were very critical, in order to achieve the hardness needed for the tappets. Later he set up a third company, Cashma Pvt Ltd., for machining camshafts for the Indian Railways.
While Sri M. Ramakrishnan was busy building factories and working on the manufacturing and machining of tappets, camshafts and valves, Smt Malini, was quietly but ably assisting him in the administration, accounting, finance and management of each of these companies from the get go. It was through her support and unflinching trust and confidence in his work that they built three companies during their lifetime.
Sri M. Ramakrishnan passed away in 2017. He had the support of so many in his family to fulfil his dream of starting companies to manufacture products in India for the local markets and export, substituting imported auto components with Indian made ones. Smt Malini lives in Chennai and supports causes they both care about. We hope that these grants instituted in their names will inspire and help young entrepreneurs start their journeys toward their moonshot.
