India's Largest Media Conglomerate Honors Naveen Jain With Prestigious Light of India Award

NEW YORK, April 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Tech pioneer and philanthropist Naveen Jain was awarded the prestigious Light of India Business Leadership Award for his visionary entrepreneurship, The Times Group announced today. "NRIs have always been one of the reasons for which India has been shining," says Avijit Nanda, President of TimesofMoney. "Having catered to this community with our Remit2India service, it is only logical for us to create a platform to recognize these shining lights, like Naveen Jain, the People's Choice winner for Business Leadership."

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This announcement is significant because Indian people from around the world had an opportunity to vote and selected Jain for the People's Choice award.  Other highly accomplished nominees included Vivik Kundra White House CIO, Vikram Pandit CEO of Citigroup and Vinod Khosla one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and founder of Khosla Ventures in Silicon Valley. On winning the award Jain said, "I am humbled to win The Light of India Award for Business Leadership. It means a great deal to have been chosen among so many deserving candidates."

Born into Indian poverty, Jain attributes his inspiring journey towards serial entrepreneur and becoming a billionaire to education, hard work and unfailing persistence.  Jain most notably founded Intelius and InfoSpace, in addition to dedicating himself to many philanthropic ventures.

Jain foresaw the web's information explosion and developed Intelius, the company at the forefront of empowering businesses and individuals to manage their online identity. He is also Chairman of Moon Express, applying his visionary ability to foresee and seize opportunities with moon exploration.  

As a philanthropist, he spearheads entrepreneurial incentive challenges to find solutions to poverty, agriculture, health and clean water.  Current projects include Digital Doctor, which provides ways to give rural communities access to primary care physicians globally.  He is also exploring ways to develop Neuroscience-based programs and games to effectively teach students skills such as math, science and history.  Jain is also a proponent of bio-factories to reduce food shortages and initiatives that generate energy from plentiful resources such as oceans.

ABOUT NAVEEN JAIN

In keeping with his visionary interest, Jain is a Board Trustee of Singularity University, an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to educate and inspire leaders to address humanity's grand challenges through innovative technologies. He also serves as a director on the boards of Coastal Aviation Software and Flow Mobile. Flow Mobile is dedicated to bringing innovative mobile broadband service to underserved rural towns across the country. Jain is also a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and the Webby Awards.

Jain has been awarded many honors for his entrepreneurial successes and leadership skills including: "Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year", "Albert Einstein Technology Medal" for pioneers in technology, "Top 20 Entrepreneurs" by Red Herring and "Six People Who Will Change the Internet" by Information Week. His success with Intelius has earned accolades including: "Best New Company" by the American Business Awards, Puget Sound Business Journal's "One of Washington's Top Three Best Workplaces", "Rising Star" in Deloitte & Touche's Technology Fast 500 Program, "America's Top 500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies" by Inc. Magazine and has been listed amongst the top 15 Corporate Philanthropists in the community.

Naveen Jain and his family are actively engaged in many philanthropic activities and have generously contributed to an assortment of organizations dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship, and education. For information on the Naveen and Anu Family Foundation please visit:  www.naveenandanujainfamilyfoundation.org.

Jain earned his engineering undergraduate degree from Indian Institute of technology (IIT) and went on to earn his MBA from Xavier Institute of Management.

SOURCE Naveen Jain