Hyderabad, Jan 12: TiE Hyderabad hosted an inspiring and exclusive session titled “Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Impact!” on Saturday morning, featuring Kanwal Rekhi, Co-founder of TiE and a renowned Silicon Valley pioneer. The event marked the launch of his much-anticipated book, The Groundbreaker, and was held at The Quorum, Sattva Knowledge City, Hyderabad.
The book was formally unveiled by Murali Kakarla, the newly sworn-in President of TiE Hyderabad. Following the launch, Kanwal Rekhi signed copies of the book and interacted informally with the guests, offering personal reflections and insights from his journey.
The event reaffirmed TiE Hyderabad’s commitment to fostering entrepreneurship and leadership by connecting the ecosystem with global visionaries and thought leaders, shared Murali Kakarla, President of TiE Hyderabad
Organised by TiE Hyderabad, the session brought together entrepreneurs, business leaders, and ecosystem enablers for an engaging dialogue on innovation, leadership, and long-term impact. During the conversation, Rekhi shared stories and lessons from his extraordinary entrepreneurial career, as chronicled in The Groundbreaker.
Speaking at the event, Rekhi revealed that he had recently inaugurated the Kanwal Rekhi Rural Entrepreneurship and Startup (KREST) Centre in Nizamabad.
KREST is a dedicated startup vertical under Kakatiya Sandbox, a non-profit organisation working towards the economic transformation of North Telangana. Kakatiya Sandbox is co-founded by Raju Reddy, Founder of Sierra Atlantic, and Phanindra Sama, Founder of redBus.
Sharing his experience from Nizamabad, Rekhi said, “I met many young rural entrepreneurs there. They are in no way less in ideas or implementation capability. India lives in its villages, and talent is abundant in rural India.” He emphasised the urgent need to build robust entrepreneurial ecosystems beyond urban centres.
During the interaction, Rekhi also reflected on a pivotal policy moment from India’s past. He recalled that when former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee described Information Technology as India’s future, Rekhi had respectfully differed, arguing that telecommunications infrastructure needed to be built first. Though the idea initially met resistance from sections of the bureaucracy, Vajpayee later accepted the proposal in toto, a decision that Rekhi noted proved transformative for the country.
Commenting on India’s current economic trajectory, Rekhi said the country is on a strong growth path, with GDP growth consistently estimated at around 7–8%, making it the world’s fastest-growing major economy. He added that to sustain this momentum, entrepreneurs must be given greater freedom to bring in capital and scale globally.
The Groundbreaker captures the risks taken, rewards earned, and timeless lessons from Rekhi’s life as a pioneering entrepreneur who has played a pivotal role in shaping the global startup ecosystem and mentoring generations of founders.
Rekhi’s life spans extraordinary historical and technological shifts. He was born into a family displaced during Partition. He grew up in India. He was inspired by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s call for scientific temper and has lived long enough to witness modern India navigating the complex intersections of power, technology, and artificial intelligence.
His formal journey into technology began at IIT Bombay, where he earned his B.Tech at a time when computers were absent from campus and programming involved punched cards and mainframes.
Rekhi later shifted to the USA and studied his MS in Electrical Engineering from Michigan Technological University. This formative era shaped his systems-oriented thinking, a recurring theme in the book that underscores how tools may change, but the mindset required to build enduring systems remains constant.
Rekhi built Excelan, the company that would define much of his professional legacy. At a time when proprietary networking technologies dominated the market, Excelan championed open standards, helping popularise TCP/IP and laying crucial groundwork for the internet and networking revolution.