Who is Rajesh Setty

1992 - 1992:

My first opportunity to test my entrepreneurial skills came soon after I completed my engineering degree (Electronics & Communication) in 1992. Three of us hatched a business plan and decided to start a company. Things seemed to go very well at the start and suddenly one day everything came to a grinding halt. It was all over and the dream came down crashing. We experienced the value of experience!

1994 - 1996:

The next opportunity was in Malaysia when I had basically two choices - take a leadership position at the IT subsidiary of a company or risk losing my job. I took the former and built the company from scratch (learning on the way.) I remember those days clearly. I must have learnt more in those two years than I did in my four years of engineering. The outcome was good and Malaysian papers wrote about our innovative use of Information Technology within the group companies. Had an opportunity to present our case study in two international technology conferences.

2000 - Present:

Five of us decided to jump into the bandwagon and caught the Internet boom (at the wrong end) and created CIGNEX Technologies. The company was bootstrapped completely. Business plan and models were changed three times (as I remember.) The experience has been rewarding and the company has been profitable and cashflow positive every year since inception. I served as the CEO until the middle of 2005.

1980 - 1983

Wrote my first novel when I was nine years old. Re-wrote it three times to finally get it into shape by the time I was ten. The next three years I pitched it to more than a hundred publishers and finally I got published when I was thirteen. Was awarded as the youngest writer of the state (Karnataka, India)

1983 - 1986

Worked as a journalist for a local newspaper. Covered everything from local events to politics. More than a hundred articles were published in those three years.

Also five more books (three more novels, a collection of poems and a mathematics text book) were published during this period.

2004 - 2005

After a long break, I wrote "Beyond Code: Learn to distinguish yourself in 9 simple steps!" and was fortunate to get Tom Peters to write the foreword for the book. It was a dream come true. The book was published by Select Books in October 2005

Write a blog titled "Life Beyond Code"

As a columnist for CIOUpdate online magazine, I write about technology and careers every month.

1988 - 1989
Taught Mathematics and Electronics for Class XII students

1991 - 1992
Taught "Programming in C" at a local computer training institute

2004 - Present
* Public and corporate training targeted at technology professionals

* Speaking at conferences on topics related to Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Open Source

* Serving on Advisory boards of multiple companies and non-profit organizations