Turning Slumdogs Into Millionaires: One Hedge Fund Manager's Quest

[Parsad]

Another great article on Mohnish and his Dakshana Foundation!  Cheers!

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2012/06/06/turning-slumdogs-into-millionaires-one-hedge-fund-managers-quest/

[Vish_ram]

I hope Pabrai has a pay it forward policy for recipients; if he has one, this foundation will outlive Pabrai. It is refreshing to see "Don't give a man a fish, send him to fishing school" in action.

[Parsad]

I hope Pabrai has a pay it forward policy for recipients; if he has one, this foundation will outlive Pabrai. It is refreshing to see "Don't give a man a fish, send him to fishing school" in action.

 

Yes, it does.  I believe he will and does encourage future graduates to return 10% of their earnings or that is the idea.  Cheers!

[Vish_ram]

Where is capitalism and freedom in this?

 

Increase the size of the pie, not redistribution of the same pie. It is akin to "redistribution of poverty". You are spending your money to achieve this?

 

India needs infrastructure and a lot of good teachers (teacher-training), not making a kid genius "look like a super-genius".

 

I've to disagree with your redistribution comment. If the kid going through Dakshina is really poor, he/she may not go to college. The Dakshina kid may deprive some other kid an IIT degree, but the deprived kid may still go to some other college. YOu cant say the same thing about Dakshina kid. There is also this secondary benefits, the Dakshina kid may inspire so many other poor kids to study hard. He/She may keep the hope alive for others.

 

Now if you build a new school, how is it going to help poor kids unless you offer the education for free? If you have that kind of money, feel free to do it.

 

How does building a road help alleviate poverty? Infrastructure doesn't translate to immediate attributable tangible benefits. It's not a bad idea to send poor kids to IIT as IIT'ians have higher chance of good pay (not guaranteed) and the positive cycle can continue.

 

The pie grows and society benefits if you have hypothetical 60% going to college instead of 59% (or say 100 more Dakshina sponsored kids enter IT and get well paying jobs. The other 100 kids deprived of their IIT seats may still do something better).

 

You should take a look at what Ebix's Robin Raina is doing; he is doing Pabrai to power of 10.

 

[rranjan]

Where is capitalism and freedom in this?

 

Increase the size of the pie, not redistribution of the same pie. It is akin to "redistribution of poverty". You are spending your money to achieve this?

 

India needs infrastructure and a lot of good teachers (teacher-training), not making a kid genius "look like a super-genius".

 

Those kids genius will be doing some manual work if not pulled through this system. Capitalism comes into the picture by making sure that donated money gets biggest bang for buck. Spending the same amount of money in anything else will not produce the tangible results it produces via this system. Not only the future of kids get changed but people around him change as well.