Ram Raju, Chairman and CEO of Kivuto Solutions, has long been an impassioned supporter of both Dalhousie and local entrepreneurship. Last month, he benefitted both when he presented a cheque for $60,000 to the Faculty of Management’s Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship.
Raju has a longstanding relationship with Dalhousie and with the Rowe School of Business in particular. He earned three degrees at Dalhousie, including his MBA at the Rowe School. At last month’s Startup Weekend, an event hosted by the Newman Centre that brings together entrepreneurs from the university and the wider Nova Scotia community, Raju served as a panel judge for teams pitching their business ideas. He also presented his donation to Dalhousie president Richard Florizone, who thanked him and commended his contributions to Dalhousie and to entrepreneurship in Halifax.
This is not the first time Raju has supported entrepreneurship endeavours at the Newman Centre; in 2012, he donated $50,000 to the Centre.
Raju’s gift, the Kivuto Solutions Entrepreneurship Fund, will support the Newman Centre’s Starting Lean and Launch Dal initiatives. The stated purpose of the gift is to provide funding for “passionate and energetic students who will build a better world by contributing solutions to societal challenges and in the process create companies and jobs to drive the Canadian economy forward.” The gift’s focus will be on funding for team-based entrepreneurship programs, and will provide needed financial support to students who want to work on entrepreneurial projects outside the classroom.
Raju’s gift will be distributed to the Newman Centre over the course of the next three years.