Vineet Saurabh

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My name is Vineet Saurabh, but my second name is not mine at all!

A few days after my birth, my parents replaced my original surname with a random one. It had nothing to do with me or even them. In India, the second name defines the caste. During the 80s, discrimination and violence against caste were prevalent in the region of India; I was born and grew up. You could be educated and successful, but you can’t escape the vortex of caste. Except by changing your name.

During graduation, I experienced a series of dichotomies, none related to anything I did, but all related to who I was. I couldn’t speak fluent or accented English then, which made my life hell in a country where less than 10% of people speak English. Once, I was asked to take ‘the podium’, a makeshift 2-feet platform created to shame freshmen, and asked by seniors to make a 10-minute English speech. I doubt I would have elicited so many laughs had I been India’s top stand-up comedian. Ironically, in a country of coloured people, I was bullied for being dark-skinned.

During my first trip to Africa in 2013, I saw Africa’s corruption and learned about its people. I found myself surrounded by people who were, like me, desperate to be somebody. They were underdogs. I even invented a visa type in Africa – the $100 ‘instant’ bribe visa – at Malawi border control. Even though the corruption was rampant, at least it wasn’t discriminatory. I had borrowed money to make that first trip abroad, but after I returned, what had initially seemed like an expenditure now appeared like an investment.

For the next 3 years, I travelled to Europe many times for work, but to me, Africa was the underdog, and that is what I wanted to serve. In 2018, I resigned from Addnode, co-founded Rolaface Software, and moved to Zambia. For the next 2 years, I was the underdog coach. I served small businesses that often couldn’t afford us, offering generous payment terms at Rolaface because the money wasn’t my reward; the opportunity was. I implemented banking software in Africa and enabled digital transformation in Latin America. I travelled every other week and saw life and success happen in unlikely locations. In the Siwa Oasis in Africa, I saw salt-water fishing in the middle of the desert, and in Puerto Nariño, 2 hours from civilization in the Amazon, I saw people live even today like Neanderthals. I also saw how African countries grew faster than South American nations, though the former had been independent for only 50 years and the latter for over 200. Growth and progress, I saw, is a function of effort, not just the environment.

I brought the same message of hope back to the dusty lanes of Bihar I originated in. I have conducted over 20 workshops on technology careers, education, and career guidance. I continue to root for the underdog; every time I visit, the youth there don’t refer to me by name. They call me ‘Computer sir’.

In that sense, I may have lost a name because of my caste but gained an identity because of my work.