“Our chief want in life, is, someone who shall make us do what we can. This is the service of a friend. With him we are easily great.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Essayist & Philosopher.
Ever since I joined KeyPoint Technologies I have felt this innate zeal to think afresh, think beyond the ordinary and give more to the organization. The reason why each employee at KeyPoint wants to give his/her best every day, day after day is because of being led by a visionary leader. A leader who laid a foundation so strong that every employee in the organization is at ease and at their prime to contribute towards the organizational unabated growth.
Sunil Prasad Motaparti 02/08/1981 – 03/01/2019
Born to a revolutionary industrialist Mr. MSRV Prasad, revered for turning loss making enterprises into profit churning organizations. Sunil always had the genes and acumen to be the flag bearer of a large conglomerate, ‘The Prasad Aditya Group’ of companies.
The Early Years
Sunil honed his love for technology by pursuing his BS and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Melon University, USA. After successfully completing his education, Sunil worked with Design Automation Groups with big wigs, in the Silicon Valley.
The Homecoming
With a keen eye on innovations, he soon realized that he was born for achieving bigger dreams. While many chose to set up their operations overseas, Sunil followed the make in India path, way before it was conceptualized by the state. He was determined to create innovative products and technologies, that would put India on to a pedestal of global reckoning. It was in this frame of mind that Sunil set up KeyPoint Technologies. An organization that came to be recognized as the light bearer of innovative input technologies for mobile devices, by introducing Adaptxt, a widely successful predictive text application for mobile phones. Sunil’s undying urge to enable his countrymen to experience technology saw him take confident strides in the domain of language technology, the domain where KeyPoint Technologies has created its own distinct mark. KeyPoint partnered and assisted many renowned OEM’s such as LG, Pioneer, Reliance with our predictive engines and language solutions. Our language capabilities driven by constant innovations ensured KeyPoints technology was a sought-after resource.
Young Entrepreneur Par Excellence!
Sunil Prasad Motaparti, a young restless technology entrepreneur with an acute sense on the course of futuristic technologies, not only co-founded KeyPoint Technologies and various other tech-powered product companies but also became an investor with Bitkemy ventures which helped many founders convert their dreams into reality.
Excerpts from the top management at KeyPoint Technologies:
Nutan ChokkaReddy
CEO
KeyPoint Technologies
Over the last few days, all of us have been suffering through the grief thrust upon us. In this moment of sadness, I’m not able to find the words to fully express Sunil’s greatness. However, having been one of the fortunate few who had the chance to work with him closely, sharing my experiences with you so that we can understand his vision and carry it forward together.
Sunil always had a special place in his heart for KeyPoint and its employees. He always used to say that he took pride in the quality of the products that KeyPoint delivered and wanted the team to always continue delivering high quality products. Today, if we are being respected and competing against the best in the world it’s only because of the foundation that Sunil had laid. Not only the technology, but he also built a great culture within the organization and whenever there were tough situations he used to step in and take care of it, for the team.
Sunil always had a ‘Never Say No’ attitude and loved to work with people with similar attitude. One instance that I can recollect is when we came up with a few changes to an existing algorithm and found around 4% improvement in the prediction quality. We were all happy and felt that we had stretched the limits of what could be achieved. Suddenly, one of the team members asked, can we stretch it by another 6% and be in a position where others would envy us. Getting that level of improvement was unheard of in the domain. As we were trying to explain the challenges involved to the team member, Sunil said ‘Why Not? If you think that is what will make us the best, then let’s pursue it’. Here is a person who just doesn’t talk but will also walk the talk. So, as soon as he said it, we all knew he will be stretching himself more than any member in the team to achieve the goal.
He was the pioneer of lot of innovations in the field of computational linguistics and never shied away from taking up new challenges. He always talked about the importance of building the intelligence ‘on the device’ and how it can change the world. He valued user privacy and felt that we need to respect the users of our products. Today, when big companies are not caring one bit about selling user’s data and making revenues, he always stood tall and said that it is not something we want to get into and didn’t want the team to take shortcuts for making revenue.
Sunil will always be remembered as a highly intelligent, innovative, humble, selfless individual who always lead the team from the front and put the team’s priorities ahead of his personal interests. He always pursued greatness and I am sure he will continue to inspire us to achieve the same.
Today, as we question our ability to stand up for his vision and beat the competition, I am sure he is watching us and saying ‘Why Not’!It’s time for us to stand up for him and realize his vision.
Manish Chapla
Senior Vice President Delivery | Localization
KeyPoint Technologies
Test automation of a smart keyboard was not easy when Adaptxt was first released to the market. Back in those days, we had a small QA team and felt that it would be difficult to manage it ourselves and thought about outsourcing. But Sunil said ‘Hey Manish! It’s better we do it as we know the product and our users better than anyone else’. He not only motivated us but helped us build a team around it and contributed extensively in designing the test automation suite. This is just one example and there were many such instance where Sunil had motivated and guided us through the challenges.He was unique and our role model!
Gopi Srinivas Tedlapu
Head | Finance
KeyPoint Technologies
Few people in life we admire, we love but very few people inspire us to follow their footsteps, Sunil was one among them in the path of my life.
Sunil was not only the founder, leader but he was my Mentor from the inception of KeyPoint Technologies in India. He had nurtured me in such a way that every decision of Company was embraced with integrity, ethics to achieve greater transparency of governance in the company to achieve new heights.
Sunil always had the ideology to grow with a difference in today’s competitive world. We in the present day and age look at companies as a source of earning profits at any cost, but this man, Sunil had a vision to enable a common man with cutting-edge technology. His vision is partly fulfilled today through his brain child – Xploree” to serve the purpose of the same.
I was fortunate enough among the many people in the entire Prasad Aditya group of Companies to work with such a visionary leader who was not only a technology entrepreneur but a true human being with most humble and straight forward nature.
“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”
— Sheryl Sanberg, COO of Facebook