It is one thing to talk of corporate citizenship and another to do it. MindTree has achieved the latter and that too on its launch.

MindTree Consulting is a software venture with Ashok Soota as its chairman. Mr Soota recently quit as vice-chairman of Wipro, to create MindTree. His vice-chairmen include former Wipro colleagues Subroto Bagchi (who also worked with Lucent Technologies) and N Krishna Kumar, who is also president of sales. While the three are the major movers behind this venture, Walden International and Sivan Securities have lined up as funding partners.

And if that were not enough, it has people from Wipro, Lucent and Cambridge Technology Partners -- people like Anjan Lahiri, N S Parthasarathy, Kamran Ozair, Kalyan Banerjee, Scott Staples and Rostow Ravanan as promoters, adding up to a combined experience of 300 years.

MindTree offers high-end e-commerce and telecommunications solutions. It is targeting revenues of $123 million by 2005. Its initial investment is Rs.40.6 crore. In less than a month since start up (5 August) the company has bagged two orders.

MindTree has development centres in Bangalore and New Jersey, USA, to which two more will be added, in Europe and Asia Pacific. Industry heavywights like Wipro chairman Azim Premji and Infosys Technologies managing director Nandan Nilekani were there to lend moral support at MindTree's formal launch.

Heart of the matter
So much for the company's essentials. But here's something that will warm the cockles of your heart:

The company's logo is a work of art from a 17-year old student (KS Chetan) who has cerebral palsy. The association came about as a result of Mr Bagchi's close links with the Spastics Society of Karnataka. He decided to ask the students there to come up with their artistic version of the name they had decided for the company. The other entries were used as presentation backgrounds and software icons. Another heartening note was the pride of place given to the artist at the launch and his articulation of the idea behind the logo.

Incidentally, the name MindTree came up when they consulted the US company, Name It, for a name for the venture. The list of 729 names suggested was pruned down to four, from which MindTree was selected.

The company plans to spend a part of its profits on primary education.

Clearly a company with a heart as well as a mind!