{
  "id": 5538346,
  "title": "Parents sold gold for Rahul Mehta's US education; he later funded 8 IIT schools",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/04/parents-sold-gold-for-rahul-mehtas-us-education-he-later-funded-8-iit",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-09-04T10:31:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Times of India",
    "slug": "times-of-india",
    "url": "https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/in-1979-rahul-mehtas-parents-sold-all-their-gold-and-silver-to-pay-for-his-first-semester-in-america-decades-later-he-funded-8-schools-across-6-iits/articleshow/133754795.cms"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Rahul Mehta, a man who built and sold four companies in the United States, made an unconventional decision after amassing enough wealth to stop working. Instead of pursuing further investments or luxury, Mehta decided to dedicate his time and resources to education.\n\nBorn into a lower-middle-class family in Mumbai, Mehta's parents sold their gold and silver to fund his first semester of study in the United States at the age of 17. Struggling to make ends meet, Mehta survived on inexpensive frozen pizza during his studies.\n\nUndeterred by financial challenges, Mehta went on to establish his own technology business, building an interface between Oracle and SAS. The company grew to employ around 80 people, but Mehta chose to bootstrap it without seeking venture capital. He eventually sold the company in 1996 and continued to start new businesses, each one eventually sold to major technology companies.\n\nBy 2006, Mehta had amassed sufficient wealth and felt that he needed to redefine his idea of success. He realized that money had diminishing returns, and more valuable were time, talent, and treasure. This philosophy became the foundation of his philanthropy, as exemplified by the Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta Family Foundation.\n\nThe foundation has supported the creation of schools and programs at several Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), focusing on various fields such as biotechnology, AI, data science, health sciences, and sustainability. One of the foundation's recent initiatives includes a BTech programme at IIT Indore centered on sustainability education.\n\nMehta had anticipated India's future needs in education before the technologies became widely accepted. In 2018, he advocated for data science and AI-focused education, a perspective that gained more traction with the advent of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. His long-term vision is to produce 12,000 graduates by 2031, many of whom will come from smaller towns and families without a strong background in higher education.\n\nUltimately, Mehta's journey illustrates the importance of defining success beyond financial achievements. For him, education has the power to transform individuals, their families, and communities, making it a worthwhile investment of time, talent, and treasure.",
  "summary": "Rahul Mehta left Mumbai for the US at 17, funded by his parents selling their gold and silver. He built and sold four companies without venture capital, then decided by 2006 he had \"enough.\" Since then, through the Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta Family Foundation, he has funded schools and programmes at IITs in biotechnology, AI, data science and sustainability, aiming to produce 12,000 graduates by 2031…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}