A Celebrity dinner with Cricket Legends Zaheer Abbas and Sunil Gavaskar on the eve of the Indo-Pak T20 match
Using his big network in the US, former marketing IT Wizkid Phaneesh Murthy raised $300000 that will help save the lives of 150 children with heart ailments, in India
Leveraging the huge interest ahead of the India – Pakistan T20 encounter in New York (that India won late on Sunday night IST), Phaneesh Murthy, the former blue eyed boy of Infosys and CEO of iGATE, organised a celebrity dinner to raise funds for heart surgeries for Children in India.
Phaneesh, who turned 60 last year (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2024/01/phaneesh-murthy60.html), is looking to focus on social causes especially in the health space in his new avatar. He told this writer earlier this month that his key focus in this phase of his life will be help children who are suffering from heart ailments, in India.
As one of the steps in this direction, he organised a celebrity dinner in New York on Saturday night with legendary batsmen from the 1970s and 80s, Zaheer Abbas and Sunil Gavaskar as the Chief Guests.
In his hey days at Infosys in the 1990s, he was known for signing large deals after a game of golf in the US, such was his networking ability. He is now using the huge network he had built in the US over his two decades in the IT space to raise funds for charitable causes.
A cricket fan himself, Phaneesh told this writer shortly after he watched India win a close encounter that he is starting to do such events for various social causes mostly in the health space "This was with Sunny for heart to heart foundation which does surgeries for babies born with defective hearts. There is a 99% chance of survival with the surgery being so really good."
He said that with the funds raised, the lives of 150 children with heart ailments will be saved through these surgeries. All these heart surgeries will be done at the Sai Hospital in Muddenahalli, in the outskirts of Bangalore. In January this year, he had played in a celebrity cricket match at the ground near the Sai Hospital, one where cricket legends such as Gavaskar, Muralidharan and Jayasuriya took part.
In addition to mentoring business entrepreneurs, Phaneesh's aim this decade is to do as much as possible for children with heart diseases in India and he is committed to working just as hard as he had during his golden days in the IT sector to help save the lives of children.