In the winter of 1991, 5(Five) young minds were debating on a coffee table regarding values in education. There were heated arguments on the need for world class education to prepare world class human resources. Pradipta, who was an Aeronautical Engineer from IIT Kanpur was pessimistic saying that India could not become a knowledge hub because funds for educational institutions came from coffers of the central and state governments. With minimum budget allocation for HRD purposes, these governments had no capacity to build up quality infrastructure for setting up the base for advanced education and research. On the other hand, the ultimate beneficiaries i.e. the students considered it a taboo to pay for their qualitatively high education. There is no dearth of cynics who love to discuss this as commercialization of education.

“Good things in life never come cheap” remarked Prabir, an alumni from Xavier’s Institute of Management who had just come back from an assignment in the UK. Why should the governments not allow self-financing private institutions where excellent infrastructure could be built by private entrepreneurs and excellent faculty could be recruited with high salaries so that students who are otherwise desirous for paying for high quality education could benefit ? Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UCLA – All top class international academic institutions – have not been built by US Federal Govt. These have come up through private entrepreneurship in self-financing mode and top class education in such top class institutions require high payment of fees as well.

Little did they understand in that meeting that a revolution was coming barely after two years time in form of the decision of the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Unni Krishnan in 1993 where Their Lordships clearly said that gone were the days when Rajas and Maharajas who had funds, took the responsibility for setting up free educational institutions. Time has come when beneficiaries (students) have to pay for the cost of quality education and private sector should be encouraged to build quality engineering and medical colleges in India in self-financing mode.

Be that as it may, these young minds in 1991 did not start a college but instead, they started a software company under the name of “Trident Softech Private Limited” (TSPL). Through this company, they eventually set up a corporate finishing school in software education where fresh engineering graduates and engineers with experience were being trained in special softwares like SYBASE, POWERBUILDER, ORACLE, DB-2, JCL etc. The concept had ready takers and quite easily with exposure to such software packages, these trained people started securing jobs in overseas markets. From this finishing school, known at that time as “Trident’s Advanced Computer Training” (A division of TSPL), the group has come a long way from 1995 to have forays into many other sectors of organized education.