Ruyintan Mehta, an IIT Bombay graduate, is renowned in the fields of business and philanthropy. His career spans several decades, marked by entrepreneurial success and a commitment to giving back. After graduating from IIT, he moved to the US in 1970, to do a Master’s in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and in Engineering Administration from the University of Utah. Over 24 years, he established himself as an entrepreneur and as a philanthropist, and started the WIN Foundation, which focuses on water and sanitation as well as maternal and child health initiatives. “You can’t take it back with you, so you might as well give,” he has said. He also continues to maintain ties with his alma mater, IIT-Bombay.
Mehta took the leap into entrepreneurship in 1990 founding his first company, Crystal Clear Inc, in New Jersey, 1990, which manufactured plastics. Over the next two decades, he started, bought, merged and sold various companies in this sector over the next two decades, with revenue ranging from between $5 million to $34 million. He was also a General Manager at Combustion Environmental (now ABB) and served as President of Andersen Engineering Services.
Not content with merely making a profit, Mehta set up the WIN Foundation, which today, creates social impact through a number of verticals. The first is WatSan, which focuses on water and sanitation, the second is Maternal and Child Healthcare in India, primarily in Gujarat. They also support skilling initiatives in rural Gujarat and Rajasthan. WIN works with top institutions like the IITs to encourage innovation, and also supports tech startups to facilitate product trials, refinement, and validation. Impressively, the WIN Foundation has impacted over 900,000 people, trained more than 3800 field health workers, and empowered over 100 women microentrepreneurs. Their role in fostering innovation is evident through their co-sponsorship of the Vishwakarma Awards for Engineering Innovation, encouraging Indian science and engineering students to develop innovative solutions, particularly in water and sanitation.
Mehta maintains a strong connection to IIT Bombay, contributing to student scholarships and programs like ‘Teach Ten Thousand Teachers at a Time.’ “If a country as poor as that can do so much, I pledged that when I could, I would do my darnedest to give back to IIT and society at large,” he said. He continues to call those years as the best of his life, recalling, “I was very fond of swimming and often went for a swim along with my friends at a particular spot of Virar Lake, after walking down the pipeline for about half a mile, behind Hostel No. 3 & 4.” He has developed a Student Exchange Program between IIT Bombay and The Cooper Union, New York City, and supports the ‘Clean Drinking Water Plant’ initiative by the IITB Hyderabad Chapter.
