Mr. R. Vairavan

Early life and education
Mr. Vairavan, the son of Mrs. Umayal Ramanathan, was born in April, 1948 in Chennai. He had his early education at Lawrence School, Lovedale and studied Chemical Engineering at Alagappa College of Technology at Guindy. He went on to America to pursue his post graduate studies obtaining his Master's degree at Washington University in Biomedical Engineering and later a Master's Degree in Business Administration, specialising in Pharmaceutical Marketing.

Career
He worked with the multinational company Hoechst AG of Germany in various executive positions in Research, Product Development and Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing and Management in Germany, Singapore and USA over a period of almost 25 years. In 1998, he founded Caldon Biotech in California, a company engaged in the manufacturing and distribution of clinical diagnostic reagents and instrumentation for performing blood tests to diagnose complex diseases such as Myocardial Infarction and Stroke. He is also a founder of AutoGenomics Inc., a company engaged in the development of a new emerging technology of Biochips. Using this state of the art technology, doctors will soon be able to diagnose patients based on their genetic makeup and provide personalized medicine to treat the illness.

Ambitions and future plans
Mr. Vairavan has been actively involved to bring up the quality of education and the infrastructure of the schools, both in Chennai and Karaikudi. He founded the Alagappa Institute of Technology to provide the latest in IT education for the students and community. He has set aggressive goals for the school management and staff to elicit superior performance and state ranks in state board exams. It is his goal to establish alliances with US educational institutions and provide the students of the Alagappa Schools to benefit from resulting synergies.

Mr. Vairavan has formed an organization in the USA named Alagappa Foundation Inc. The objectives of this foundation is to form a worldwide organization of the alumni of the various Alagappa Colleges and schools in Chennai & Karaikudi and establish synergies to support the various Alagappa institutions through financial and technological support. He has been working actively with the Vice Chancellor of the Alagappa University in Karaikudi to establish possible alliances with Universities in the USA to set up collaborative programs.

It is his firm conviction to return to Tamil Nadu and set up an industry in the area of biotechnolgy and follow the footsteps of his grandfather, Dr. RM Alagappa Chettiar to further the cause of education and at the same time integrate industry with the institutions to come up with innovative research and academic programs to bring fame not only to the Alagappa institutions but also to the state of Tamil Nadu.

Married in 1977 to Alagu they have 3 children. Anita the eldest is in the final year of medicine at Ramachandra Medical College in Madras. Their son Anand is studying pre-medicine with a major in Neuroscience at Baylor University in Texas and Devi their youngest daughter, a talented singer is studying in the 10th Std in the US..