“Request my friends who are spending money on hoardings and paper advertisements to donate the same to Chief Minister's Relief Fund” – requested this gentleman as his birthday gift. This time I was not surprised after reading this humble appeal since this person had always surprised all of us with such different yet people friendly moves and tweets. With this single sentence, all of you might have already guessed whom are we speaking about!

Born in Karimnagar District of Telangana, Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao, popularly known as KTR is the Minister of Information Technology, Government of Telangana. KTR – an ambitious young professional secured two postgraduate degrees – M.Sc in Biotechnology from the University of Pune and an MBA in Marketing & e-Commerce from City University of New York (CUNY). An IT professional working in US, resigned his job to join the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and actively participated in the Telangana movement playing the lead role in ensuring that the issue was represented well at the national level. K.T.R. began his political career in 2009 when he contested the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Elections from the Sircilla Assembly constituency. He won by a close margin of 171 votes, defeating independent candidate

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In a short span of time, KTR emerged as one of the most popular leaders in South India and is fondly called the Young Tiger of Telangana by his followers. He was also awarded the Most Inspirational Icon of the Year 2015 by CNN-IBN.

KTR has outlined his vision to develop Hyderabad into a global city and make Telangana one of the most sought after investment destinations in the country. KTR has said he wants to turn Hyderabad into a fully WiFi-connected city and is focused on turning it into one of the best cities globally for entrepreneurship. Proof of this is T-Hub, the country’s largest start-up incubator, which has come up in Hyderabad. Entailing an investment of Rs 40 crore in the first phase, T-Hub can accommodate 300 start-ups and can seat 800 people together. 

KT Rama Rao laid the foundation stone for the IMAGE (Innovation in Multimedia, Animation, Gaming and Entertainment) Tower at Hyderabad Knowledge City, Raidurgam of Serilingampally mandal, on Sunday, November 5, 2017. The IMAGE Tower will be a centre of excellence with state-of-the-art facilities that will act as a catalyst for animation, visual effects, gaming and comics sectors in Telangana.

Another brainchild of KTR is the Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) which has enabled around 40,000 out of the 75,000 engineering graduates turn readily employable for industry during 2015-16. According to KTR, TASK should be mandated to create a workforce of 100,000 by the year 2022 creating a sustainable ecosystem of job creation. With KTR as the first IT Minister of the state, the IT sector has recorded huge exports of Rs 68,258 crore through 1,300 IT units, including 500 global companies, which shows 16 per cent growth.

On the occasion of this progressive and disruptive young thinker’s birthday, we wish that his vision to make Hyderabad a global city and Telangana the most sought after investment destination in the country to come true!!!