Dotcom Don from Down Under

If you forget Julian Assange for a minute, the most controversial person in tech today is Kim Dotcom. Kim, who changed his name legally to Dotcom, is the founder of Megaupload. When US government closed down his file-sharing website and arrested him in New Zealand where he lives, Kim decided to take revenge on America’s government, Hollywood studios and music labels by starting an uploading service that promises to change the file-sharing scene. Thus was born Mega, whose first CEO is New Zealand-based Vikram Kumar. Tasked with running the world’s most ambitious, and the riskiest technology project, Kumar brings years of experience in private, government and NGO sectors to build ‘an open and uncapturable Internet”. Kumar has a marine engineering degree from DMET Marine Engineering & Research Institute, India’s oldest marine engineering college. He also has a management accountant degree from the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India, and an MBA in international business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. In his 30-odd years of working life, Kumar has worked for Telecom NZ, the New Zealand government on the State Services Commission, and as the chief executive of the NGO InternetNZ, where he worked to “protect and promote the Internet for New Zealand”. He also runs a blog called ‘Internet Ganesha’ on important issues related to the Internet.