Education
Anurag Dikshit graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi in 1994 and then drifted to the USA.
Businessman philanthrophist software developer
Anurag Dikshit graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi in 1994 and then drifted to the USA.
After graduation he worked as a software developer in the United States at CMC, as a systems analyst for Websci and later as a consultant for AT&T.
At age 26, Dikshit was asked by Partygaming founder Ruth Parasol to write the company’s betting software. His programme enabled gamblers around the world to play one another in roulette and blackjack. But after seeing the success of the rival Paradise Poker that the pair switched their focus to poker as well. Their offshoot site, PartyPoker was launched in 2001. Parasol considered Dikshit's skills so crucial to the future of the business that she allocated him a considerable number of shares in the company. When it was floated on the London Stock Exchange in June 2005, he became a rich man. Even after selling 23% of his stake, Dikshit remains the company's largest individual shareholder with 27%.
In 2006, Dikshit stepped down from PartyGaming's board of directors to develop new products as head of the company's research and special projects.
Anurag now lives in Gibraltar where he runs The Kusuma Trust (Gibraltar), a charitable trust which was founded by Dikshit and his wife. The trust was set up in early 2007 in order to structure their previously unorganised charitable efforts to achieve higher impact. The Trust is a registered charity in Gibraltar and is as such subject to the control of the Gibraltar Charities Commission. The Kusuma Trust provides financial backing to a broad range of pioneering humanitarian and educational projects primarily in Gibraltar and India.
Nowadays Dikshit no longer personally owns any shares in PartyGaming, the proceeds of the share sales completed in January 2010 having been donated to the Kusuma Trust.