“God is a multiplier and/or amplifier...but 0 times anything else is 0. We have to exert energy so we don't constantly wait for something to happen”  ~ Keshav Deo (1971-2011)

In 2010, Keshav Deo was pursuing a vision.

That vision was of an organization dedicated to ending the scourge of hunger and poverty, and helping people to be self-reliant. Because the organization would be focused on education and increasing opportunities for people to help themselves, the goal was to create long-term, sustainable progress. The emphasis was on solving the problems, rather than treating the symptoms.

Keshav was born in Rajbiraj, Nepal, and even in those very early years, he showed himself to be a hard worker and a problem solver. Annapurna recalls his determination and drive to confront every problem and find a solution. It ranged from harmless problems like lost toys to more serious issues, such as the discrimination the family faced in the Kathmandu region of Nepal.

In 1981, when Keshav was nine, he moved to the United States to join his father Narayan Deo, a graduate student at Duke University, with his 12 years young sister Sunita and mother Annapurna. His problem-solving abilities continued. At the same time, he developed a strong drive to help people in need. In the early years after their settlement to the United States, the Deo family faced financial hardship. Without telling his mother, Keshav got a paper route at the age of 12 to help support his family. Because he had the paper route, his mother bought him a bike which he learned to ride in one afternoon.

This was typical of Keshav. He saw the importance of hard work, and how it affected the dignity and self-reliance of an individual.

But he was also a very kind and generous young man, and he had a very deep desire to help others when they needed it. As a young adult, he would always offer help to anyone who asked him. His friends and family warned him about being used and taken advantage of, and he was not blind to that possibility.

Still, he insisted that whenever someone was asking for help that was not the time to ask questions or to judge them. He saw it as an opportunity to help a fellow human being the assistance they needed to get back on their feet.

As an adult, his problem-solving skills led him to a successful career in information technology. But it was during this time that his vision began to take shape. Eventually, he left his job and moved back to Durham, NC, where he spent the majority of his childhood. His desire was to give back to Durham, a great city that also struggles with poverty.

Along with Annapurna and Sunita, Keshav began to form the foundation of what would later become his namesake organization. They set about creating an organization that would be dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty and hunger, especially where it affected children. Helping parents to be self-reliant through job training and career advancement. Helping parents provide basic needs for their children - food and shelter - so they grow up in stronger environments and ultimately learn to provide for themselves.

Sadly, Keshav passed away in September 2011, before he could begin to make his vision a reality. However, today his mother, Annapurna Deo, is carrying on his legacy and building on the vision he had and that she shared with him.

The Keshav Deo Foundation is dedicated to the idea of social equity - creating long-term, sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty and breaking the cycle of dependency.

In memory...

The loss of Keshav has left a void in many lives. He was a colleague and, more importantly, a friend to many at Unisys. He was well known as an out-of-the-box thinker, someone who could be counted on to find a solution to almost any technical problem either by creating the solution himself or identifying the people with the right skills to come up with the answer.

His customers also loved him. He exuded a quiet confidence, listened, then would conjure up a solution in the moment and actually be able to deliver whatever “it” was. We always found it amazing that when a project got off target, Keshav could deliver the bad news to the customer and they would smile and quietly accept the delay, as opposed to when others tried to deliver that type of news and would get yelled at. There was just something about Keshav that people really liked and trusted.

People willingly followed him and his ideas because they trusted him and knew that once he committed to a course, he would hang in until complete, but they also knew that Keshav was not afraid to change course mid-stream if a better solution came along. He took advantage of opportunities as they arose in his professional and personal life, and when he came up against an obstacle, he found a way around it.

When he was given the opportunity to manage a team, he jumped into that role without hesitation and turned a team of independent technology specialists into a high performing and collaborative team. He figured out individual strengths and leveraged those while also enabling people to develop weaknesses. He created processes that improved customer response time and ultimately customer satisfaction, but he also improved employee morale on the team. He really was someone who had the big picture in mind and understood the many dominos that were both upstream and downstream.

Of course, the thing about taking advantage of opportunities is that people sometimes take on too much, and Keshav was not immune, but somehow he managed to juggle a healthy lifestyle, workouts, marathons and other types of competitions, along with work and an MBA program. During his busiest couple of years, you could often hear his management and team asking “where’s Keshav?” He would be in a meeting then, poof, gone, but they weren’t just referring to within the building. He was known to be in many different places – working from North Carolina so that he could be with family, Barbados for his Masters program, any number of customer sites in the local DC area of other parts of the country, and sometimes from some city that he just wanted to visit.

His management learned that if they wanted to Keshav to physically be in a meeting, they had to specify that, but then he would be there, working side-by-side with colleagues, often until very late into the night. On one project, there were many such long nights, and some of the funniest times were when the team would be working long hours and Keshav would say to Wanda, “you have to feed me.” And, Wanda would order food or let everyone take a break.

He certainly brought, and still brings, a smile and a giggle to our lives. Thinking of him in the past is still very difficult. Knowing that we have lost that loyal friend that we all counted on to listen and provide comfort is hard, and it will continue to be hard for a long time, but we are all lucky to have known such a wonderful, warm, and caring person. We are lucky to have shared in Keshav’s life and to have experienced the excitement and enthusiasm he had for everyday life. He may no longer be with us in the physical world, but we carry his spirit with us and we have all the wonderful memories.

~ a friend