Gopal a top Canadian immigrant
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Accelerate Okanagan CEO Raghwa Gopal was named one of the Top 25 Immigrants in Canada for 2017.
A longtime Kelowna resident and prominent figure in the city’s tech community has been honoured as one of the top immigrants in Canada.
Accelerate Okanagan CEO Raghwa Gopal was one of 25 Canadians who recently received a Canadian Immigrant Magazine 2017 Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award.
Raghwa, who grew up in Fiji but moved to Kelowna when he was 20 years old, says he is “humbled” and “honoured” by the award.
While he’s not entirely sure he deserves a place on a list alongside people like BroadbandTV founder Shahrzad Rafati and Senator Yuen Pau Woo, he sas he’s proud of the work he’s done to help build community in Kelowna.
Along with starting several successful technology companies in the city, Gopal has given significant time and money to local community builders like the YMCA, Project Literacy, and the East Meets West Foundation.
He’s also been an entrepreneur-in-residence at Okanagan College’s School of Business, and has been named Kelowna’s man of the year.
“If I take all of the things that I’ve done, and helped to build a community, I’m happy to be recognized, because I think that can be an inspiration to many other people,” he said.
There might be others in a similar position as him, with the time and capacity and skills to make real change, and seeing Gopal recognized could inspire them to make a difference themselves, he explains.
Gopal said if he could pass on any advice it would be to “never give up,” and “be humble and creative.”
It’s advice he has taken on more than one occasion, and Gopal says it’s helped propel him to where he is today.
In Grade 5, when his parents couldn’t afford to send him to school any longer, Gopal said he had two choices: become a farmer (something most people in his situation did) or “be creative and do something else.”
Gopal took the latter route, approaching a grocery store owner and weaseling his way into a job.
Gopal said the concept of a kid working like that “basically didn’t exist” back then, but after the store owner repeatedly refused to hire him, he confided he wouldn’t be able to go to school without the job.
He was hired on the spot, and after spending time doing “all the mundane, dirty stuff that nobody else would do,” he started offering the owner suggestions about how to improve the business.
“At that point I was only 11 or 12 years old, but I could see things in the processes that could grow the businesses,” he recalled.
Gopal’s creativity and work ethic earned him the respect of the store owner, who supported him through the rest of his school career. Anything Gopal needed—books, tuition, uniforms—the man would pay for it without questions.
In the late 1970s, when the 20-year-old Gopal had graduated from university, he landed in Kelowna, where he once again talked himself into a job that didn’t really exist.
Walking down the street one day a he spied a “computer management” office, so he strolled in and told the owner he should hire him, because he was the “best computer programmer in the world.”
After the owner politely said he wasn’t hiring Gopal offered to work for free. After just a few days he was already getting paid, and before long had became his boss’ business partner.
Years later, with much more experience, time and resources at his disposal, Gopal says he’s dedicated to giving back as much as he can to the community that made him who he is.
“I feel like we all have a responsibility to pay it forward,” he said.
Presented by Canadian Immigrant magazine and sponsored by RBC Royal Bank, the Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards is an annual awards program that celebrates the achievements of inspiring Canadian immigrants.
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