Nuzvid: It is a classic rags to riches story, one that leaves us with feel-good vibe. The story of Aadari Mani Kumar, whose father a small-time electrician and mother an agriculture labourer, began in extremely backward Chintalagraham village in Vishakapatnam but did not end there. Investing in hard work and determination, he rose through the ranks to earn a staggering Rs 1 crore annually as a software development engineer at Amazon Webservices in the United States of America.

Mani Kumar studied at Indian Institute of Information Technology in Nuzvid (IIIT-Nuzvid) between 2008 and 2014 as the institute's first batch student. His story stands as a true testament to the spirit IIITs were set up by former chief minister YS Rajasekahara Reddy, who wanted to see students from poor and backward communities attain higher education on par with students from the affluent sections.

Mani Kumar secured 548 marks out of 600 in his class X which he studied in his village in 2008. This gave him an opportunity to enter into the one of the best learning centres in India, IIIT-Nuzvid. As a student at IIIT, he came up with algorithms by following programming websites. He gained mastery over artificial intelligence. In his B.Tech third year, he secured internship at Amazon Machine Learning.

Due to his interest in artificial intelligence, he wanted to build a career in the same field. He opted out of the companies that had come for campus placements as he did not like their job profiles. He did not even attend interviews too. On his own, he began his career with a start-up company for Rs 8 lakh per annum. The same company was bought over by Snapdeal. In 2015, he moved to Amazon for a better opportunity. He worked with Amazon India for two years. There he earned Rs 18 lakh per year. With promotions at Amazon, he went to United States of America where he started with 40 lakh per annum. After two years, he is currently drawing whopping Rs 1 crore per year.