Bhaag Wipro Bhaag

Over 50,000 runners, including 300 customers, came together for the eighth edition of Spirit of Wipro Run, which was held in 97 cities across the world on Sunday. Held at different time zones, there was someone from Wipro around the world taking part in the Spirit of Wipro Run throughout the past 24 hours.

In Bangalore, the elevated highway in Electronic City was the course for the 21 km half marathon, while the 5 km and 10 km runs were conducted in and around Electronic City. The elevated road had been closed for traffic on Sunday morning to facilitate the run–a first run of its kind in the city–which started from Wipro campus in Electronic City.

Wipro mentor Azim Premji flagged of the runs in Bangalore, which was participated by 14,000 people.

For the first time ever, timings for the half marathon were officially recorded in four cities across the world while the runs were held on at least five different terrains, including a zoo in an African city and a beach in Japan.

The run involved thousands of Wipro employees, their families and friends, as well as customers, analysts and suppliers, coming together in different parts of the world. The theme of this year’s run was ‘For The Long Run’.

Commenting on the event, executive director and chief executive officer of Wipro Limited, TK Kurien, said: “The Spirit of Wipro Run celebrates the idea of endurance in personal and corporate life and this year’s theme ‘For The Long Run’ highlighted this aspect.

Just like long runs are a critical component of training for any marathon, we believe that planning for the long run is an important and responsible life and business skill. It speaks of hard work, pro-activeness, foresight, endurance — all attributes and characteristics that everyone should proudly possess, share and promote. It is a special day for us as this run reaches employees, customers, families, friends and all stakeholders globally across 97 cities. More than 50,000 runners including 300 customers came together on one day for this run.”

CEO of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering and executive vice-president of the human resources of Wipro Limited, Pratik Kumar,  said: “In its eighth edition, the Spirit of Wipro Run manifests our ethos of endurance, working together to create synergy, superior performance, fortitude and sustainability, as well as giving back to the community. Employees globally own and run this initiative and it is possibly the world’s largest employee engagement initiative.”