KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 7): Private equity firm Creador's founder and chief executive officer Brahmal Vasudevan, and his lawyer wife, Shanthi Kandiah, have been listed by Forbes magazine among Asia's 2022 heroes of philanthropy.

In the 16th edition of the annual list that was released on Monday (Dec 5), Forbes highlighted the region's top philanthropists who have demonstrated a strong personal commitment to causes such as education and the environment.

The list was kept to a select group of 15.

Vasudevan and his spouse support local communities in Malaysia and India through the Creador Foundation, a non-profit organisation they co-founded in 2018.

In May this year, they pledged to donate RM50 million to help build a teaching hospital at the Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) Kampar campus in Perak.

Forbes said the couple stepped in to help bridge a funding gap on learning that Utar had only raised half the amount needed to build the non-profit facility which, once completed in 2023, will also provide affordable healthcare.

"We are delighted that this has spurred others to join this cause and it appears the project is now fully funded," Vasudevan told the magazine.

Also in May, the couple donated £25 million (RM133.72 million) to Imperial College London — one of the largest gifts in its history — to create the eponymous Brahmal Vasudevan Institute for Sustainable Aviation to pioneer technologies to help the aviation industry transition to zero pollution.

"We felt that the creation of this institute could hopefully make a meaningful impact on studying ways of reducing, if not achieving, zero pollution one day," said Vasudevan, who earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the college in 1990.