Fact Check: Man paying tribute to his maths teacher in the viral video isn’t Google CEO Sundar Pichai

A viral post on social media claims Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google pays tribute to his beloved Maths teacher Molly Abraham by travelling all the way to Mysore. Vishvas news spotted the video first on You Tube with over 400 views. Vishvas news investigation revealed the claims to be false. The video has featured Ganesh Kohli, the founder of IC3 and not Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Claim

A viral video on social media features a student’s emotional moments with his Maths teacher. It tells about the student’s journey to his teacher’s home in Mysore, Karnataka along with a gift. The video is shared with a viral claim that Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google pays tribute to his beloved Maths teacher Molly Abraham by travelling all the way to Mysore. The archived version of the viral post can be accessed here.

Investigation

When we observed the video, we could clearly see that the person in the video does not look like Sundar Pichai.

We can see the nameplate on the left bottom corner of the video that identified the IC3 conference chair Ganesh Kohli.

While we searched on the Internet, we could access Kohli’s website. Ganesh Kohli, a teacher and entrepreneur, is the founder of IC3 Movement to impact 1,75,000 high schools over 15 years. He has helped to build a platform that provides career and college counseling within schools.

We accessed the original video posted before three years.

While we connected to Kohli, he expressed his concern over the false claims.

“I am disappointed that this misinformation is being spread like that.
This is an old video and is available on YouTube for last three years,” said Kohli.

He clarified to us that it was an overwhelming and beautiful experience to meet his teacher and the message he conveyed over the video is most important. Kohli had also tweeted about the false claims from his official twitter handle.

A 3 year old @ic3movement video of me meeting my teacher began to go viral last month. Over time, in many circles, the video was attributed to @sundarpichai or @satyanadella While the message of the video is most important, how do you address this #misinformation @KarthikOnTheGo

— Ganesh Kohli (@GaneshKohli) August 14, 2020

Conclusion: The viral post claiming Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google pays tribute to his beloved Maths teacher Molly Abraham is fake. The video features Ganesh Kohli, the founder of IC3 and not Google CEO Sundar Pichai.