About Sam Neelam

Sam Neelam knows exactly what a good education is worth, because it is the only reason he is here.

He lost his mother when he was eighteen months old. From the age of three until he was twenty-one, he was raised in a Catholic orphanage in India — an institution that took in children nobody was coming back for. There was no money and no safety net. What there was were teachers who expected something of him, and the discipline to meet it.

He earned a bachelor's degree at Andhra Loyola College, a Jesuit institution, and a master's in computer science and mathematics from the University of Hyderabad. Then he came to America with almost nothing.

He started as a software engineer — AT&T, Merrill Lynch, Lucent Technologies, Citigroup — and went on to found two companies. Mentour Corporation, a global technology services firm operating across the United States, India, Canada, and Mexico, has earned repeated recognition from the Inc. 5000 and the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. Odin Group builds sustainable smart-home communities across Central Florida.

In 2025 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Florida Polytechnic University — Florida's only all-STEM public university — and confirmed by the Florida Senate. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Florida TaxWatch, the state's independent government watchdog.

And he chairs the Stuti Saanvi Foundation, which pays for the education of underprivileged children in rural India — the same kind of child he once was.

Sam and his wife have two daughters. He is running for the Polk County School Board because the opportunity that changed his life should belong to every child in this county.