Tech for Good: Mumbai, India

Dr. Chaudhuri was appointed as the Director, IITBombay in April 2019. His work has mainly been in the areas of pattern recognition, image processing, and computer vision. He is known to have developed a number of techniques including a methodology for acquiring super-resolved depth map from defocus and is one of the pioneers of researches in motion-free super-resolution. He has received numerous awards which include the G. D. Birla Award for Scientific Research, NASI-Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee Award for Application Oriented Innovation, J. C. Bose National Fellowship, Prof. H. H. Mathur Excellence in Research Award of IIT Bombay, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Sciences, Swarnajayanti Fellowship and Hari Om Prerit Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Research Award. He is also a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Kharagpur.

Ms Suchitra is Co-Founder and Joint MD of Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad, India, which develops vaccines and therapeutics focused primarily on neglected diseases. With more than 145 patents and having developed more than 16 vaccines, the company has a strong record of producing the highest number of viral vaccines in the developing world (11 vaccines), and has supplied more than 5 billion doses of vaccines to more than 125 countries thru UNICEF, GAVI, BMGF & many other foundations. Mrs. Ella and her husband Dr. Ella have co-founded more than 10 group companies to indigenously develop and manufacture technology-based solutions, services & products in food sciences, veterinary & human health through biotechnology & other cutting edge technologies. She is the Chairperson of CII Indian Women Network. She serves on the Boards of ISB Well Wisher’s Trust and United Way Hyderabad—an International Charity Partner focused on social empowerment in local communities with focus on livelihoods, health and education. She was a former Board member of TTD. Mrs. Suchitra strongly believes in corporate citizenship and social responsibility. She spearheads the CSR initiatives of the company. Mrs. Ella holds a BA in Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Madras. She followed this up with diploma in business development from UWCU—Madison, diploma in real estate management from University of South Carolina and post-graduate diploma in patent law from NALSAR—Hyderabad. Several awards have been conferred on her including the South Indian Business Achievers Award 2016, Zee TV Best Women Entrepreneur Award, SAARC Women Entrepreneur Award etc.

Dr. Garg took charge as the CEO, Unique Identification Authority of India in April, 2021. Dr. Garg is an IAS officer of Odisha Cadre and has worked as Joint Secretary in the Departments of Expenditure and Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India; as Secretary in the Departments of Agriculture, Industries and Urban Development at the Government of Odisha; apart from working at the district level in Kalahandi, Keonjhar and Sambalpur in Odisha. He was on a secondment as Adviser at the World Bank, Washington DC. Prior to joining the IAS, he was with the Tata Administrative Service. He has worked on areas like digitalizing agriculture, direct income transfer scheme for farmers, formation of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF); improving the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policies; preparing the framework for digital payments; revamping of the gold sector policies and has led negotiations for the Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). Dr. Garg holds a Ph.D in International Economics and Development from the Johns Hopkins University, USA; an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad and a B. Tech from IIT Delhi. He was a Chevening Gurukul scholar at the LSE, London.

Raj Gupta is Co-Chair of Board of Advisors. Johns Hopkins Gupta-Klinsky India Institute. Mr Gupta was born in a small village in Uttar Pradesh, India and built a 39-year career at the global Fortune 500 specialty materials company Rohm and Haas and retired as Chairman and CEO in April 2009. In the course of his career, he has served as a director at 15 public companies including Hewlett Packard, DuPont, Tyco, Delphi/Aptiv, and Avantor. He has served on six private company boards including Vanguard group and was long term Chairman at Delphi/Aptiv and Avantor. He and Kamla Gupta, his wife of 54 years, founded Ujala Foundation with a focus on education and healthcare.

Tamanna Inamdar is a senior broadcast journalist with around two decades of experience covering business, politics, and the economy. At present, she is associated with ET Now as a Senior Editor & Anchor. Tamanna presents the channel’s primetime show India Development Debate and leads reportage on political news, policy decisions and debates. Previously she was associated with Bloomberg Quint and CNBC Awaaz as a lead anchor.

Steve Klinsky, 65, is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. Professionally, he is the founder and chief executive officer of New Mountain Capital, LLC., which manages over $35 billion of private equity, public equity and debt fund commitments. New Mountain’s motto is “Building Great Businesses”, and the firm has added or created over 49,000 jobs at its portfolio companies during its period of ownership, net of any job losses. Charitably, Mr. Klinsky has started or led a range of non-profits, chiefly in the areas of education and children’s health. He is the founder of the Gary Klinsky Children Centers, the Sisulu Walker Charter School (which was the first charter school to open in the State of New York), Victory Schools, the Great Oaks Foundation, the Constance Klinsky Medical Clinics in the Central African Republic, and the Steve and Maureen Klinsky Professorship of Leadership and Social Progress at Harvard Law School. Most recently, he founded the Modern States Education Alliance which has over 300,000 registered users, and provides universal access to tuition-free college courses online from top university professors. He is the chair of Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, former chairman of the American Investment Council, and has chaired or served on numerous corporate and not-for-profit boards. Mr. Klinsky was raised in Michigan. He earned his B.A. with high honors from the University of Michigan in 1976, his MBA from Harvard Business School (class of 1979) and his J.D., with honors, from Harvard Law School (class of 1981). He was co-founder of Goldman Sachs & Co.’s original Leveraged Buyout Group (1981-1984), and a partner of Forstmann Little & Co. from 1984 until leaving to found New Mountain in June 1999. He is married to the novelist and screenwriter Maureen Sherry. Together, they have four children, and live in New York City.

A former director of a major investment bank, Maureen Klinsky, 58, switched gears in 2005 to write professionally. Her work has appeared in many publications including Fortune and the New York Times, and she has published two novels, Walls Within Walls and Opening Belle. Maureen’s volunteer board work focuses on college affordability, charter school advocacy, financial literacy and clean water initiatives.

Sunil Kumar took office as the 15th provost of Johns Hopkins University on September 1, 2016. In this role, Kumar is the chief academic officer and second-ranking member of the senior administration, responsible for promoting and coordinating the University’s teaching and research mission. He oversees the university’s nine schools as well as several interdisciplinary programs and academic centers. As Provost, Kumar has focused on increasing inter-divisional research and education collaborations across the University; recruiting exceptional faculty to Johns Hopkins through the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorship program and the Faculty Diversity Initiative; enhancing the student experience by leading the Student Services Excellence Initiative, strengthening the career services function at the University for undergraduate and graduate students; and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the divisions. Kumar also chairs the University’s inaugural Tenure Advisory Committee (TAC). Prior to his current role, Kumar served as Dean of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, as well as the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Operations Management. Before joining the Booth School of Business, he spent 14 years on the faculty of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was the Fred H. Merrill Professor of Operations, Information and Technology. He also served as senior associate dean for academic affairs, overseeing the school’s MBA program and leading faculty groups in marketing and organizational behavior. Kumar’s research includes performance evaluation and control of manufacturing systems, service operations, and communications networks. In particular, he studies systems affected by stochastic variability via mathematical models. He also studies application of optimization methods and control theory to managerial problems. Born in India, Kumar received a Master of Engineering degree in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Mangalore University in Surathkal. He earned a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Neera is Partner and Co-Founder of DASRA India, which started in 1999. As co-founder, Neera leads eco-system building initiatives and facilitates key partnerships with global leaders like Harvard University, Stanford University and USAID to accelerate social impact. She has been instrumental in enabling capacity building for nonprofits through the launch of Dasra Social Impact Leadership Program with Harvard Business Publishing, a first-of-its-kind executive education program for social sector leaders in India and has supported the development of over 70 social sector research reports, driving USD 44 million in funding for hundreds of nonprofits. Neera Nundy has been recognized for her work through Dasra by several prestigious awards and recognition.  She was selected by Forbes India Self Made Women in 2020 and received the "Agent of Social Change" Award at Vogue Women of The Year 2019. Neera was awarded for "Special Contributions by Woman" at the 15th Indo-American Corporate Excellence Awards by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. She is also a recipient of the Canadian Governor General's Medallion for her dedication to addressing India’s critical development challenges, and the Forbes Philanthropy Award in the Crossover Leaders category. She holds a MBA from Harvard Business School and is a fellow of the third class of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship of the Ananta Aspen Center and a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She is a Board Member of The Hunger Project, American School of Bombay and Aangan Trust.

David Peters is an internationally renowned expert in health systems who has worked as a researcher, policy advisor, educator, manager, and clinician in dozens of low and middle-income countries and has worked on collaborative research, education, and health systems strengthening in India for over 25 years. His work seeks to improve the performance of health systems through implementation science and policy translation, and by building institutional capacity through innovations in organization, technology, and financing of health systems. He is a Professor and Chair of the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and co-Chair of the Gupta-Klinsky India Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Viresh is a passionate entrepreneur focusing on technology initiatives that affect significant social impact in emerging markets. His latest adventure is modernizing a centuries old trading system in one of the world’s most dynamic regions. Fruitfal – an agri fin tech startup – provides digital services to India’s massive underserved informal retail community and improves the lives of small Indian farmers. As an entrepreneur and technologist, Viresh sees a tremendous opportunity to bring accessible digital services to a sector that represents 20% of India’s $3T GDP. Viresh started his career with Oracle Corporation before embarking on his startup journey. He earned electrical engineering degrees from George Mason University and The Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from IESE in Barcelona. He has lived and worked around the world bringing innovations and products to market.

Shekar Sivasubramanian heads up the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence.  He has over 37 years of applied global technology and management experience.  holds a B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay.  He started work in the Indian software industry when it had less than 1000 employees.  He found an early passion for programming and applied computer engineering to solve large-scale, real-world problems.  Shekar completed his MBA in finance at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, in the US.  He applied his acquired business acumen, with his expertise in technology to scale 4 companies from ground up to over billion-dollar valuations.  He complemented his passion for complex problem solving with his research bent of mind, and collaborated as an Applied Scientist in Information Retrieval and Artificial Intelligence, at Carnegie Mellon University for 20 years.