Who We Are

Prof. Ashok Misra is currently the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Earlier he was Chairman-India of Intellectual Ventures from 2008-16; Director of IIT Bombay from 2000-08; at IIT Delhi from 1977-2000 and at Monsanto Chemical Co. from 1974-77. He is Adjunct Professor at the Univ. of Massachusetts and was a Visiting Fellow, Trinity College, University of Cambridge on three occasions. He obtained his B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur; M.S. from Tufts University and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. He was conferred the Doctor of Science by Thapar University, Patiala.

He has held several responsibilities with the Ministry of Education, Government of India including Chairman, Standing Committee of the IIT Council from 2015-17; Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Roorkee; Chairman, Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Apex Board; and Member Board of Governors, IIT Delhi from 2012-16. Prof. Misra is an Independent Director on the Board of Directors of Kirloskar Electric Co. Ltd. since 2014; Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd. since 2014, Jubilant Pharma Ltd. since 2019; and Higher Education Funding Agency since 2017. In addition, he is on the Advisory Board of IvyCap Ventures Pvt. Ltd., Log9 Materials Scientific Pvt. Ltd.; and NeuroEquilibrium Diagnostic Systems Pvt Ltd.

Prof. Misra is a Fellow of National Academy of Sciences India (NASI) and was its President from 2006-08; a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE). He is the founder President of the Polymer Processing Academy; former President of the Society of Polymer Science, India and founder President of the IIT Alumni Centre, Bengaluru (IITACB). He has received several awards including: Distinguished Service Award, IIT Delhi; Distinguished Alumnus Awards from all his Alma Maters – University of Massachusetts, IIT Kanpur and Tufts University; Distinguished Service Award, Polymer Processing Society; Indian Chemical Council Lifetime Achievement Award for Education & Research; Bhatnagar Memorial Award at 94th Indian Science Congress; Chemtech CEW Awards (Education) and Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray Memorial Award of Indian Chemical Society.

An alumnus of IIT Bombay, Ashok Kamath opted to leave behind a successful career in the corporate sector and become a serial entrepreneur in the non-profit space. Since March 2004, he has focused full time on social initiatives on a pro bono basis. He is currently the Chairman of Akshara Foundation, which is a public-private partnership that strives to make Education Systems Work for Every Child. In the past five years alone, Akshara’s work has impacted over 7 million children at both the pre-school and primary school levels in Karnataka, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Akshara’s footprint in 2024 extended to over 95,000 government primary schools in urban, peri-urban and rural areas. Akshara’s Ganitha Kalika Andolana (GKA) – a math curriculum – is now used in all government schools in Karnataka and Odisha. Its digital property, the Android-based Building Blocks was in the top three products in Ed Tech for the Numeracy and STEM category adjudged by the International mEducation Alliance.

He is also a Co-founder and Trustee of Pratham Books which is a public charitable trust that believes in A Book in Every Child’s Hand’ and publishes high-quality books for children in multiple Indian languages. For the past few years, Pratham Books has also gone ‘digital’, and its content is now available online, at no cost, in over 300 languages. Pratham Books today ships over 3 million books to schools / libraries and children annually, and its digital platform has a readership of over 50 million.

In 2019, Ashok received the ‘Namma Bengalurean of the Year’ Award from the Namma Bengaluru Foundation which “is an effort to recognize, honour and celebrate such outstanding individuals and their contribution towards making our city a better place to live in”.

He has also served on the Board of Governors of the Bangalore International Centre and is currently a Trustee at Shreyas Foundation in Ahmedabad. He is an Ashoka Fellow and serves on the X-Prize Connect Advisory Board.

His alma mater, IIT Bombay, presented him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2013 for his various initiatives and contributions to the field of child education. He has also received IIT Bombay’s Distinguished Service Award in 2011 and has served on the Board of Directors of the IITB Alumni Association. Ashok is also currently the Secretary of the IIT Alumni Centre, Bengaluru (IITACB), a unique entity that seeks to bring the IITs and Industry closer together for the benefit of our industry and country at large.

Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti is the former director of IIT Kharagpur; currently a distinguished professor and a leading Indian computer scientist. He has made pioneering research contributions and solved a number of open problems. His work has been incorporated into standard textbooks as well as industry level tools of major international companies. He has published more than 200 papers in international journals and conferences and supervised two dozen PhD students. He was awarded the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science & Technology in2000, the highest science award in India for the engineering category in 2000. He has been the Head of the Advanced Technology Development Centre and the Co-Director of the strategic General Motors-IIT Kharagpur Collaborative Research Laboratory on Electronics, Control and Software. He pioneered the development of the Incubation Programme at IIT Kharagpur. His areas of interest include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Formal Methods, Fault Tolerance and Algorithm Design. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi; Indian Academy of Science, Bangalore; Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi; and the West Bengal Academy of Science & Technology.

Prof. Subhasis Chaudhury is the former director of the IIT Bombay and currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of BSE Limited. He is a former K. N. Bajaj Chair Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering of IIT Bombay. He is known for his pioneering studies on Computer Vision and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. the National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian Academy of Sciences, and Indian National Science Academy. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2004 for his contributions to Engineering Sciences.

Dr. Dhananjaya Dendukuri is Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Achira Labs. Achira is a pioneering Indian company translating cutting-edge technologies in microfluidics to industrial practice in the area of medical devices and diagnostics. They have built India’s first microfluidics-based platform for point-of-care immunodiagnostics and also created the world’s first woven-fabric-based point-of-care platform. Achira makes products for a range of diagnostic applications including antibody and PCR tests for COVID-19. The research output is backed by 24 issued international patents, several peer-reviewed publications, and seven national and international government-funded projects. Achira received the National Technology Award for New Technologies (Biotechnology) in 2016. Dr. Dendukuri was named as one of 20 individuals to receive the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Technology Review’s prestigious TR35 awards in India for the work at Achira. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, MASC from the University of Toronto and B.Tech. from IIT Madras

Rajiv Kuchhal has nearly 22 years of management experience with 16 years in Infosys Technologies Ltd – a leading global company that provides consulting and IT services. Rajiv was one of the founding members of Infosys BPO (earlier Progeon), the business process outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary of Infosys Technologies where he was the Head of Operations and subsequently the Head of Business Transformation. He then moved to OnMobile, as Chief Operating Officer. Rajiv is an alumnus of IIT Delhi. Rajiv is the General Partner at Exfinity Venture Partners and serves on the advisory board of Arali Ventures.

Dr. Ajoy Arvind received his B.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from IIT Madras, in 2006 and 2013, respectively. He held visiting/post-doctoral research positions at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA, the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA, and Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, from 2012 to 2015. He has been with IIT Palakkad, Palakkad, India, since 2016, where he is currently an Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering. His research interests include MEMS-based sensors and actuators, design of GaN devices and circuits, and multi-physics ab initio simulations to understand the interplay of electrons and phonons in nanoscale devices.

Suman Dash is a strategic leader with over 18 years of experience in building entrepreneurial ecosystems, fostering innovation, and enabling early-stage ventures to scale. She has designed and led high-impact programs that connect founders with capital, mentorship, and market access, while mobilising diverse stakeholders — from academia to investors — to drive sustainable startup growth. Alongside her leadership work, she practices as a Mindfulness & Manifestation Coach, bringing conscious leadership principles into the world of entrepreneurship.