Linkedin Twitter Youtube Instagram

About Us

Integrating policy with emerging technology applications

About
Wadhwani Foundation

Wadhwani Foundation is a not-for-profit with the primary mission of accelerating economic development by driving job creation through large-scale initiatives in entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation, and skilling. Founded in 2000 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dr Romesh Wadhwani, today, the Foundation is scaling impact in 20 countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the US.

Learn More

Wadhwani Winning Values

Give Forward

  • Wear your passion on your sleeve
  • Give with a smile
  • Share knowledge unselfishly
  • Think Impact, not activity

Together Is Better

  • Partner around purpose
  • Network actively
  • Be super-responsive
  • Reach out; solve together

Make It Large

  • Think big & beyond
  • Considered risk-taking
  • Embrace agile – test, learn, scale
  • Empower down the line

With You All The Way

  • Proactively engage to support
  • Partner across the life cycle
  • Measure success, assess impact
  • Digital for lifelong engagement
Overview

Home
About Us
Functions
Work
Case Studies
Contact Us

Related Websites

Wadhwani Foundation
Wadhwani Advantage
Wadhwani Entrepreneur
Wadhwani Opportunity

Our Functions

Training Academy
Strategic Projects
Technology & Policy

Contact

witp@wfglobal.org

Follow
Linkedin Twitter Youtube Instagram

© 2022-23. Wadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy. All Rights Reserved

SymphonyAI-1050606-copy-1536x1024-1.jpg

Romesh Wadhwani

Founder and Chairman, Wadhwani Foundation

  • Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist
  • Until 1999, built three successful companies, the last of which was exited at over $9 billion
  • Founding Chairman and CEO of $3.5 billion Symphony Technology Group
  • Founder and Chairman of Wadhwani Foundation (2003)
  • Founding Chairman of enterprise AI software firm Symphony AI (2017)
  • Founding Chairman of AI life sciences firm ConcertAI (2017)
  • Founding Chairman of SAIGroup investment firm (2021)
  • Member of the Gates Buffet Giving Pledge
  • Padma Shri 2020 awardee
  • President Obama appointee to the Board of Trustees of the John. F. Kennedy Center
  • Board Member of Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.
Arun-m-kumar

Arun M Kumar

Chairman, Advisory Board
Wadhwani Institute of Technology & Policy

Arun M. Kumar is the former Chairman & CEO, KPMG in India. He is a global executive with experience spanning multiple sectors from high technology to government and many geographies from Silicon Valley to India. Arun is a business leader and financial expert with several years of experience in senior executive roles and as a board and audit committee member. He is a senior commercial diplomat with expertise in advocating policies and opportunities internationally. Most recently he served as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service in the Obama Administration. Arun is a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, an alumnus of the Sloan School of Management, MIT and a member of advisory councils at Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Adil Zainulbhai

Advisor, Wadhwani Institute of Technology & Policy

Mr Adil Zainulbhai is the Chairman of the Quality Council of India. He is also the Chairman of Network 18 and TV18 and is currently on the Boards of Reliance Industries Ltd., Cipla Limited, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited.  As Chairman, QCI, Mr. Zainulbhai is involved in many Government of India Committees and was involved in major projects of the Government of India such as ‘Make in India’, ’Startup India’, ‘Swachh Bharat’ and many others. Mr. Zainulbhai retired as Chairman of McKinsey, India, after 34 years at McKinsey, and the last 10 years in India. Prior to returning to India, he led the Washington office of McKinsey and founded the Minneapolis office.

R Chandrasekhar

Advisor, Wadhwani Institute of Technology & Policy

Mr. R Chandrasekhar is currently the Chairman of the Centre for The Digital Future, based at Gurugram, India. Additionally, he is associated with several organizations in advisory roles and Board positions. As a former Secretary to the Government of India for Electronics and IT, Chairman of the Telecom Commission of India and Secretary Telecom and later as President, NASSCOM (National Association for Software and Services Companies) he possesses a unique breadth of expertise and experience, both in the Government and private sector, that covers the entire gamut of the IT and Telecom sectors. He was a member of the country’s premier Indian Administrative Service since 1975.

Ajay Kela

President – Wadhwani Global Opportunity & WITP

Dr. Kela leads the Foundation’s Opportunity and WITP initiatives, globally and is driving its expansion across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
  • Expanded Foundation’s initiatives across 20 countries and enabled over $100M of Govt. investment during the past eight years
  • Scaled startup Symphony Services to $175M with eventual exit at $780M
  • Grew AutoCAD business from $170M to $850M during 10 years at Autodesk
  • PhD research on computer graphics lead to multi-million dollar products at GE and Autodesk
  • B-Tech, IIT Bombay, India and Ph.D from University of Rochester, USA

Prakash Kumar

CEO – Wadhwani Institute of Technology & Policy​

WITP is led by its CEO, Mr. Prakash Kumar. Mr. Kumar is a former Indian Civil servant who built India’s Goods and Services Tax Network. Prior to WITP, Mr. Kumar was a senior advisor for Deloitte and has worked with Cisco and Microsoft after spending two decades with government. He brings in more than three decades of experience in working at the cross-section of governance and technology, both in the public and private sectors.​

Alok Gupta

Director, Policy and Technology​

Mr. Alok Gupta is the Director of Policy and Technology at WITP. He has over two decades of experience working in various leadership roles in the private sector and government. He has implemented technology projects in the Indian government across Departments and Ministries. Alok specializes in strategy, opportunity analysis, solution conceptualization, developing policy frameworks, and conducting program and stakeholder management. His experience includes working in diverse sectors like IT, financial inclusion, identity, health, maternity and nutrition, education, skills, agriculture, transport, labour & employment, and food processing. In his most recent role, Alok was associated as an Advisor to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India.  Alok has a bachelor’s degree in computer applications and an MBA from Aligarh Muslim University.

Harkawar Bawa

Director for Customer Engagement

Harkawar is the the Director for Customer Engagement and is based out of New Delhi office. He is responsible to engage with key stakeholders in various ministries and help them indentifying potential areas where emerging technologies can be implemented. The aim is to bring the leadership, engage with them by sharing knowledge and awareness on emerging technology and it applications so that they can be harnessed and implemented for better public service delivery.

Harkawar comes with strong, global experience in Delivery and Program Management in multi-vendor programs in IT and executive stakeholder management and has worked with AT&T USA, COLT-Europe, Consulting arm of IBM Global Services, Accenture and Gaia Smart Cities Solutions in India.

He also taught in some B-Schools in India like IIFT and BML University (Imperial College, London) and was on the board of IIFT.  Harkawar represented IIFT in NASCOM and FICCI. He is a distinction holder in Masters degree from University of Indore.

Kamal Das

Dean, Training Academy​

Kamal is the Dean of the Training Academy at WITP. He’s an experienced business leader in the fields of training, technology & finance and has been rated the best faculty in Data Science 2021 by AIM. He has also ranked in the top 0.15% (Top 250 of over 1680,000) in the competitions category of Kaggle. He has worked across – India, Hong Kong, & Germany. He has been with Manipal Group, Jigsaw Academy, as the Head Data Science & Partnerships. He has worked with Investment Banks (Barclays, Capital, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan). Kamal is an MBA from IIM-A and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from BIT, Mesra in Electronics and Communication Engineering.​​
munnakumar

Munna Kumar

Associate Faculty – Technology Training

Mr. Kumar is a dynamic professional with over a decade of rich experience in the field of Information Technology and Management Studies. He is an expert and is highly familiar with a wide variety of software packages, like, Data Analytics and Visualization, Data Science, Business Intelligence and tools, Management Information System, Database Management System, Software Engineering, Technology Management, programming, and general management.

He holds MBA [Information Systems], UGC-NET qualified and NVEQF-IT Level-7 Advanced Diploma holder from National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology. He is a Google Certified Digital Marketer. He holds certifications and diplomas from various national and international bodies. He has successfully completed various Faculty Development Programs sponsored by AICTE Training & Learning with 90% scores.

Prior to joining WITP, he was a Technical Trainer to employees of various MNCs, Defence Personnel and professionals from diverse backgrounds and demography.

naushabha-anjum

Naushaba Anjum

Academic Program Coordinator

Naushaba Anjum has 10 years of experience in education sector. She has varied experience in handling end to end coordination of the entire academic program, stake holder management, faculty and student management and office administration. She believes in hard work, is optimistic and puts her best efforts to execute any task. She holds a Master’s in Business Administration and Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (Hons) from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.​
niveditakrishna

Nivedita Krishna

Consultant, Technology & Policy

Nivedita Krishna is a law and public policy consultant with 15 years of experience in the corporate and social sector. In the last decade, she has focussed on law and policy initiatives to strengthen India’s public education system. Nivedita has drafted federal legislations such as the Higher Education Commission of India Bill and Amendments to the National Council For Teacher Education Act. 

She has worked on data privacy issues across geographies in public health, gender and employment. Nivedita is also a legal consultant for Azim Premji Foundation. Through Pacta, Nivedita’s boutique law and policy think tank, she has conducted public policy research culminating in evidence-based policy briefs on disability, future of technology and philanthropy.

Nivedita is a Member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, has completed her LL.B from ILS Law College, Pune and holds a Masters in Public Policy from Princeton University.

Purabi Mitra

Director, Learning and Content Design

Purabi Mitra is the Director, Learning & Content Design in WITP. She is a specialist in leading Learning, HR & OD with over two decades of experience. She has spear-headed, created & delivered multiple learning transformation projects in a variety of sectors like BFSI, Telecom, Auto, Education, IT, ITES, PSUs, Petroleum, Hospitality, Infrastructure, and Empowerment. She has been the Head of Training & Quality in organizations and brands like Dale Carnegie India – Walchand Peoplefirst, HSBC, RBS-Insurance and EXL Service. Purabi’s forte lie in HR, Learning & OD and she’s an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the University of Central Missouri, USA, both in Organizational Development and Leadership Development. She has Post Graduation Diploma in Training & Development from ISTD. She is a qualified CELTA from the Cambridge University, TEFL and IELTS Assessor and teacher. She graduated with English Literature from Delhi University.

Sagar Prem

Solution Architect

Sagar is a solution architect and problem solver with work experience in the government and private sectors. He has experience in system design & engineering, cloud computing, enterprise architecture, project management, enterprise business solutions, consulting, strategic planning, information and cyber security.

Sagar holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Computer Applications and specializations in Business Technology Management, and Project Management Principles and Practices.

Sudhir Aggarwal

Faculty, WITP

Sudhir Aggarwal has more than a decade of experience and the last 20 years dedicatedly to the Government ecosystem in India. He has varied experience in conceptualizing new initiatives and working on programs, execution of projects, policy advocacy, and ecosystem building. Sudhir is a thought leader on various aspects of Digital India. Sudhir has 3 Copyrights to his credit and selects papers published. Sudhir has worked with Deloitte, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Oracle, IBM, and HCL among Indian MNCs. Sudhir is a graduate of Delhi University and ISB Alumni.

Sumit D Chowdhury

Dr Sumit D Chowdhury

Chief Technology Officer, WITP

Sumit is the Founder and MD of Gaia, a Government & Infrastructure Tech solutions company. He was previously the President and CIO of Reliance Jio and had CXO roles with Brookfield, IBM, RCOM & KPMG. He is a visiting Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University and IIT Dhanbad. He brings in three decades of entrepreneurial leadership, hands-on experience in technology deployed at scale, across both public and private sectors. He has spent time working in different Government projects like Swachh Bharat, Smart Cities, NHA, Airports Authority, Indian Railways, Invest India, Ministry of Finance in Customs.  He sits on the Board of ABM Knowledgeware and IIT Dhanbad’s TEXMin.

He is a BTech from IIT Kanpur in Electronics and MS (ECE) & Ph.D. in Technology and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.  He is a graduate of Australian Institute of Company Directors.