Agenda 2022

S. Jaishankar is the external affairs minister of India. Earlier, he was the president of Global Corporate Affairs at Tata Sons Private Limited. He served as foreign secretary between 2015 and 2018. He was the ambassador to United States between 2013 and 2015, ambassador to China between 2009-2013, high commissioner to Singapore between 2007 and 2009, and ambassador to the Czech Republic between 2000 and 2004. He has also served in other diplomatic assignments in embassies in Moscow, Colombo, Budapest, and Tokyo, as well in the Ministry of External Affairs and the President’s Secretariat. He is a graduate of St. Stephen’s College at the University of Delhi. He has an MA in political science and an MPhil and PhD in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2019 and is the author of the bestselling book The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, published in 2020.

James Cleverly is currently serving as the secretary of state for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. He has previously served as the minister of state for Europe and North America in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the minister for Middle East, North Africa, and North America. He was first appointed as a joint minister of state for Middle East and North Africa in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development. Cleverly was minister without portfolio from July 2019 to February 2020, and parliamentary undersecretary of state at the Department for Exiting the European Union from April 2019 to July 2019. He was first elected as the Conservative MP for Braintree in May 2015.

Sanae Takaichi currently serves as the minister in charge of economic security as well as minister of state for science and technology policy, space policy, and intellectual property strategy. She has served in various positions in both the government and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), including state minister for economy, trade and industry, minister of state for innovation, chairperson of LDP headquarters for cyber security measures, and chairperson of LDP policy research council. Takaichi was the longest-serving minister for internal affairs and communications in Japan. She has also served as a U.S. Congressional Fellow and a professor at the Faculty of Economics at Kinki University. Takaichi has a BBA from Kobe University.

Josephine Teo currently serves as Singapore’s minister for communications and information, minister-in-charge of smart nation and cybersecurity, and the second minister of home affairs. She is also a member of the National Jobs Council and the Future Economy Council. She has previously served in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the finance, transport, and foreign affairs ministries. As manpower minister, Teo actively promoted good employment outcomes, sustainable wage growth, and productive longevity. A member of parliament since 2006, she was formerly the chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee For Education and assistant secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress. Teo is a graduate of the National University of Singapore and has an MS in economics from London School of Economics.

Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami is the minister of communications and digital economy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Prior to his appointment as a minister, he was the director-general/chief executive officer of the National Information Technology Development Agency. He is currently the chief digital officer of the federation based on the National Policy for Virtual Engagements in Federal Public Institutions. He has been a member of several presidential and inter-ministerial committees. He was also appointed as AfCFTA Champion for Communications and Digital Economy. Pantami is a recipient of several global awards and has delivered convocation lectures in a number of public and private universities. He has also served as a keynote speaker in leading global events like the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition in Dubai and the GSMA Africa Policy Leaders Forum, among others. He is a Champion of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP), a global initiative that helps regions accelerate economic growth and promote social progress through innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar is the minister of state for Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. He is focused on implementing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Digital India by expanding and deepening India’s tech and innovation economy and developing India as a global talent and entrepreneurship hub. In this regard, he is leading electronics system design and manufacturing, deep tech investment promotion, and technology policy development along with several initiatives like the India Semiconductor Mission and Startup India. In the early 1990s, he began his entrepreneurial journey, setting up one of India’s earliest mobile cellular networks, BPL Mobile, which he successfully exited to Hutchinson, now Vodafone, in 2005. A three-term parliamentarian, he started his political career as member of parliament in 2006, campaigning for a variety of public interest and economic growth issues, including exposing the 2G spectrum allocation scam in the telecom sector as an opposition MP, advocating for a rules-based open internet, data privacy, and interoperability. Currently, he is executing the Indian government’s mission of building a trillion-dollar tech economy by 2025-26 along with working toward making India a global skills hub.

Meenakashi Lekhi is the union minister of state for external affairs and culture in the Indian government. She started her career as a lawyer and has practiced in the Supreme Court of India as well as the Delhi High Court. She is a two-time member of parliament and has been a member of numerous parliamentary committees. She served as the chairperson of the Committee of Privileges, Committee on Public Undertakings, and Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019. She has participated in numerous international conclaves and has represented India at UN Women and Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Working Group. She also participated in the G20 Culture Ministers’ Meeting 2021. She actively supports greater participation of women in leadership roles and has been consistently calling for society to create more opportunities for the deprived sections.

Rajkumar Ranjan Singh is the minister of state for external affairs and education at the Government of India. He was sworn in as a union minister of state by the President of India. He officially took charge as minister of state for external affairs and education on 8th July 2021. He is a postgraduate in geography and earned his PhD from Gauhati University. He served in different capacities including as a lecturer, assistant professor, deputy registrar, and registrar. He also served as director in-charge of the UGC Academic Staff College and college development director of Manipur University till his superannuation in 2012. He was a senior visiting fellow in the Department of Geography in Manipur University, until he joined electoral politics in 2013. During his academic career, he also participated in several national and international consultative meetings on Human Resource Management, Security Sector Reforms, and Land and Livelihood Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Michelle Donelan was appointed as the United Kingdom’s secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport in September 2022, a role in which she is responsible for the United Kingdom’s digital strategy, including regulation and digital markets, tech policy, the UK’s Office for AI, online safety, digital infrastructure, telecoms, data policy and cyber. She was previously appointed the secretary of state for education and served as the minister of state for higher and further education from September 2021 to July 2022 as well as the minister for universities at the Department for Education. Donelan has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Chippenham in Wiltshire since 2015.

Amitabh Kant is presently India’s G20 Sherpa. A governance reformer and a public policy change agent for India, he has driven key reforms and initiatives during his tenure as the chief executive officer of NITI Aayog and secretary of the Department for Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India. He has been a key driver of flagship national initiatives such as Startup India, Make in India, Incredible India, Kerala: God’s Own Country, and the Aspirational Districts Program. Kant also served as the chairman and chief executive officer of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation, a project aimed at the development of futuristic, smart industrial cities in India. He is currently a member of the steering board of Shaping the Future of Production Systems, World Economic Forum (WEF) and a Champion of WEF’s EDISON Alliance. He is the author of several books, including Branding India-An Incredible Story. Kant has a bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi and an MA from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Sunil Bharti Mittal is the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s foremost first-generation corporations with interests in telecom, space communications, digital solutions, insurance, agri-processed foods, real estate, and hospitality. Bharti Airtel, the flagship company of Bharti Enterprises, is a leading telecommunications company with operations in seventeen countries and ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally. In 2020, Bharti Global, in partnership with the Government of U.K., acquired OneWeb, a new-age space communications company that is setting up a low earth orbit satellite system to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity to deep rural areas, maritime and aviation routes, and the defense sector across the globe. Mittal is the executive chairman of OneWeb. He is also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s highest civilian honors.

Nandan Nilekani is the co-founder and chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited. He was the founding chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India. Most recently, he has co-founded and is the chairman of EkStep, a not-for-profit effort to create a learner-centric, technology-based platform to improve basic literacy and numeracy for millions of children. Fortune conferred him with “Asia’s Businessman of the Year 2003.” Nilekani is a recipient of several awards and honors, including the Padma Bhushan in 2006. He is the author of Imagining India and the co-author of Rebooting India: Realizing a Billion Aspirations and The Art of Bitfulness: Keeping Calm in the Digital World. Nilekani received his bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Melinda Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls. As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she shapes and approves the foundation’s strategies and sets the organization’s overall direction. Through her philanthropic work over two decades, Gates has seen firsthand that empowering women and girls can transform the health and prosperity of families, communities, and societies. Her work has led her to focus increasingly on gender equity as a lever for change. In 2015, Gates founded Pivotal Ventures, a company working to accelerate the pace of social progress in the United States. She is the author of The Moment of Lift, where she talks about the inspiring women she has met during her work and travels, and her own journey of becoming an advocate for women and girls.

Ajay Kumar Sood is the principal scientific adviser to the Government of India as well as the chairperson of the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council. He also serves as a Distinguished Year of Science Professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. His research interests include the physics of nanosystems and soft matter. Sood has published more than 450 papers in peer-reviewed journals and holds several patents. He has been felicitated with numerous awards, including the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, as well as the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize and the Millennium Gold Medal of the Indian Science Congress Association. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, U.K. in 2015.  Sood has a PhD in physics from IISc Bangalore.

Nivruti Rai is the country head of Intel India and vice president of Intel Foundry Services. She heads the Automotive Solutions Group for Intel Foundry Services, providing design services and custom solutions to foundry customers. She also provides overall engineering and business unit leadership and leads operations for the India site, driving innovation, cross-group efficiencies, and execution for engineering teams. In her previous role as vice president in Intel’s Platform Engineering Group, she led teams across the United States, Costa Rica, Israel, Malaysia, and India charged with developing innovative analog and mixed-signal intellectual property (IP) blocks and subsystems for Intel’s system-on-chip products. Rai is a global leader with more than twenty-five years of technical and business leadership experience in the U.S. and India. Deeply passionate about technology and inclusion, she was recently awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar for driving technologies like AI for India's advancement. 

Harsh Vardhan Shringla is the chief coordinator of India’s G20 presidency. Prior to this, he was the foreign secretary of India. In a four-decade-long career in the Indian Foreign Service, he has served as the ambassador of India to the U.S., Bangladesh, and Thailand as well as the consul general of India in South Africa and Vietnam. He is an experienced multilateral diplomat, having served two tenures at the UN Security Council and as Permanent Representative to United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). Shringla has managed key economic diplomacy initiatives, worked on overseas Indian issues and with the diaspora, and coordinated major evacuation and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. He has an interest in conflict prevention, a subject on which he has pursued a course at Columbia University.

Oddmund Hoel currently serves as the state secretary of the Norwegian ministry of education and research. He also works as a professor in history (currently on sabbatical) at Faculty of Social Sciences, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. He previously served as an associate professor in history at Faculty of Social Sciences, Sogn og Fjordane University College. Hoel has a Candidatus philologiae degree in Scandinavian languages and literature from University of Oslo and a PhD in history from Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His academic interests include language history and revival, modern Norwegian cultural and political history, regional history, and nationalism and modernization theories.

Nick Clegg is president, global affairs at Meta. He joined the company in 2018 after spending almost two decades in British and European public life. Prior to being elected to the U.K. Parliament in 2005, he worked in the European Commission and served for five years as a member of the European Parliament. He became leader of the Liberal Democrat Party in 2007 and served as deputy prime minister in the U.K.’s first coalition government since the war, from 2010 to 2015. He has written two best-selling books, Politics: Between the Extremes and How To Stop Brexit (And Make Britain Great Again).

R.S. Sharma is the chief executive officer of the National Health Authority (under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) that implements Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, two flagship health missions of the Government of India. He is also the chairman of Empowered Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19. Sharma was the founding director-general and mission director of UIDAI and was a part of the leadership team that built and launched AADHAAR. Sharma has a deep interest in using technology for governance and has been responsible for implementing a number of projects relating to ICT infrastructure, process reengineering, and service delivery through the public-private partnership model. Sharma holds master’s degrees in mathematics and computer science from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and University of California, Riverside, respectively, as well as a PhD from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneer of India’s biotech industry and the founder of Biocon. She is the recipient of two of India's highest civilian honors, the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. She was conferred with the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 Award and appointed as the vice chair of the U.S.-India Business Council. She has many other international accolades to her credit, including the Order of Australia (Australia’s highest civilian honor), Knight of the Legion of Honour (the highest French distinction), and the Othmer Gold Award. Mazumdar-Shaw serves on the board of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pure-Tech Health, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, Infosys, and Narayana Health, in addition to holding key positions in various industry, educational, government, and professional bodies globally.

Mohandas Pai is currently the chairman of Aarin Capital and Manipal Global Education. He also serves as a governing council member of Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning promoted by the Reserve Bank of India, chairman of the Regulatory and Financial Technology Committee of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and chairman of the SEBI Primary Markets Advisory Committee. Over a career spanning 37 years, Pai has served in the areas of finance, information technology, corporate governance, social impact innovation, environmental conservation, policy formulation, heritage preservation, and the venture and startup ecosystem. He has previously served as a board member and the chief financial officer of Infosys. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India in 2015. He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore, an LLB from Bangalore University, and is a fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Raj Shukla currently serves as a member of the Union Public Service Commission. He was an officer of the Indian Army with a military career spanning over four decades. He has served two tenures at the Military Operations Directorate, where he dealt with doctrines and force structuring. He has also been the commandant of the Army War College, the Indian Army’s think tank. As the general officer commanding-in-chief of the Indian Army’s Training Command, he contributed to the development of India’s strategic military future, technological innovation, capacity building, and civil-military fusion. A professional aviator, Shukla has published more than fifty articles in journals and prominent dailies, including the Hindustan Times, the Indian Express, ThePrint, Economic Times, and the Business World. He was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal in 2021.

Tarun Chhabra serves as a special assistant to the president and senior director for technology and national security on the National Security Council (NSC) staff at the White House. He has previously served as the NSC director for strategic planning and director for human rights and national security issues during the Obama administration. He was also a senior fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University and the director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. Chhabra has worked at the Pentagon as a speechwriter for two Secretaries of Defense. He has been a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House and a graduate fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. He has a JD from Harvard Law School, an MPhil from University of Oxford, and a BA from Stanford University.

Margrethe Vestager is the executive vice president of the European Commission for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age. She previously served as the commissioner for competition at the European Commission. She has also served as the minister for economic affairs and the interior as well as the minister for education of Denmark. She held the position of the president of the ECOFIN Council during the Danish EU Presidency in 2012. She was the political leader of the Danish Social Liberal Party from 2007 to 2014 and has worked for the Danish Ministry of Finance. Vestager holds an MSc in economics from the University of Copenhagen.

Kumar Iyer is the director general, economics, science and technology at the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Previously he was the director general, delivery from September 2020 to March 2022, and before that, a director general in the Prime Minister’s COVID-19 Taskforce. He served as the British deputy high commissioner to India and Her Majesty’s trade commissioner for South Asia between 2013-2017. He has also held senior roles in the private sector with the Boston Consulting Group and Oliver Wyman, including as a partner within the financial service practice. Iyer was previously a visiting academic at Hertford College, Oxford University. He earned his postgraduate degree from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University, where he was also a teaching fellow in international finance and macroeconomics.

Christophe Kiener is the head of unit for South and South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade, a position in which he serves as the EU chief negotiator for the free trade agreements with India and Australia. Kiener previously served as the head of unit for services and digital trade, where he co-chaired the negotiations on the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and served as the EU chief negotiator in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Joint Statement Initiative on e-commerce. He has also served as deputy head of unit for WTO and as policy assistant to the deputy director-general of DG Trade. Before joining the European Commission, he was posted in Geneva as a national delegate to the WTO. Kiener is an alumnus of the University of Geneva and the College of Europe.

Chetan Krishnaswamy joined Amazon India as the vice president of public policy in 2020, after an almost seven-year stint at Google. During his time at Google, he built an exceptionally strong team, initiated many proactive partnerships with central and state governments, and strategically repositioned the company and its reputation in India across a diverse set of political and policy stakeholders. Prior to joining Google, he was the director of corporate affairs at Dell India and has also led public policy at Intel. Krishnaswamy began his career as a journalist and has worked for some of India’s most renowned publications, including the Times of India, where he headed the newspaper’s technology bureau. He graduated with a gold medal in journalism from the University of Mysore. He also has a master’s degree in English literature and an MBA from Symbiosis International University.

Sassoon Grigorian is the vice president of public policy at Salesforce, where he manages government affairs and public policy matters across Japan and the Asia-Pacific, overseeing issues relating to privacy, security, cloud computing, digital transformation, and AI, as well as working with the public sector to improve Salesforce’s services and customer experience. Prior to joining Salesforce, Grigorian worked at eBay as director of public policy for the Asia-Pacific region, where he focused on commerce and payments, removing barriers to trade, and promoting innovation and improved regulation in payments. Before joining the private sector, Grigorian served for a decade in the Government of New South Wales (NSW), Australia as an adviser to the NSW Premier and NSW Deputy Premier. He has a bachelor’s degree in politics from Macquarie University and a master’s degree in international relations from University of New South Wales. 

Sharmila Barathan is the president, government affairs & policy at General Electric (GE) South Asia. She was also a contributing author to the Third Assessment Report (Chapter 9, Working Group III) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She has over thirty-two years of international experience in policy, regulation, and climate change and has worked in thermal power generation, renewables, hydro, nuclear, water, oil and gas, grid, healthcare, aviation, and transportation. Barathan has worked as a consultant for several organizations, including the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, Embassy of Switzerland. She has also worked at The Energy Resources Institute and was a reviewer at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Barathan has master’s degrees in international affairs and econometrics from Tufts University and University of Madras, respectively. She has also received training in energy-environment modeling from Stanford University.

Ritesh Shukla is the chief executive officer of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) International Payments Limited and is responsible for formulating business strategies and leading business development by deploying NPCI's technology and solutions in international markets. His responsibilities include engaging and collaborating with traditional as well as non-traditional players in payment ecosystem to drive business strategy and achieve growth. Prior to joining NPCI, he was part of MasterCard’s business in Middle East and North Africa. During his six years with MasterCard, he performed a wide array of roles in country management, business development functions, and P/L functions to drive profitability and market share. His previous stints also include working with Visa Inc. and leading financial institutions like Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and SBI Cards in the payments business. Shukla holds a master’s degree in business administration with a specialization in international business.

Marcus Bartley Johns is the Asia regional director for government affairs and public policy for Microsoft. He works with Microsoft’s teams and stakeholders across the region to advance public policies for trusted, responsible, and inclusive digital transformation. This encompasses a wide range of issues at the intersection of technology and society, including the responsible use of artificial intelligence, privacy and data protection, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure, skills and the future of work, and the digital transformation of industries like financial services. Prior to joining Microsoft, Johns worked in public policy and economic development with the World Bank and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. As an Australian diplomat, he has had assignments at the World Trade Organisation and United Nations.

M Hari Menon leads the India office of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a role in which he is in charge of managing the foundation's work areas in India, with an objective to improve conditions of family health, sanitation, digital financial inclusion, agriculture, and gender equality. He leads these efforts to advance the country’s health and development goals by working closely with India's central and state governments, local and global non-profits, community groups, researchers, and the private sector. Menon also oversees the foundation’s work in South and Southeast Asia. Prior to his current role, he was leading the teams that focus on policy, advocacy, and program communications for global health, development, and growth and opportunity. He has, over the years, supported a wide portfolio of work in public health, especially in maternal and child health and HIV prevention. He holds a graduate degree in business management from XLRI School of Management, Jamshedpur, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Sarquis José Buainain Sarquis is the secretary for foreign trade and economic affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brazil. He joined the foreign service in 1991 and has held several positions in the field of economics, trade, and financial diplomacy. He has been a delegate to several intergovernmental meetings and conferences at the OECD, WTO, World Bank, IMF, and United Nations. During his diplomatic career, Sarquis has been posted to the Brazilian embassies in London, Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo. He has also served as vice president for risk, research, strategy, and partnerships at the New Development Bank in Shanghai. Sarquis has lectured and researched in the fields of macroeconomics, growth, development, trade, investment, and international finance, and has been the recipient of research prizes, such as the Gilbert de Botton Award in Finance Research. He holds an MSc and a PhD in economics from London School of Economics and a BSc in electronic engineering from Polytechnic School of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Jawed Ashraf currently serves as the ambassador of India to the Republic of France and Principality of Monaco. A career diplomat, Ashraf joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1991. He has served as the counsellor at the Indian embassy in Kathmandu as well as counsellor and minister for political affairs at the Indian embassy in Washington DC. He also headed the Americas division of the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi from 2010 to 2012. Ashraf subsequently served as joint secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, where his responsibilities included external affairs, defense, National Security Council, atomic energy, and space. He then served as the high commissioner of India to Singapore from 2016 to 2020. Ashraf studied economics at St. the Stephen’s College, New Delhi and business management at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar is the tenth president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former justice of the Supreme Court of California, he served two U.S. presidents at the White House and in federal agencies, and was a faculty member at Stanford University for two decades. He is a member of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cuéllar has published widely on American institutions and public law, international affairs, political economy, and technology’s impact on law and government. He chairs the board of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and serves on Harvard University’s primary governing board. In the first term of the Obama administration, he led the White House Domestic Policy Council’s teams working on civil and criminal justice, public health, immigration, and regulatory reform. He graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, and received a PhD in political science from Stanford University. 

Amandeep Singh Gill is the United Nations secretary-general’s envoy on technology and is a part of the secretary-general’s senior leadership team as the under-secretary-general. He has extensive knowledge of digital technologies coupled with an in-depth understanding of how to leverage the digital transformation responsibly and inclusively for progress on the sustainable development goals. Before taking up the position as envoy on technology, Gill was the chief executive officer of the International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative (I-DAIR) project. He has also served as the executive director and co-lead of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Gill holds a PhD in international learning from King’s College London, a BTech in electronics and electrical communications from Panjab University, and an advanced diploma in French history and language from Geneva University.

Victor Joseph T is the associate scientific secretary and director, technology development and innovation at the Indian Space Research Organization. He is an expert in the field of system engineering, project management, CAD-CAM, product life cycle management, R&D management, and strategic planning. He was instrumental in the development and successful missions of LVM3, the heavy lift launch vehicle of ISRO. He conceptualized project initiatives and handled the technical facility infrastructure developments and financial management of projects. He has taken leadership roles in ISRO for program planning and management, technology development and management, and indigenization and capacity building in space technology and societal applications. He holds master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, respectively.

Ashley J. Tellis is the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing in international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy with a special focus on Asia and the Indian subcontinent. He also serves as a counselor at the National Bureau of Asian Research and the research director of its Strategic Asia program, as well as an adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. While on assignment at the U.S. Department of State as senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for political affairs, he was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India. Prior to his government service, Tellis was senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. He is the author of Striking Asymmetries: Nuclear Transitions in Southern Asia (2022) and has contributed to numerous other publications. He holds an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago.

Melinda Claybaugh is the director of privacy policy at Meta. Her team works to achieve Meta’s vision of globally consistent privacy laws that protect people’s data while enabling innovation by driving advocacy on specific legislative proposals as well as helping design policy solutions for complicated or novel issues. She previously spent twelve years at the Federal Trade Commission, where she worked on enforcement actions related to consumer privacy and data security in the privacy and identity protection division. Claybaugh later joined the Office of International Affairs, where she specialized in international privacy policy. She represented the United States in discussions at the OECD and APEC, where she helped design global frameworks to enhance consumer privacy protections and strengthen enforcement cooperation among data protection authorities.

Keyzom Ngodup Massally is the head of digital programmes at the Chief Digital Office, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She is a passionate advisor, focusing on inclusive digital growth with a whole-of-society approach for the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Her current work entails unlocking a more equitable world by encouraging, implementing, and scaling digital public goods (DPGs) and digital public infrastructure (DPI) to tackle global dilemmas. She also steers UNDP's work on inclusive connectivity and digital capacity building.

Indrani Bagchi is the chief executive officer of Ananta Aspen Centre, India. She is also a fellow of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship Class 3 of the Ananta Aspen Centre and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She previously worked as an associate editor with the Times of India, where she reported and analyzed foreign policy issues for the newspaper. As a diplomatic editor, she covered the Ministry of External Affairs on her news beat as well as interpreted and analyzed global trends from an Indian perspective. She has worked with publications such as India Today, the Economic Times, and the Statesman. Bagchi graduated from Loreto College, Calcutta University with an honors degree in English. She was a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University in 1997. She was awarded the Chang Lin-Tien fellowship by the Asia Foundation in 2010 to study US-China relations at Brookings Institution, Washington DC.

C. Raja Mohan is a senior fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi. Earlier, he was the director of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and is currently a visiting research professor there. Mohan taught South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Mohan is one of India’s leading commentators on India’s foreign policy. He has been associated with several Indian think tanks, including the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, the Centre for Policy Research, and the Observer Research Foundation. He was also the founding director of Carnegie India, New Delhi. He has served on India’s National Security Advisory Board. He earlier served as the strategic affairs editor for the Hindu and currently writes a regular column for the Indian Express and Foreign Policy. Among his many books are Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, Modi’s World: Expanding India’s Sphere of Influence, and Asia’s New Geopolitics: Military Power and Regional Order.

Sherab Jamtsho is an IT professional in the financial sector. He is currently working as the director of IT in the Royal Monetary Authority, the central bank of Bhutan.

Aubra Anthony is a senior fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at Carnegie, where she researches the human impacts of digital technology, specifically considering social implications of the rapid evolution of digital technologies and data-driven approaches in emerging markets. Prior to joining Carnegie, she worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development. As strategy and research lead in the Innovation, Technology, and Research Hub at USAID, Aubra led a team of PhD researchers to investigate influential trends in digital development and responsible use of emerging technologies. Aubra led the development of the agency’s first-ever Digital Strategy, reflecting inputs and engagement from over 100 colleagues across more than nineteen independent D.C.-based offices and 25 USAID missions worldwide. Aubra received her PhD in physics from the University of Texas at Austin, working with a Nobel-prize-winning international neutrino physics experiment.

Kiran Gopal Vaska is the executive director of IT and coordination at the National Health Authority (NHA) for Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). He is a 2008 batch IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre and has held several administrative posts during his career. Prior to joining NHA, he extensively worked in energy and power, public health, commerce, and industry. As the managing director of National Health Mission, Madhya Pradesh, he implemented government initiatives and coordinated the efforts of various international organizations in order to improve healthcare service delivery in the state. Vaska holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and a master’s degree in public administration in international development from Harvard Kennedy School. He was also the recipient of the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. He has previously worked in various capacities at the Department of Economic Affairs, National Council of Applied Economic Research, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Centre for Policy Research. He has also served as a member NITI Aayog and the president of Indian Statistical Institute. Debroy has authored and edited several books, papers, and articles and has been a consulting/contributing editor with several newspapers. He was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, in 2015. Debroy is an alumnus of Ramakrishna Mission School, Presidency College, Kolkata, Delhi School of Economics, and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Rangita Pritish Nandy has been in the business of media and entertainment for over two decades. In her position as the creative director of Pritish Nandy Communications, she has produced and worked on content for television, cinema, and streaming, the most celebrated amongst which are Jhankaar Beats, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Pyaar Ke Side-Effects, Chameli, Shaadi Ke Side-Effects, Shabd, Kaante, and now Four More Shots Please!. Over twenty films on which she has been credited as executive producer/producer have been shown at more than eighty major international film festivals, including Berlin, Palm Springs, Washington, Telluride, Bangkok, Florence, and Prague, and have received over 350 award nominations. Based out of Mumbai, Nandy continues to create content that strategically champions women behind the scenes.

CV Madhukar is the chief executive officer of Co-Develop, leveraging more than 25 years of experience in impact investing, policy, and scaling nonprofits. He has previously served as the managing director of Omidyar Network, where he built their global work on digital identity and digital public infrastructure. His previous experience includes setting up PRS Legislative Research, working at the World Bank on issues regarding parliamentary capacity-building in various countries, and scaling some of India’s largest nonprofits, including education nonprofit Pratham. Madhukar was a Mason Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he earned his master’s degree in public administration. He also has an MBA from University of Houston and a BE from Bangalore University.

Arjun Subramaniam is the president’s chair of excellence in national security affairs at National Defence College, New Delhi. He is a retired fighter pilot who has held several operational, staff, and instructional assignments in the Indian Air Force. His current areas of focus are international and regional security, convergence of leadership ideas across domains and disciplines, contemporary Indian military history, air power, and the India-China security relationship. Subramaniam has served as a visiting fellow at Harvard Asia Center and University of Oxford, as well as a visiting faculty at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Ashoka University, and Jindal University. He was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal for distinguished service in 2011. He is the author of five books, including India’s Wars: A Military History: 1947-1971. Subramaniam has a PhD in defense and strategic studies from University of Madras.

Rajesh Bansal is the chief executive officer of Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH). He has nearly three decades of global experience in digital financial services and digital infrastructure across Asian and African markets. Bansal is one of the key architects of India’s journey from a cash to cash-lite economy by actively promoting policies, strengthening institutions, and designing new products and solutions for scale and adoption. He was a member of the founding team of AADHAAR and specifically led the design of India’s Direct Benefits Transfer system. He played a key role in creating India Stack, a digital ID-based infrastructure for a presence-less and cashless service delivery platform, and has been a member of several committees of Government of India and Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Prior to joining RBIH, he was a senior adviser at Carnegie India, where he led the centre’s Technology and Society programme. Bansal holds a master’s degree in international development policy from Duke University.

Vikram Chandra is the founder of Editorji Technologies, a startup that seeks to transform video news by innovating user experience using artificial intelligence. Chandra was one of India's best-known TV news anchors who presented shows like The Big Fight, 9 o’clock News, and Gadget Guru, as well as programs for social transformation such as Cleanathon, Greenathon and Save our Tigers. He has been named a ‘Global Leader for Tomorrow’ by the World Economic Forum in Davos and has won the Indian Television Academy Award for Best Anchor for a Talk Show, the Hero Honda Award for Best Anchorperson, and the Teacher's Achievement Award for Communication. He studied at University of Oxford and St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, as well as the Mass Media Institute at Stanford University. 

Rohit Satish is an engineer with experience across technology, business, and government policy. He is currently the program lead at AI and Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK), Indian Institute of Science, leading the healthcare data science initiatives. He has previously undertaken various engineering and product management roles in the private sector, founded a startup in the healthcare technology space, and served as a senior fellow at the Wadhwani Institute of Artificial Intelligence. He joined the frontier technologies vertical at NITI Aayog in 2019 and has led some of their major technology pilots, including the National Data Analytics Platform and the evaluation framework for face recognition technologies for DigiYatra, a platform for managing logistics during the pandemic. He has also been closely involved in drafting the National Approach Paper on Responsible AI, a two-part document released by NITI Aayog. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Rajeev Jyoti is currently the director of IN-SPACe Technical. He has previously served as an associate director of Space Applications Centre at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), where he designed and developed indigenous microwave payload technologies and state-of-art space antenna systems for various ISRO satellites. He has fourteen patents and more than 170 papers to his name. His major accomplishments include the development of India’s first constellation of three RADAR Imaging X band satellites (RISAT2B) for disaster applications. He is a fellow member of Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE), senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the founder-chair of the IEEE chapter in Gujarat. He is a recipient of the IETE’s Raj Mitra award, IEEE Indian Council’s Outstanding Industry award, and ISRO’s Performance Excellence award, among others.

David van Duren is the director of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE) Secretariat since its official launch in 2015. In 2014, van Duren played a highly significant role in the realization of the Global Conference on Cyber Space 2015 in the Hague, Netherlands. Between 2010 and 2014, he was responsible for the realization of the Dutch National Cyber Security Strategy, Dutch National Cyber Security Centre, Division of Cyber Security Policy, and Second Dutch National Cyber Security Strategy. Van Duren has an MSc degree in economics and psychology.

Lavanya Ashok is a general partner at Trifecta Capital, a position in which she led the launch of the firm's growth equity investing business. In the past two years, Trifecta Capital has set up a $250 million growth equity fund and made investments in ten category-leading tech companies. Ashok has seventeen years of investing and investment banking experience. She was previously the managing director of Goldman Sachs (GS) Principal Investing, where she was responsible for deploying funds from GS’ balance sheet and $8 billion global private equity fund in India. Earlier in her career, she also worked at SPO Partners, a value-investing-oriented hedge fund in California managing $10 billion, and Goldman Sachs in New York. Ashok has a BS in economics and finance from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford University.

Audrey Plonk is the head of the digital economy policy division of the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a position in which she is responsible for implementing the program of work of two committees — the Committee on Digital Economy Policy and the Committee for Consumer Policy — as well as the management of STI’s digital economy division. Plonk has previously served as the senior director of global security policy at Intel Corporation, where she led a global team of policy experts focused on connectivity, data, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving policy issues. She specialized in China cyber policy and advised Intel business and product teams on China strategy. She has also served as a consultant at the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Division, where she led work on international cooperation in cyberspace and cybersecurity. Plonk holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University.

Basant Garg is the additional chief executive officer of the National Health Authority (NHA), where he is in charge of policy formulation, design, and implementation of flagship healthcare schemes of the government of India—Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Prior to his role at NHA, Garg served as the private secretary to the minister of state for commerce and industry. He was also the chief executive officer of Smart City Jalandhar, where he spearheaded many smart city features, such as the Swachch Bharat Mission for solid waste management. At the field level, he has been responsible for critical government interventions concerning socio-economic development, including those in public health. Garg is a qualified doctor with a degree from the Government Medical College, Chandigarh. He also has a master’s degree in economics.

Lindy Cameron became the chief executive officer of the National Cyber Security Centre in October 2020 following more than two decades of experience in national security policy and crisis management. She was previously a director-general in the Northern Ireland Office and at the Department for International Development. After starting her career in the private sector, Cameron served across governments both at home and abroad, including postings in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Sumit Seth is a career diplomat and a member of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). He currently heads the foreign policy planning division at the Ministry of External Affairs. Earlier, he served as the deputy chief of mission in Yangon, Myanmar. He has also been posted at India’s missions in Madrid, Bogota, and UN, Geneva. His areas of interests include neighborhood diplomacy, health diplomacy, Indo-Pacific and foreign policy planning, digital diplomacy, and international relations. Before joining the IFS, Seth worked as a doctor and specialized in forensic medicine and medical jurisprudence. Seth has an advanced diploma in Spanish and has attended academic programs in international relations at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Elliott School of International Affairs.

Amritpal Singh Bindra founded Still and Still Media Collective in 2013 with his partner Anand Tiwari, where he has produced a number of successful web series including “Sex Chat with Pappu and Papa” for YRF and “Girl in the City, Chapters 1, 2, and 3” for Disney’s Bindass. The collective’s first feature film, Love Per Square Foot, which was co-produced by Bindra in association with Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP, was the first Bollywood film to release on Netflix. He has previously worked as a development executive in the story department at 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, as well as in the marketing and distributions teams at Fox International Productions. Upon his return to India, Bindra started working as an assistant director with UTV Motion Pictures and has worked on projects like No One Killed Jessica and Barfi. He is a postgraduate in fine arts from New York Film Academy.

Venkat Subramanian is the product lead for open digital healthcare ecosystems at Google Research. He is committed to promoting inclusive and holistic health equity by leveraging technologies that empower the population, healthcare workers, and administrators. Prior to joining Google Research, Subramanian led product and platform development across data, databases, analytics, and AI/ML in a career that spans close to two decades. He has successfully completed many zero-to-one transitions in organizations of varied sizes and cultures, such as Oracle, Atlassian, Couchbase, and a handful of startups. Subramanian holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering and enjoys exploring topics that center on technology for social good. 

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a pioneering physician, oncologist, and author who is best known for his books, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, which earned him the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene: An Intimate History, which won international awards and was recognized by the Washington Post and the New York Times as one of the most influential books of 2016. Mukherjee’s achievements as a writer and educator build upon his career as a medical scholar. His innovative research into the composition and behavior of cancer cells signals a paradigm shift in cancer pathology and has enabled the development of treatments that reach beyond current pharmaceutical models toward new biological and cellular therapies. He writes for the New Yorker and the New York Times, among other publications, and has received numerous awards for his scientific work.

Gaurav Gandhi is currently the vice president of Prime Video India. He has led the expansion of the content portfolio of the streaming service across ten languages, taken it deep into the country with audiences across 99% of India’s pin codes, brought live sports to the service, and created a video entertainment marketplace. He also serves as co-chair of the OTT and digital content sub-committee of Confederation of Indian Industry. Prior to Amazon, Gandhi worked with companies such as Viacom18, NDTV Imagine, and STAR India in various leadership roles. He moved into the video streaming space in 2015 and launched Viacom 18’s streaming service VOOT. Gaurav has a bachelor’s degree in commerce from University of Delhi and an MBA in advertising and communication management from NMIMS Mumbai.

Bhupen Wakankar leads Amazon’s global selling program in India that has over 100,000 Indian exporters selling millions of “Made in India” products to customers globally. His team is focused on creating technology that makes it easier for Indian entrepreneurs to export their products to 200 countries and territories across the world. Wakankar joined Amazon in 2015 to lead the company’s India delivery experience. His team launched the Amazon Prime program and one-day, same-day, and sub-same-day delivery offerings as well as eco-friendly package consolidation programs like Amazon Day. He has over twenty years of experience in strategy, technology, and product management across the U.S., EU, and India. He holds an MBA from Wharton School and a BTech from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. 

Anita Prakash is the senior policy adviser in the office of the president of Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), Jakarta. Her policy research supports the summits and ministerial processes of the region, notably the Trade Ministers’ meetings in ASEAN, East Asia Summit, Asia-Europe Meeting, and the T20 and Sherpa track in G20. Her policy research covers international trade, multilateral governance, and international relations with special focus on trade and investment, global value chains and connectivity in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and between Asia-Europe and Asia-Africa. Her current research work is on emerging economic architecture and supply chains in the Indo-Pacific. Prior to her work at ERIA, she served as a director in the Department of Commerce, Government of India, and NITI Aayog. Prakash has an MPhil from University of Delhi and an MBA from Australian National University.

Mrinmayee Bhushan is the founder-director of Mindfarm Novatech Private Limited. She is a biologist, innovator, entrepreneur, and policy analyst with twenty-three years of varied industry experience in scientific research, pharmaceutical chemistry and regulations, international policy analysis, and international disarmament and non-proliferation treaties, among other fields. She has seven patents to her name, both national and international. Bhushan has served as a consultant on intellectual property domain as well as chemical and bio-security for various organizations. She is a regular contributor to peer-reviewed scientific and policy journals. Bhushan has a PhD in medical pharmacology, a master’s diploma in pharma management, and an MSc in microbiology.

Jaime Yassif serves as the vice president of Nuclear Threat Initiative’s Global Biological Policy and Programs (NTI | bio) division. In this role, she oversees NTI | bio’s work to reduce global catastrophic biological risks, strengthen biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, and drive progress in advancing global health security. Prior to this, she served as a program officer at the Open Philanthropy Project, where she led the initiative on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. She has also served as a science and technology policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she focused on the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and East Asia security issues. Yassif holds a PhD in biophysics from UC Berkeley, an MA in science and security from the War Studies Department of King’s College London, and a BA in biology from Swarthmore College.

Sarah Kemp is the vice president of international government affairs at Intel. A global policy expert with decades of experience, she has worked as the associate vice president (AVP) of global health policy/ESG strategy for Organon and the AVP of public policy for Asia-Pacific and Emerging Markets at Merck. Kemp has also served as the deputy undersecretary for the International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. She oversaw a $485 million annual budget and 2,100 trade and investment professionals based in 108 US cities and seventy-six markets worldwide. Before her time in D.C., she was the minister counselor for commercial affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and had postings in Hanoi, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. Kemp received her MBA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, her MPA from Columbia University, and her BA from Hamilton College.

Anantha S. is the director of government affairs and public policy for India at the Intel Corporation. He is also a nonresident scholar with Carnegie India. He has over twenty-three years of experience in the technology industry, and half of it has been in the areas of government affairs and public policy advocacy. Based out of New Delhi, he works on a spectrum of policy issues related to R&D, manufacturing, and adoption of emerging technologies in India. He leads many of the large initiatives in partnership with industry and academia, and spends time in advocacy in the areas of next-generation technologies like 5G, AI, drones, and autonomous systems. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Kerala and an MBA from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Ila Patnaik is the group chief economist at the Aditya Birla Group. She was previously a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy for sixteen years. She has also served as the principal economic adviser to the Government of India, where she conceptualized the Economic Survey of India 2013-14. She has been an associate for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting scholar to International Monetary Fund, Washington. Earlier in her career, Patnaik has worked as a senior economist at National Council for Applied Economic Research and as a senior fellow at Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations. She has written extensively for various publications such as the Indian Express, Financial Express, and Business Standard. Patnaik has a PhD in economics from University of Surrey and a master’s degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Ralf Sauer is the deputy head of International Data Flows and Protection in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers at the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm. He has been one of the key negotiators of the EU-US Privacy Shield and its successor, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, as well as the adequacy arrangements with Japan and Korea. He has also led the European Commission’s work on the new model clauses for data protection contracts (Standard Contractual Clauses). At the multilateral level, Sauer has represented the European Commission at the negotiations on the modernization of Council of Europe Convention 108, the only binding global agreement on data protection, and on the Second Additional Protocol to the Cybercrime (Budapest) Convention. He holds an LLM and a PhD from Yale Law School.

Mathai Geevarghese Vaidyan is the senior advisor at Tata Trusts, where he has been heading financial inclusion since 2017. He is also engaged in the organization’s mission to sustainably impact the lives of millions of people. He is also the former deputy managing director of State Bank of India and has nearly forty years of varied experience in banking and financial services in India, the U.S., and Africa. He was project leader of SBI Tiny, India’s first biometric cards for opening of bank accounts and a precursor to AADHAAR.  He also spearheaded the nationwide launch of Dhan Jan Yojana. He has worked with the government and Reserve Bank of India for rural development and financial inclusion. He did his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in India and his PhD in business administration from the U.S. He has also attended executive management programs at IIMs, Harvard University, and University of Oxford. 

Susmita Mohanty is a spaceship designer and entrepreneur. She is the only space entrepreneur in the world to have co-founded space companies on three different continents: EARTH2ORBIT (Bangalore), LIQUIFER (Vienna), and MOONFRONT (San Francisco). She is also a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council for Space Technologies. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, she worked for the International Space Station Program at Boeing and did a short stint at NASA Johnson. In 2021, Mohanty launched Spaceport SARABHAI, India’s first dedicated space think tank. In 2019, she was selected as one of BBC’s 100 women laureates crafting a female-led future. In 2017, she was featured on the cover of Fortune. Educated in India, France, and Sweden, Mohanty holds multiple degrees, including a PhD.

Sagar Sharma is the chief of staff at the India Semiconductor Mission. He played a key role in the strategy and policy for the development of the semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem and setting up the India Semiconductor Mission. In his previous assignment at the ministry of education, Sharma researched and analyzed various policies (including National Education Policy 2020), schemes, and statutes to suggest possible policy-level interventions for better outcomes and service delivery. He has also worked with TCS Innovations lab and National Center for Excellence in Technology for Internal Security. Sharma is an alumnus of IIT Bombay and believes in diversifying science and has worked extensively to promote scientific temperament, STEM skills, and hands-on skills by co-founding a non-profit, VigyanShaala International.

Deepak Bagla is currently the managing director and chief executive officer of Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency promoted by the Government of India. He has a professional career of over three decades and has worked with organizations like the World Bank and Citibank. He has also served on the investment committee of the Indian government’s Fund of Funds for Start-ups and is on the advisory board of the government’s $7 billion Fund of Funds for MSMEs. He is also a special invitee to the Prime Minister’s Science Technology and Innovation Advisory Council. Bagla has a bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi and a dual masters in international diplomacy and international trade and finance from Georgetown University.

Ravi Agrawal is the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy (FP) magazine and a frequent commentator on world affairs on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC. He is the host of the podcast Global Reboot. Before joining FP, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade in full-time roles spanning three continents, including as the network’s New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. Agrawal has shared a Peabody Award and three Emmy nominations for his work as a TV producer, and his writing for FP was part of a series nominated for a 2020 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary. Agrawal is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

Sandeep Chakravorty is the joint secretary (Europe west) at the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, where he is responsible for relations with ten European countries and the EU. He is currently working, inter alia, on a better European portfolio in the Indo-Pacific. He has previously served as the consul general of India in New York and the ambassador of India to Peru and Bolivia. Chakravorty has also worked as India’s deputy chief of mission in Bangladesh. He holds a master’s degree in advanced studies in international and European security from University of Geneva, a master’s degree in sociology, a postgraduate diploma in forestry management, and an undergraduate degree in physics from University of Delhi.

R.K. Misra is a nonresident scholar at Carnegie India. He drives Carnegie India’s Technology and Society program and engages with technology innovators and policymakers. His research focuses on the use of technology for urban planning and transportation, sustainable living, and the future of smart cities. He also plays a pivotal role in organizing Carnegie India’s annual Global Technology Summit. Misra is the founding director of the Center for SMART Cities, a knowledge bank and repository of best practices in the areas of technology-driven planning and management of Smart Cities. In 2006, he founded SAHYOG—Indian Council for Public Private Partnership, a pilot-to-policy social initiative to provide “Livelihood Opportunities for Rural Poor.” Misra is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and a postgraduate from Tokyo University. He is a fellow of Leaders in Development program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a global leadership fellow at the Aspen Institute.

Rahul Handa currently leads the strategic initiatives division at Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), where he is responsible for the seamless execution of ONDC’s business vision. Before joining ONDC, he led the project and program management practice for India and the Middle East at Cognizant and subsequently went on to work as a consulting partner (retail and consumer goods) at the company. Handa has also worked with Ernst & Young (leading IT transformation) and Gartner Consulting in the past.

Matt Sheehan is a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research covers global technology issues with a focus on China. His research projects explore China’s artificial intelligence ecosystem, the future of Chinese technology policy, and the role of technology in China’s political economy. Sheehan has lived and worked in China, including as the first China correspondent for the World Post. After returning from China, he worked as a fellow at Paulson Institute's think tank, MacroPolo, where he led research on Chinese technology issues. In 2018, he was selected as a finalist for the Young China Watcher of the Year award. Sheehan is the author of The Transpacific Experiment: How China and California Collaborate and Compete for our Future (2019). His writing has been published by the Atlantic, VICE, WIRED, and Bloomberg. Sheehan reads, writes, and speaks Mandarin Chinese.

Srinath Raghavan is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India. He is also a professor of international relations and history at Ashoka University. His primary research focus is on the contemporary and historical aspects of India’s foreign and security policies. He has previously served as a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research, senior research fellow at the India Institute of King’s College London, and member of the National Security Advisory Board. Raghavan has written several books spanning international relations, strategic studies, and modern South Asian history, the most recent being The Most Dangerous Place: A History of the United States in South Asia (2018). His work has been published in multiple scholarly journals and he currently writes for the Print. He was awarded the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for his outstanding contribution to strategic studies in 2011 and the prestigious Infosys Prize (Social Sciences) in 2015.

Konark Bhandari is an associate fellow at Carnegie India. He is a lawyer whose research focuses on the digital economy—primarily on the approaches to antitrust regulation of companies in the digital realm. Earlier, he worked at India’s antitrust regulator—the Competition Commission of India (CCI). He is also an avid follower of the regulation of space technology ecosystem and is keen to contribute to that discipline. Prior to joining Carnegie India, Bhandari was a fellow at the Centre for the Digital Future, where he contributed to the discourse on comparative regulation of technology platform firms. His previous experience includes several years with the global law firm Rajah & Tann Asia in Singapore, where he worked in their South Asia Practice Group and the Telecom, Media and Technology (TMT) team. He holds an LLM in Corporate and Financial Services Law from the National University of Singapore and a BA, LLB degree from the Symbiosis Law School, Pune.

Shruti Sharma is a senior research analyst with the Technology and Society Program at Carnegie India, where she is currently working on exploring the challenges and opportunities in leveraging biotechnology to improve public health capacity in India. Liaising closely with stakeholders from across the scientific and academic community and representatives from the private sector and the government, Sharma is working on a paper that discusses the challenges each of these communities faced during the pandemic and the role of government and private sector in establishing a robust and sustainable research ecosystem. Prior to this, Sharma was working on Indian perspectives on biotech security risks. As part of this, she examined India's vulnerability to naturally occurring diseases and infections occurring due to accidental mishaps, and deliberate weaponization of technology to develop biological weapons. She holds a master’s degree in biotechnology from Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Noida.

Michael Nelson is a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Technology and International Affairs Program. Prior to joining Carnegie, he started the global public policy office for Cloudflare. Nelson has also served as a principal technology policy strategist in Microsoft’s Technology Policy Group, before which he was a senior technology and telecommunications analyst with Bloomberg Government. Nelson has been teaching courses and doing research on the future of the internet, cyber policy, technology policy, innovation policy, and e-government in the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program at Georgetown University. He has also served as chairman of the Information, Communication, and Computing Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was selected to be a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum.

Vrinda Kapoor is a deep technology entrepreneur with a focus on lab-to-market innovation. She is the chief executive officer and co-founder of 3rdiTech, India's first image sensor (semiconductor) product company. An avid activist for lab-to-market innovation and the intersection of deep tech and national security, she writes frequently on the topic and has been invited to speak at conferences and as an industry panelist at various government forums across the world. She works closely with governments, military leadership, and prime contractors on matters related to policy, product development, and requirement identification. In 2020 and 2022, she was selected to present her work to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a pioneer entrepreneur in disruptive technologies. In 2019, Kapoor was given an award by the Indian Army for her outstanding contribution to enhance the army’s operational capabilities by the then Chief of Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat. 

Kamya Chandra specializes in the design and implementation of digital public infrastructure to power financial inclusion and economic growth via identity, payments, data sharing, and access to credit. She advises the Indian Ministry of Finance on the rollout of the Account Aggregator framework, which has scaled up to enable consented data sharing for over 1.1 billion bank accounts. She has previously worked for iSPIRT Foundation, the World Bank’s Digital Identification for Development initiative focused on the West Africa region, and the Boston Consulting Group in London. She is currently pursuing a certificate at Harvard Kennedy School of Government on leading economic growth and holds an MPA in international development from London School of Economics as well as a BA in economics and political science.

Sachin Chaturvedi is currently the director general at Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a New Delhi-based think tank. He works on issues related to development economics, involving development finance, SDGs and south-south cooperation, apart from trade, investment, and innovation linkages with a special focus on WTO. He also serves as the vice chairman of Madhya Pradesh State Policy and Planning Commission and is a member of the board of governors of Reserve Bank of India. Chaturvedi was a global justice fellow at the MacMillan Center for International Affairs at Yale University, visiting fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, and visiting scholar at the German Development Institute. His book The Logic of Sharing – Indian Approach to South-South Cooperation has been acclaimed internationally as one of the best volumes on international development cooperation.

Joshua T. White is an associate professor of the practice of South Asia studies at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington and a nonresident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at The Brookings Institution. He previously served at the White House as the senior advisor and the director for South Asian affairs at the National Security Council. Prior to joining the White House, he was a senior associate and co-director of the South Asia program at The Stimson Center and, previously, senior advisor for Asian and Pacific security affairs at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College with a double major in history and mathematics and received his PhD with distinction from Johns Hopkins SAIS.

Saurabh Garg is currently serving as the chief executive officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India. He is an IAS officer and has worked in the Departments of Expenditure and Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India and as an adviser at the World Bank. Garg has worked in areas like digitalizing agriculture, direct income transfer scheme for farmers, formation of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), improving the foreign direct investment policies, preparing the framework for digital payments, and revamping gold sector policies. Garg holds a PhD in international economics and development from Johns Hopkins University, an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a BTech from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He was a Chevening Gurukul scholar at London School of Economics.

Colin Reed is a leading geopolitical risk advisor working in the U.S. technology sector, specializing in strategic intelligence and global planning for businesses and executives. In his current role at Salesforce, he works within the Intelligence Center of Excellence to identify, assess, and inform senior Salesforce leaders on emerging topics of geopolitical and economic significance. He also cofounded and chairs Salesforce’s internal Geopolitical Strategy Council, where he brings together business unit leaders from across the company’s global operations to discuss emerging geopolitical themes and helps shape Salesforce’s global posture. Reed previously worked for the U.S. government and engages regularly with industry groups and security professional associations on the intersectionality of multinational business and international affairs.

Chris Miller is the associate professor of international history at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, where his research focuses on technology, geopolitics, economics, international affairs, and Russia. He is the author of Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology, which is a geopolitical history of the computer chip, and of three other books on Russia—Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia, We Shall Be Masters: Russia's Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin, and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR. He has previously served as the associate director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale, a lecturer at the New Economic School in Moscow, a visiting researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a research associate at the Brookings Institution, and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Academy. He received his PhD and MA from Yale University and his BA in history from Harvard University.

Ashutosh Chadha is currently responsible for public policy and government affairs at Microsoft India, where he works closely with key audiences in the government, academia, industry, and multilaterals to help frame policies that enable deepening of the usage of technology, driving digital inclusion and growth, and ensuring innovation and safety of the digital ecosystem. He has worked at companies like Mastercard, Wipro, Intel India, Shell India, NIIT, and National Dairy Development Board. Chadha is a regular speaker at national and international fora hosted by organizations like the World Bank, World Trade Organization, UNICEF, and UNESCO on topics ranging from corporate affairs, public policy, education, CSR, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is a management graduate from Institute of Rural Management, Anand.

Siddharth Tiwari is a global policy maker who has served as the chief representative for the Bank for International Settlements in Hong Kong and the executive secretary of the G20 Eminent Persons Group in Singapore. At various phases during his career, he has been responsible for spearheading efforts to adapt existing business models with advances in technology, leading the strategy and design of global financial architecture in shaping institutional responses to mitigate the adverse impact of COVID–19 and climate change, directing policy, and lending operations. His career in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) included assignments in the positions of director of strategy policy and review, secretary of the IMF, chief of staff for the managing director, and head of country operations in Africa, among others. Tiwari holds a PhD in economics from University of Chicago, an MSc from London School of Economics, and a BA from University of Delhi.

Ashok Malik is a partner at The Asia Group (TAG) and the chair of its New Delhi-based subsidiary in India, where he leads the firm’s in-market business strategy and services. Prior to joining TAG, Malik served for three years as policy advisor/additional secretary in India’s Ministry of External Affairs. In this capacity, he worked closely with the senior leadership of the ministry to help shape and explain India’s foreign policy in a crucial and eventful period for the international system. Between 2017 and 2019, Malik served as the principal speech writer and spokesperson for the president of India. Before entering the government, he was a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. He began his career in the news media, serving in senior editorial positions in leading Indian publications. In 2016, he was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour.

Kunal Bhardwaj is a partner at The Rainmaker Group and has spent more than fifteen years across traditional fast-moving consumer goods firms and scaling unicorn tech startups. He has headed business at the publicly listed DFM Foods, built a $100 million GTM for Marico’s expansion into India, scaled the foods business under the Saffola portfolio, and led business at Ninjacart, one of India’s largest agritech firms, and a unicorn startup, OYO. Bhardwaj is an alumnus of Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology and Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.

Vyjayanti Desai is the practice manager for the global ID4D and G2Px teams at the World Bank. She leads these two global, multi-sectoral efforts that support countries in designing and implementing a digital stack of digital ID, trusted data sharing, and digitization of G2P programs. These initiatives support clients with advice and financing in approximately 50 countries, advances thought leadership on the topics of digital identity and digitizing G2P payments, and accelerates global public goods together with other partners. Desai also serves as the practice manager of the Digital Development Global Practice in South Asia, where she manages a team that works on and oversees a portfolio of work in South Asia aimed at closing the digital divide for client countries and harnessing the potential of digital transformation.

Assane Gueye is an associate teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University Africa. He is also the co-director of CyLab-Africa and the director of Upanzi Digital Public Goods Network. Assane holds a guest researcher position with the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). He previously was a faculty member at the University Alioune Diop of Bambey, Senegal. Assane completed his PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences from UC Berkeley in 2011. He received a master’s degree in communication systems engineering from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. His research focuses on performance evaluation and security communication systems and information and communication technologies for development. Assane is a fellow of the Next Einstein Forum (2016) as well as the European Alliance for Innovation Inaugural Class (2019) and a member of the Science Advisory Committee of the Future Africa Research Leadership Fellowship. He received CMU’s College of Engineering Dean’s Early Career Fellowship in 2022.

Anirudh Suri is a nonresident scholar with Carnegie India. His interests lie at the intersection of technology and geopolitics, climate, and strategic affairs. He is currently exploring how India is carving and cementing its role in the global tech ecosystem and the role climate technology can play in addressing the global climate challenge. He is the author of The Great Tech Game: Shaping Geopolitics and the Destinies of Nations (2022) and is currently the managing partner at India Internet Fund. Previously, he has worked with the government of India in New Delhi, McKinsey and Company in New York, Goldman Sachs in London, and China Institute of International Studies in Beijing. Suri completed his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, his MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, and holds a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Haverford College, Pennsylvania.

Kathleen McGowan served as a diplomat and digital development expert with the U.S. government for two decades. Notably, McGowan drove the shift across United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.S. Treasury to proactively support safe and trusted digital financial services worldwide, working with the governments of some of the most vulnerable countries, including Haiti and Afghanistan. She has deep expertise in policy and a track record of conceptualizing and launching enduring partnerships, including the United Nation’s Better Than Cash Alliance and Smart Africa’s peer learning network for digital policymakers.

Samantha Hoffman is a senior analyst at International Cyber Policy Centre, Australian Strategic Policy Institute and an independent consultant. Her work has helped shape global approaches to understanding challenges posed by the Chinese party-state's harnessing of technology for security and propaganda purposes. Hoffman has an independent consultancy where she offers tailored briefings and research to private sector clients and governments, including the U.S. Department of Defense. She has publicly testified in the United States Congress, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and the European Parliament. She has been frequently quoted in international media outlets like the BBC, New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Guardian. Hoffman holds a PhD in politics and international Relations from the University of Nottingham, an MSc in modern Chinese studies from the University of Oxford, a BA in international affairs from Florida State University, and a BA in Chinese language and culture from Florida State University.

Carsten Maple is the principal investigator of the NCSC-EPSRC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research and a professor of cyber systems engineering at the University of Warwick. He is also a co-investigator of the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity, where he leads transport and mobility.  He is a fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, U.K.’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, where he is a principal investigator on a $5 million project developing trustworthy national identity to enable financial inclusion. Maple has an international research reputation and extensive experience of institutional strategy development and interacting with external agencies. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers and has given evidence to government committees on a variety of issues concerning safety, security, privacy, and identity. He currently sits on two working groups of the Royal Society.

Sanket Atal has been instrumental in driving the next phase of growth for Salesforce in India, making it a global hub for talent and innovation. Atal has a great passion for the startup ecosystem and has conceived of and launched the Salesforce Startup Program in India. He is the executive sponsor for Outforce, Philanthropy, Trailhead, and Sustainability in India. Prior to Salesforce, he was with Intuit, where he played a strategic role to further its mission of “powering prosperity around the world,” strengthening Intuit’s position in India to ensure it is future-ready to take advantage of game-changing opportunities. Under his leadership, Intuit was ranked first in the Great Places to Work ranking as well as one of the best places for women and people in the LGBTQ+ community to work at. He has also worked at Oracle, MakeMyTrip, CA Technologies, Informix Corp, and Sequent Computer Inc. Atal holds an MBA from the University of Oregon and an MS in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He completed dual bachelor’s degrees in computer science and mathematics from Cornell University.

Taranjeet Singh Bhamra is the founder and chief executive officer of AgNext Technologies, an award-winning venture-capital-backed company that is working on trust and transparency in global value chains using AI-based solutions for enabling quality-based assessments. Prior to founding AgNext, Bhamra served as a business solutions manager at the M.H. Alshaya Group, one of the world's leading brand franchise operators. He has also served as an associate director at KPMG, where his role was instrumental in driving growth for the business intelligence and business solutions vertical from scratch and facilitating the organization's geographic expansion across the Middle East and Europe. Bhamra is a graduate of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Varad Pande is currently a partner at Omidyar Network India, where he leads strategy, impact, and new initiatives, including the sustainability and climate change and digital public goods agendas. He was previously a partner and Asia leader at Dalberg, a global strategic advisory firm. Pande has served as an officer on special duty to India's Minister for Environment and Rural Development, where he drove India’s agenda on sustainable livelihoods and digitizing government payments. He led the creation of the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellowship. He has also served as the principal adviser to Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee in the run up to the creation of the sustainable development goals. Pande holds an MPA in international development from Harvard Kennedy School, an MA in economics from University of Cambridge, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Stephens College, University of Delhi.

Neeraj Sinha is a senior adviser in the science and technology vertical at NITI Aayog, where he has contributed to the continued implementation of the Atal Innovation Mission and has also guided the preparation of the Memorandum for the Expenditure Finance Committee on the use of methanol as an alternative fuel, among other projects. Sinha has previously worked at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) on new and upcoming technologies like electric vehicles, alternative fuel vehicles, hydrogen energy, and geothermal energy. After his stint at the MNRE, he joined the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, where he had been involved in a wide cross-section of scientific activities, including oil spill management, underground coal gasification, explosive detection, and integrated gasification combined cycle for coal-based power generation, among numerous others. Sinha has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Regional Engineering College, Surat.

Abhishek Singh is an officer of the 1995 batch of IAS with diverse experience of governance and policy formulation with regard to use of technology for improving governance. He is presently posted as the president and chief executive officer of the National eGovernance Division. He is also the managing director and chief executive officer of Digital India Corporation as well as the chief executive officer of MyGov and Karmayogi Bharat. He has done his master’s degree in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a Mason fellow in May 2013. He has a BTech and MTech in mechanical engineering from IIT Kanpur.

Sarayu Natarajan is the founder of Aapti Institute that works on questions at the intersection of technology and society, such as inclusion, access, governance of technologies, and data governance, through its two labs, the Digital Public Lab and the Data Economy Lab. Natarajan has a PhD in political science from King's College London, an MPA from School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and a BA LLB (Hons) from the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. She has previously worked at McKinsey and Company, Elevar Equity, and Gray Matters Capital.

Awais Ahmed is the founder and chief executive officer of Pixxel, a space technology startup building a constellation of high-resolution hyperspectral imaging small satellites. These cutting-edge hyperspectral satellites will measure the health of our planet every twenty-four hours at a 50x higher detail compared to other satellite constellations. Ahmed founded Pixxel in 2019 at the age of 21 years while still pursuing undergraduate studies in India, with the vision of establishing a global space company working on bringing the benefits of space down to earth. Ahmed was previously one of the founding members and the engineering lead at Hyperloop India, the only Indian and one of the twenty-four global finalist teams in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, where they built India's first-ever hyperloop pod and presented it to Elon Musk.

Jason Hsu is a senior fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School. From 2016 to 2020, Hsu serves as legislator at-large in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, the national parliament, where he oversaw technology, defense, and foreign policy. His research at Harvard focuses on semiconductor supply chain and geopolitics. His contribution is recognized in various high-level national working groups on semiconductor supply chain resilience and geopolitical strategies. He has been selected as an Eisenhower Fellow 2022.

Steven Haley has been leading diverse mission-driven teams and stakeholders across twenty years and ten countries in government, non-profit, and private sectors, with experience in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, leading teams as large as 350 people.  He has worked in sectors ranging from payments to impact investing to humanitarian assistance to digital finance product management.  He is passionate about building an equitable society by focusing on fair and equitable financial services. With the Mojaloop Foundation, Haley helps governments, hub operators, and financial institutions build more inclusive financial ecosystems through last mile-focused interoperable instant payment systems. He helps national champions develop the stakeholder alignment required to plan and drive multi-year complex transformational Mojaloop-enabled projects. Haley holds a bachelor’s Degree in applied mathematics from West Point and a master’s degree in theoretical mathematics from the University of Padova.

Juliet Wangui Maina is the regulatory and public policy senior manager at M-PESA Africa. She has previously worked with Policy Impact Partners, a global firm that provides bespoke policy advisory support to private players in the ICT sector, and with the mobile money team at GSMA. Maina has also facilitated several CPD sessions with the Law Society of Kenya and training at the African Advanced Level Telecommunications Institute (AFRALTI) for ICT sector regulators. She has experience working at the ICT regulator in Kenya and Pygma Consulting, an ICT consulting firm in South Africa. Maina received her LLB with honours from the University of Birmingham in 2010 and later completed a master’s program in ICT policy and regulation (with distinction) at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

HSD Srinivas is a healthcare management professional with over thirty years of experience in hospital and pre-hospital setups in the nonprofit sector. As the project director for health systems at Tata Trusts, he has prioritized building replicable and scalable models of healthcare delivery by leveraging existing and emerging technologies to overcome supply side constraints in the primary and preventive care domain. Srinivas has previously worked with the Reliance Foundation, initiating and developing their Mumbai outreach program that connected over fifty underserved areas of Mumbai to the foundation’s flagship hospital. Srinivas was selected by Harvard Business School to undergo a fully funded long-term executive education program in healthcare strategy. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Osmania University and an MBA from Sri Sathya Sai University.

Sopnendu Mohanty, currently serving as the chief fintech officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, is responsible for creating development strategies, public infrastructure, and policies around technology-driven innovation. He has over two decades of public and private sector experience in technology, operations, digital finance, and investment strategies. Mohanty extensively engages with global technology and financial services ecosystems and has championed notable collaborative public goods like API exchange, Singapore FinTech Festival, payment rails, and data exchange platforms as well as experimental programs like UBIN. In addition, he advises many international global advisory bodies on fintech, innovation, and inclusion. Mohanty has co-authored several patented works about the application of digital technology in finance.

Lauren Kahn is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where her work focuses on defense innovation and the impact of emerging technologies on international security, with a particular emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI). Prior to joining CFR, Kahn worked as a research fellow at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s global policy think tank, where she helped launch and run its project on emerging technologies and global politics.

Vijay Gokhale is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India. He has served as the foreign secretary of India from 2018-20, India’s high commissioner to Malaysia, and ambassador of India to Germany and China. During his time in the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs, he has also worked in key positions in the East Asia Division. He has worked extensively on matters relating to the Indo-Pacific region with a special emphasis on Chinese politics and diplomacy. Since his retirement from the Foreign Service, Mr. Gokhale has contributed opinion pieces to the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Times of India, the Hindu, and the Indian Express. His third book, centered on China between 1990 and 2010, will be published later this year. Gokhale has a master’s degree in history from the University of Delhi and studied Mandarin Chinese at the Chinese University of Hongkong.

Liv Marte Nordhaug spearheaded the creation of the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) and has been one of its co-leads since 2020. In her role, she leverages her fifteen years of experience with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), where she worked on country capacity building along with leading a number of digital innovation projects involving open-source technologies. Nordhaug studied political science at the University of Oslo and holds an executive master’s in energy management from the BI Norwegian Business School.

Priyadarshini is an associate fellow with the Technology and Society Program at Carnegie India. She is interested in researching emerging issues at the intersection of law, technology, and finance. Her current research focuses on the impact and implications of introducing digital currencies, such as central bank digital currencies, specifically in the context of an emerging market like India. Prior to Carnegie India, she was a fellow at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). She provided research and policy inputs to committees, working groups, and studies established by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance of the Government of India. In the past, she was a partner at Wadia Ghandy & Co (South) in the private equity, joint ventures, and acquisitions space.

Pradipta Kundu leads the health mission at eGov Foundation. A software professional with over twenty-three years of experience, Kundu co-founded Samanvay Foundation, a nonprofit focused on technology heavy lifting. She has also worked on service delivery improvement by the government hospitals in tribal, underserved areas of eastern Madhya Pradesh. A strong supporter of open-source technologies, she has led an open-source software community along with anchoring two popular open-source projects focused on the social sector. In her previous job at Thoughtworks India, a global IT consultancy, she was engaged with various roles, from managing large software delivery projects to exploring the possibility of IT in improving the health of the underserved, working with large and small, international and local NGOs as well as governments in multiple countries.

Rudra Chaudhuri is the director of Carnegie India. His primary research focuses on the diplomatic history of South Asia and contemporary security issues. He is the author of Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947. His research has been published in scholarly journals such as International History Review, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Journal of Strategic Studies, International Affairs, the RUSI Journal, Defense Studies, and other academic and policy-focused journals. Rudra is a senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies and the India Institute at King’s College London (on research leave). In addition, he is the founding director of the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) Diplomatic Academy for South Asia. He is also a visiting professor of international relations at Ashoka University, New Delhi. Rudra previously taught at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College. He holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London.

Samir Saran is the president of the Observer Research Foundation. His research focuses on issues of global governance, climate change and energy policy, technology and media, and India’s foreign policy. He curates the Raisina Dialogue, India’s annual flagship platform on geopolitics and geo-economics, and is the founder of CyFy, India’s annual conference on cybersecurity and internet governance. Saran is a member of the India-CEO Climate Action Group, Global Risks Advisory Board, and the Regional Action Group of the World Economic Forum. He has served as a commissioner of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and is a member of the board of directors at ORF America. Saran has authored four books, edited important journals and publications, and written several academic papers and book chapters. He is featured regularly in Indian and international print and broadcast media.

Noëlle Van der Waag-Cowling is the cyber program lead at the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership (SIGLA), Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Her work cuts across both the public and private sectors and has a strong focus on governance, risk and policy, and geo-strategic issues in information security. She is a member of the review board of the International Journal of Cyber Warfare and Terrorism as well as the Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa. She served as a member of the group of global experts to the International Committee of the Red Cross on the protection of civilians during cyberwarfare in 2020 and on the protection of humanitarian data in 2022. She is passionate about tech innovation in Africa and building cyber capacity on the continent. In 2020, she was voted one of the Top 50 Women in Cyber in Africa. She is also an affiliate member of the University of Canberra’s National Security Hub and a participant in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Project for Cybersecurity, Capacity-Building, and Financial Inclusion.

Piers Millett is the executive director of the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS), a new international organization dedicated to strengthening global biosecurity norms and developing innovative tools and incentives to uphold them. Millett is a certified biorisk management professional, with a specialization in biosecurity. He has previously served as the deputy head of the Implementation Support Unit for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), a treaty for which he worked for over a decade. He has consulted for the World Health Organization, supporting their integration of research and development into responses to public health emergencies. Trained as a microbiologist, he has worked closely with the citizen science movement, synthetic biologists, the biotechnology industry as well as national and international policymakers and decisionmakers. Millett holds a PhD in international relations and affairs, an MRes in research methodology, an MA in international politics and security studies, and a BSc in microbiology.

Dushni Weerakoon is the executive director of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka and the head of its macroeconomic policy research. Her research and publications cover areas related to macroeconomic policy, regional trade integration, and international economics. She has extensive experience working in policy development committees of the Government of Sri Lanka, working as a consultant to international development organizations and serving as a director on the boards of corporate and academic entities. She holds a BSc in economics with first-class honors from the Queen's University of Belfast, U.K. and an MA and PhD in economics from the University of Manchester, U.K.

Manjeet Singh is presently posted on deputation as a joint secretary (cyber) at National Security Council Secretariat and deals with national and international cyber issues. He was commissioned into the Corps of Signals of Indian Army in 1987. He has vast experience in both command and staff assignments. He was the chief signal officer of a corps in the Kashmir Valley. His staff appointments include tenures as brigade major, col GS, director, and DACIDS. He is a graduate of Defence Services Staff College and attended the Army Higher Command Course at Army War College, Mhow. He holds a BTech in electronics and telecommunications from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, an MSc in defence strategy from Madras University, and an MPhil in defence and management from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalya, Indore. 

Sharad Sharma has been leading ecosystems and companies through orbit changes for three decades. He co-founded iSPIRT Foundation, a non-profit technology think tank that has conceptualized India Stack, Health Stack, and other digital public goods. Sharma also co-founded Teltier Technologies, a wireless infrastructure startup that is now part of CISCO. An active angel investor with over two dozen investments, he was also instrumental in the success of India's first IP-focused fund, India Innovation Fund. He is a member of National Startup Advisory Council and SEBI's Financial and Regulatory Technology Committee. An alumnus of Delhi College of Engineering, he has previously held R&D leadership positions at Yahoo, VERITAS, Symantec, Lucent, and AT&T.

Rohini Srivathsa is the national technology officer at Microsoft India, where she is responsible for driving innovation and growth through “tech-intensity” across industry and the government. She began her career in R&D at AT&T Bell Laboratories and subsequently transitioned to a career in strategy consulting at Boston Consulting Group and IBM Global Business Services. As the chief technology officer of Janalakshmi Financial Services (now Jana Small Finance Bank), Srivathsa was responsible for driving tech-focused business transformation towards financial inclusion among the urban underserved. She holds an MBA from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in computer engineering from University of Texas at Austin. Srivathsa also serves as an adjunct faculty at the Indian School of Business (ISB) Executive Education.

Nanjira Sambuli is a researcher, policy analyst, and strategist interested in and working on understanding the unfolding, gendered impacts of ICT adoption on governance, media, entrepreneurship and culture. Sambuli is a commissioner on the Lancet & Financial Times Global Commission (Governing Health Futures 2030), president and co-chair of the Transform Health Coalition, a board member at The New Humanitarian, Development Gateway, and Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL). She is also a Ford Global Fellow. Sambuli sits on several advisory boards, including the World Economic Forum’s Technology and Social Justice Initiatives, <A+> Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms, and the Carnegie Council’s AI and Equality Initiative. Additionally, she is a diplomacy moderator at the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA).

Evan A. Feigenbaum is the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research in Washington, Beijing, and New Delhi on a dynamic region encompassing both East Asia and South Asia. Initially an academic with a PhD in Chinese politics from Stanford University, Feigenbaum’s career has spanned government service, think tanks, the private sector, and three major regions of Asia. He has previously served at the U.S. State Department as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia, deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia, member of the policy planning staff with principal responsibility for East Asia and the Pacific. He is the author of three books and monographs, including China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age (2003), as well as numerous articles and essays.

Suyash Rai is deputy director and fellow at Carnegie India. His research focuses on the political economy of economic reforms and the performance of public institutions in India. His current research looks at the financial sector, the fiscal system, and the infrastructure sector. Prior to joining Carnegie India, Rai was a fellow at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. He has held consulting positions with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor of the World Bank and with the Ministry of Finance of the Government of India. Rai previously worked at the Dvara Trust (then the IFMR Trust). Additionally, he served as a member of the committee on framing a code on resolution of financial firms of the department of economic affairs at the Ministry of Finance, and the committee on pricing of Aadhaar-based services of the Unique Identification Authority of India.

Anirudh Burman is an associate research director and fellow at Carnegie India. He works on key issues relating to public institutions, public administration, the administrative and regulatory state, and state capacity. He has also worked extensively on financial regulation and regulatory governance. Anirudh’s current research focuses on property rights and land markets, particularly the regulatory framework affecting land rights and land titles, the relationship between tenure security and land transactions, and public administration issues in land markets in India. In addition, Burman also focuses on studying the working of the administrative state in India. In the past, he has worked for the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, Amarchand Mangaldas in Mumbai, and PRS Legislative Research in New Delhi. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2012 with a master’s in law.

Sean Blaschke is a senior health specialist at UNICEF, and is the co-founder and coordinator of the Digital Health Centre of Excellence (DICE), a multi-agency initiative led by UNICEF and WHO to improve donor coordination and alignment, strengthen government and partner capacity, and accelerate adoption of global guidelines, standards, and best practices. With over twenty years of experience, Blaschke specializes in advising government and development partners on digital transformation, including strengthening of health systems and digital health. He previously led UNICEF’s Technology for Development portfolio for Eastern and Southern Africa and has also served as the health systems strengthening manager for UNICEF Uganda. Blaschke holds a master’s degree in economic and political development from Columbia University.

Rahul Matthan is a technology lawyer and heads the technology, media, and telecommunications practice of Trilegal. In addition to advising clients on issues like cryptocurrency, satellite regulations, fintech, and social media, he has played an active role in framing India’s tech policy, including the country’s privacy law, its spatial data infrastructure, and the unique ID law. His book Privacy 3.0: Unlocking Our Data-Driven Future describes the evolution of privacy in India and the world and the impact that technology has had on the evolution of this fundamental human right. Matthan is a published author and a regular speaker across the world on matters relating to the law and emerging technologies. He also writes “Ex Machina,” a weekly column on the intersection of law and technology, in the Mint.

Jeet Vijay is the chief executive officer of the MeitY Startup Hub (MSH), an initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology, which is responsible for more than fifty-one incubators, twenty-six centers of excellence, and multiple accelerators, among other assets. It has also conceptualized and implemented new schemes and programs to support technology-driven startups across India. By expertise and background, Vijay is an investor and adviser with over eighteen years of experience in India and the U.S. in international private equity, venture capital, and entrepreneurship.

Sean Randolph is the senior director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, where he previously served as the president and chief executive officer, and manages its science affiliate, the Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium (BASIC). Randolph has also served as the director of international trade for the State of California and the international director-general of the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC). His professional career includes extensive experience in the U.S. Government, where he served on Congressional staffs, the White House staff, and in senior positions at the Departments of State and Energy. Randolph holds a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center, a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University and Harvard University), and a BSFS from School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

Prashant Tandon is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Tata 1mg, India’s largest digital health platform. He has been one of India’s leading entrepreneurs in digital healthcare since 2009, having co-founded and led 1mg and HealthKart, both industry-defining companies in their space. In addition, he has also been leading, evangelizing, and representing the industry across multiple forums—he chairs the HealthTech Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India and the FICCI ePharmacy Working Group and helms Digital Health Platforms as their first president. Till 2009, before he returned to India, Tandon worked at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco, where he focused on the healthcare sector. He started his career with the Business Leadership Program at Hindustan Unilever India. He has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a graduate degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Kashyap Chanchani is the founder and managing partner of The Rainmaker Group, a firm he started in 2015 that currently ranks as one of India’s top investment banks for the new economy. Over the years, Chanchani and his team have advised several unicorns and soonicorns, such as Truecaller, Vedantu, Cardekho, XpressBees, Ninjacart, Rupeek, IXIGO, HomeLane, HealthifyMe, and 1mg, on their fundraising milestones. The Rainmaker Group works closely with top strategic and financial investors who are scripting India’s entrepreneurial growth story. Chanchani is an engineering graduate from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Delhi and has studied business management at Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode and European Business School, Germany.