5th Anniversary Leadership Forum

Bios

Nish Acharya is CEO of Equal Innovation, a firm that consults with leading universities, governments, foundations and companies to assist them with innovation, entrepreneurship and philanthropic strategies. Mr. Acharya is also a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress, a contributor to Forbes and the author of the “The India-US Partnership: $1 Trillion By 2030” by Oxford University Press. Nish previously served as Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce for the Obama Administration, as Executive Director of the Deshpande Foundation, and in the Clinton White House.

Riju Agrawal is currently pursuing an MBA/MPP joint degree at the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he was selected as a Rubenstein Fellow. He was previously on the Private Equity team at The Blackstone Group and the investment banking team of Morgan Stanley’s Global Energy Group. Riju graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University with a degree in Engineering Sciences, where he was co- founder of the Harvard U.S.-India Initiative and co-president of the Harvard College Global Energy Initiative. In 2011, Riju was selected to serve as a White House Intern, where he worked for the Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. In addition, Riju was selected as a Future Energy Leader by the World Energy Council and a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum.

Maya Ajmera is the President and CEO of Society for Science & the Public and the Publisher of Science News, and an alumna of the organization’s most prestigious competition, the Science Talent Search. In 2013-2014, Maya served as the Inaugural Social Entrepreneur in Residence for Duke University. In 1993, Maya founded The Global Fund for Children (GFC), a nonprofit organization that invests in innovative, community-based organizations working with some of the world’s most vulnerable children and youth. To date, GFC has awarded nearly $40 million to more than 700 grassroots organizations in 80 countries, touching the lives of nearly 10 million children. Maya also authored Invisible Children: Reimagining International Development at the Grassroots, published by Palgrave Macmillan last year. She is an award-winning children’s book author of 20 titles with more than 5 million readers worldwide. She is a recipient of the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellowship and holds an MPP from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

Rahul Ali is Country Director - India for Orbis International looking after strategy, operations and financial performance of Orbis programs in India, Nepal and Indonesia. Rahul is also a Board Member of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight India. Prior to joining Orbis, Rahul was in the Kingdom of Bahrain with a large real estate developer where he was responsible for their healthcare vertical. And before that he was with the L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad where he served as a member of the faculty at the International Center for Advancement of Rural Eye Care. Rahul completed his MBBS and MS Ophthalmology from Christian Medical College, Ludhiana and Vellore respectively as well as Master of Public Health and Master of Business Administration from the Johns Hopkins University.

Prakash Ambegaonkar (known as DrP) is a successful serial entrepreneur and a lifetime socioeconomic activist and philanthropist. Dr. Prakash started several high technology companies like Frontier Technologies, E-Lock Technologies and CareersUnbound that developed award winning software products. He started an online college providing courses in energy, environment and sustainability. Dr. Prakash's companies have won over 30 industry awards, including LAN Magazine's Product of the Year three times running. He was also named Inc. Magazine's Regional Entrepreneur of the Year in 1995. He is founder of ‘Bridging Nations Foundation’ a non-profit policy and advocacy organization in Washington, DC that works on issues of leadership, technology, international relations, education and employability. Dr. Prakash is currently working on setting up a data driven personalized, career centric university.

Manpreet Singh Anand is a Distinguished Professor of Practice at the National Defense University, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Mr. Anand previously managed U.S. policy with the countries of the subcontinent as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia. Mr. Anand also served at the U.S. Agency for International Development as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for South and Central Asia. In the past, Mr. Anand worked as a Senior Policy Advisor for Chevron Corporation and as the lead staffer on South and Central Asia to the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs. Mr. Anand is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Mr. Anand earned an MBA and an MA in International Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Niraj Antani is serving his second term in the Ohio House of Representatives. Having been elected age 23, now 26, he is the youngest currently serving member of the House. In addition, he is youngest Indian-American state elected official in United States history, and the first Indian-American Republican. Currently. Antani serves as Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Higher Education and Workforce Development. Antani was named to Forbes Magazine's list of the top "30 Under 30" people in the United States for Law & Politics in 2015. As well, the conservative media organization Newsmax named him the 2nd most influential Republican in the nation under age 30.

Mandar Apte is a social entrepreneur, thought leader and first-time film director. Deeply pained by the ongoing violence in America, Mandar started the From India With Love endeavor to reinvigorate our commitment to nonviolence. Mandar is a co- founder of Media Rise — a nonprofit, social enterprise to inspire the creation and consumption of meaningful media to accelerate social good. Until March 2016, Mandar managed Shell's GameChanger social innovation program investing in ideas that create shared value.

Balan Ayyar is the founder and CEO of Percipient.ai, an artificial intelligence firm based in silicon valley focused on the most challenging intelligence and national security missions. He is previous CEO of a $100M IT firm and Commanding General of a Joint Interagency Task Force in combat in Afghanistan. He is a White House Fellow and Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Suchit Bachalli is the CEO of Unilog, a global technology company which specializes in e-commerce solutions and enriched product data for the B2B marketplace. He brings nearly 15 years of technology sales and management experience with a particular focus on wholesale distribution, retail and online commerce. As Unilog’s business grew into North America, in 2014, he relocated to Philadelphia to establish its U.S. headquarters in Wayne, Pa as Unilog’s President of North America. The company is now a multi- million dollar business with 800 global employees and hundreds of customers across diverse industries. In 2017, the Unilog Board of Directors unanimously voted to appoint Suchit Bachalli as the new Chief Executive Officer of Unilog Content Solutions and all its global subsidiaries.

Rishi S. Bagga is an attorney handling a variety of civil litigation and hospitality matters. In addition to his practice, Rishi is an Adjunct Professor at Valencia College in Orlando where he teaches Hospitality Law. He previously worked at a statewide law firm focused on insurance defense issues, and is a a former Assistant State Attorney in Miami-Dade County. Rishi currently serves as the President of the South Asian Bar Association of North America (SABA). Rishi is licensed to practice law in Florida, New York, and the District of Columbia. He earned his Juris Doctor (J.D. ’06) as well as a Master of Laws (LL.M. ’10) in Law & Government from the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C. Rishi also has a Bachelor of Arts (B.A. ’03) in Political Science, summa cum laude, from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL.

Gunjan Bagla is Managing Director of Amritt, Inc an management consultancy that helps American companies to do business in India. He writes about business with India for the Harvard Business Review and has appeared in the New York Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg TV and BBC TV for his India expertise. His book "Doing Business in 21st Century India" was published by Hachette and is five star rated on Amazon. He speaks about US- India business at major conferences.

Nitin Bajaj is a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur and runs Esri Labs-the innovation incubator for the billion-dollar enterprise GIS market-leader. Nitin has always been intrigued and fascinated by the resounding success of Indian entrepreneurs around the world. So intrigued, he did his doctoral thesis on the topic and launched the broadly telecast The INDUStry Show. In addition to a strong record of running successful start-ups, Nitin has led several multi- million dollar strategic initiatives for Fortune 100 organizations such as Esri, IBM, and Thomson Reuters. Nitin serves on the boards of Akshaya Patra LA and Pratham Los Angeles. Nitin has a Doctorate in Strategy & Innovation and MBA in Leadership and Organizational Change Management. As a Pepperdine alum, he loves the Waves and is a paddleboarding enthusiast. Nitin is also an avid cyclist and has a few century rides under his saddle.

Bharat Barai is Medical Director of the Cancer Institute, Methodist Hospitals, Clinical Assistant Prof. of Medicine: Indiana University Medical School, Secretary & former President of the Medical Licensing Board, State of Indiana (since 2000). He has received numerous community service awards in last 25 years for his voluntary services to the local communities. Dr Bharat Barai is deeply Honored and Humbled to receive the “Ellis Island Medal of Honor” on May 11, 2013; a highly Prestigious Civilian Honor in USA. In 2014, Dr Bharat Barai was the lead person and President of the Indian American Community Foundation that organized the legendary reception for Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Madison Square Garden. On Jan 9, 2017 President of India Pranav Mukerjee bestowed Pravasi Bharatiya Sanman Award (Highest Civilian Honor given to NRIs by Govt of India) at Bangalore, India. In March 2017, India’s Minister of External Affairs, Mrs Sushma Swaraj appointed Dr Bharat Barai as a Trustee for India Development Foundation of Overseas Indiana (IDF-OI). His Medical Professional story as an immigrant is featured in the Recent Immigration section in the US National Museum of Immigration, Ellis Island, NY.

Dilip Barot is the founder of Creative Choice Group, a conglomerate of companies having interests in real estate development, investment, construction, asset management, and IT/ITeS. Creative Choice Group’s core business activity is private real estate investment, development, and management. Dilip also serves as President and CEO of several companies under the umbrella of Creative Choice Group (CCG), which span across the realms of development for multifamily residential, mixed-use, and commercial properties, investment management, and technology.

Shama Barot, who is currently pursuing her MBA at Wharton, embodies what it takes to balance life, career and wellness. Her keen business acumen, international business experience across four continents and dance/fitness background blend for success with Creative Choice Group where she is the driver of the $500M luxury wellness project Amrit Ocean Resort and Residences—in all areas from finance to construction to innovative wellness concepts. Shama gained her hospitality experience from the Fontainebleau Miami Beach where she governed the utilization of convention space, balanced revenue through room inventory, and ensured guest satisfaction throughout the operation.

Joy Basu is the Impact Sector Lead for Food and Agriculture at The Rise Fund, TPG’s new global impact fund. She holds the deep conviction that economic opportunity is foundational for human development and critical to countering extremism. She’s focused her work on implementing private-sector solutions to help address pressing social-sector challenges – particularly food insecurity. Prior to joining TPG, Joy was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Joy earned a JD/MBA from Stanford University with a Certificate in Public Management and Social Innovation. Joy has a BA in Public Policy and Economics from Duke University.

Pat Basu is a business leader who has served as a senior executive in the corporate, government, private equity and clinical sectors. A former Stanford Physician and White House Advisor, Pat currently serves as Senior Vice President and member of the Executive Leader Team of United Health Group a Fortune 10 company that provides health services and health insurance.

Vrundan Bawankar is Executive Director of Pawan Public School. By the time she graduated from college, her life-long dream of joining the Indian Armed Forces to become a pilot was close to becoming reality. But a chance school gathering challenged her to soar in different skies. At the age of 21, she decided that her battlefield would be the rural primary education sector, not the blue skies of our beloved country. In addition to her work as an Executive Director of Pawan Public School, run by Gram Vikas Sanstha, she is a Project Manager with Pratham Education Foundation. She also recently started a livelihood program for single mothers. She is actively involved with NIRMAN, Jagriti Yatra, and Alag Angle. She was chosen as A Young Leader 2017, IVLP, by the US Government, where she represented India in the US.

Anurima Bhargava served as the Chief of the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2010-2016. At the DOJ, she led the enforcement of civil rights laws in schools, colleges and universities. She served on the White House Task Force to Prevent Campus Sexual Assault and the Supportive School Discipline Initiative. She previously served as Director of the Education Practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Anurima is currently serving as an inaugural Leadership in Government Fellow at the Open Society Foundations. Anurima earned her law degree from Columbia Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College. She is a Presidential Leadership Scholar, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a Partner with the Truman National Security Project.

Rakesh Bhatia has 32 years of leadership experience in management, technology and risk consulting with leading system integration and Big 4 firms. Currently, as partner in PwC, he is responsible for leading PwC's global delivery. He is a board member of PwC Charitable Foundation, Ascend and Pratham. He lives in Great Falls, VA.

Rhonda Binda is VP Policy for Venture Smarter and Director of their Regional Smart Cities Initiatives. She has a distinguished history of public service, as Deputy Director for the U.S. Department of State’s Global Intergovernmental Affairs Division and in the West Wing of the White House. In between her government tours she practiced law with Alston & Bird. Rhonda most recently served as the Executive Director of the Jamaica Business Improvement District. Under her tenure, Governor Cuomo awarded Jamaica the #1 award state-wide for downtown revitalization, Jamaica was named #1 hottest neighborhood in NYC by the Wall Street Journal and was winner of NYC’s Neighborhood Challenge Grant. In 2016, she was Queens Chamber of Commerce’s Business Leader of the Year and named Community Leader of the Year by QCYD. Binda attended Duke and Oxford and received her JD from Georgetown.

Nisha Biswal is a Senior Advisor with ASG, where she draws on three decades of experience to help clients of the firm’s South Asia practice expand and strengthen their business operations in the region. She is serves on the Board of the Institute for Sustainable Communities in Vermont, Creative Associates in Washington DC and is on the International Advisory Council of the US Institute for Peace in Washington DC. During the Obama Administration, Ms. Biswal served as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs from September 2013-January 2017 where she was responsible for formulating U.S. foreign policy and managing relations with Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Udayan Bose founded NetElixir with a vision to provide online marketers worldwide with a paid search campaign optimization solution capable of delivering magical performance. Udayan recognized the potential of paid search as an essential advertising channel in 2002. Having experienced first-hand the complexity involved in running a profitable paid search campaign, he was driven to develop a system that delivers predictable and efficient campaign performance, allowing marketers to fully leverage the power of paid search as a high value sales generator. Udayan regularly lectures the MBA classes at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University; Zicklin School of Business, Baruch, NY and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Udayan holds a Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an M.B.A. from Mumbai University, India.

Jay Challa is Chairman and CEO of Ace Info Solutions (AceInfo). He founded AceInfo in 2000. Under his leadership and outstanding management capabilities, AceInfo has grown from a two-person, $50,000 revenue company in 2001 to a mid- sized leader serving the Federal Government market space. The company has won many awards from Federal Government agencies, including the SDB Contractor of the Year from the US Department of Agriculture and the National Directors Award from the US Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency. Mr. Challa received Fifty Influential Minorities in Business award from Minority Business Enterprise Network in 2006 and was on the cover of the Minority Enterprise Advocate magazine in 2009. Mr. Challa lives in Herndon with his wife Kavita, his daughter and son.

Rakesh Chand is the Principal of a Single Family Office and a social investor who uses his business, banking and philanthropic experience to help develop social businesses around the world. He coaches leaders on philanthropy and social responsibility and also teaches and give talks on topics such as impact investing, philanthropy, next generation planning, social investing, leadership and communications at Stanford University, the University of California in San Diego, IES in Madrid, St Gallen Business School and the HEC in Montreal and at numerous conferences. In 2016, he joined the Board of Drashta Ventures, advising them in developing an Impact Fund and leading the next generation of Impact Investment professionals. He is a member of the Campden Club and the Swiss ICT Investors Club.

Ravi Chaudhary is a member of the Senior Executive Service, and is the Executive Director for Regions and Operations at the Federal Aviation Administration. In this role he is responsible for execution of operations in 9 different regions located nationwide. He is also responsible for executing a $254 Million operating budget. In May of 2014, Ravi was appointed by President Barack Obama to his Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Ravi is a former Air Force pilot, having completed 21 years of service to the Nation. He is currently conducting doctoral research in Executive Leadership and Innovation at Georgetown University. He has logged over 3000 hours as a pilot and flight test engineer (760 combat hours) and multiple deployments since Sept 11, 2001.

Senator Jay Chaudhuri represents parts of Raleigh, Cary, and Morrisville. As one of the newest and youngest members of the State Senate, Senator Chaudhuri has expanded computer science education in public schools and helped fund $1.2 million to create an Alzheimer's Disease Registry. He also played a vital role in recruiting global IT company Infosys to Wake County to create 2,000 jobs, one of the largest job announcements in the state's history. Prior to serving in the Senate, Senator Chaudhuri served as senior counsel to former Attorney General (now Governor) Roy Cooper and former State Treasurer Janet Cowell. He also served as Chair of the Council of Institutional Investors, an association of more than $3 trillion that serves as the leading voice for effective corporate governance and shareholder rights.

Navneet Chugh is Managing Partner of a full service Law Firm and a CPA Firm with 500 employees in 15 offices in USA, India, & South America. Graduate of USC & Harvard. He is on the board of HAB Bank, Pratham. Previously, he was as on the board of AIF, ICC, NASABA, & TiE Global.

Alex Counts is President and CEO of American India Foundation since 2016, and prior to that worked with Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus in several capacities, including founding and running Grameen Foundation for 18 years. Author of "Small Loans, Big Dreams" published by John Wiley & Sons.

Rupa Dainer is a pediatric anesthesiologist and the Chief Strategy Officer at the Pediatrics Specialists of Virginia. Additionally she is the Medical Director of Ambulatory Surgery. She served honorably as a Commander in the United States Navy until her end of service in October 2015. During her time in service she was Chief of Pediatric Anesthesia at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In 2009, Dr. Dainer deployed to Afghanistan to serve in Operation Enduring Freedom with the US Marine Corps and then deployed to the Dominican Republic in 2013 to participate in Medical Readiness Training Exercises with the US Army. She is currently a Director of the American Board of Anesthesiology.

Joy Dass is a long time business news anchor in New York City. She has been seen delivering live reports on the markets from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for Bloomberg, CNN, ABC, CBS, and most recently NY1 News. Since December 2002, she was also the host of the popular Saturday morning show AVS, bringing the latest on the Bollywood film industry news into the living rooms of first and second generation Indians living in the United States. Joya was recently recruited by Morgan Stanley to join a wealth management team at the New York City flagship operation. This continues the thru line of empowering women, which began with Dass’ networking initiative LadyDrinks, working to support South Asian female professionals in senior to mid level management or entrepreneurship in New York, Princeton, Toronto, and New Delhi.

Ronak D. Desai is a Law & Security Fellow at The New America Foundation and an Affiliate at the Belfer Center’s India and South Asia Program at Harvard University. Until recently, he served as Counsel to a high-profile Select Committee on Capitol Hill. Prior to this, Desai worked as an attorney at a prominent international law firm in Washington D.C. Mr. Desai is a member of the Aspen India Strategy Group, and serves as General Counsel and Board Director of the Partnership for a Secure America. Desai teaches a popular course on U.S. foreign policy toward South Asia at the Johns Hopkins University. He writes frequently on South Asia, anticorruption, governance, and diaspora politics, and is a regular contributor to several prominent American and South Asian publications, including Forbes. He earned a joint public policy and law degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School.

Anand Deshpande is the Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Persistent Systems (BSE & NSE: PERSISTENT), a Company that he founded in 1990. He is responsible for the overall leadership, strategy, and management of the company. A true technology visionary, Anand’s strengths lie in identifying and investing in next-generation technologies early on and encouraging internal entrepreneurship to ensure that Persistent stays at the forefront of technology innovation. Anand has been the driving force in growing Persistent from start-up to the publically-traded global company of today. Anand has been recognized for his technology and business leadership as well as his contributions to public welfare. His awards include the CSI Fellowship Award for outstanding achievement in the field of IT, the Career Achievement Award from the School of Informatics at Indiana University, Bloomington and the IIT Kharagpur Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Dinyar (Dinny) Devitre is an international business executive who has held leadership positions over a 40 year period in the consumer products industry and financial services in Asia, Australia, Japan, Europe, and the U.S. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Altria Group, Inc., where he is Chairman of the Finance Committee and IHS Markit Ltd. In addition, he serves on the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Academy of Music where he is on the Executive Committee. He is former Chairman of Pratham USA. Dinny has held a number of senior operating positions with Philip Morris and then with Altria where he had a 35 year career.

Sadanand Dhume is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes on South Asian political economy, foreign policy, business, and society, with a focus on India and Pakistan. Sadanand has served as India bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review and as Indonesia correspondent of FEER and the Wall Street Journal – Asia, and is currently a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He has written articles and op-eds for Foreign Policy, Forbes, Commentary, YaleGlobal, the Washington Post, and others. His television appearances include CNN, PBS, BBC World, Al Jazeera International, CNBC Asia and ABC Television. His political travelogue My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist, has been published in four countries. He has twice been selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world's top 100 Twitterati. Follow him on Twitter @dhume.

Chris Gali is the CEO and the lead for technical design and management at Graphite GTC, a Philadelphia-based software firm. Chris has well over 20 years of experience in the insurance and software development industries. Prior to Graphite GTC, Chris served as the co-founder, architect, and CIO of AdminServer, where his expertise and vision guided revolutionary development of policy administration systems until the company was acquired by Oracle in 2008. Chris holds a MS in Computer Science from Temple University and a MS in Computer Science from St. Joseph’s College (Trichy, India). He serves on the Board of Directors of The Franklin Institute of Science and Technology, and of the Philadelphia Police Foundation. Chris also is a contributing member of The Barnes Foundation.

Raj Gilda is a banker turned social entrepreneur and co-Founder of Lend A Hand India, an NGO focused on providing vocational education in secondary schools in India. Currently dividing his time between USA and India, he has worked across Asia, Europe and North America. Prior to leaving corporate sector in 2011 to focus full time on Lend A Hand India, he spent ten years in New York working with Citibank and Deloitte Consulting. Raj was recently appointed by Government of India as a member of National Skill Development Agency (NSDA). He is an advisor to Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA), Government of Maharashtra and member of state level committee to effectively utilize CSR resources for education sector. He was also selected by the UK Government, as a Chevening Gurukul Scholar (2012) at the London School of Economics.

Raj Goyle is co-CEO and co-founder of Bodhala, a platform using AI and Big Data to empower the legal industry with the evidence required to make critical business decisions. Goyle served two terms in the Kansas House of Representatives where he was the first Asian American elected to public office in the state. He has worked as a policy analyst and civil rights attorney and serves on the boards of Hunger Free America, the American India Foundation, Everyartist.me, Issue One and chairs the State Innovation Exchange. Goyle lives in New York with his wife Monica Arora, a partner at Proskauer. They have two daughters.

Amit Gupta is the Chief Executive Officer for Aeroseal, LLC. Prior to his role as CEO, Mr. Gupta held various positions with Carrier Corporation in Indianapolis and with TATA Motors in Portugal and India. Mr. Gupta has a progressive background in developing long-term strategies and processes for multi-billion dollar organizations. He possesses the international experience and diverse capabilities required to grow the Aeroseal brand with the help of a strong team from the heating and air conditioning industry.

Anshu Gupta, popularly known as the Clothing Man, is a recipient of 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award. Anshu is the Founder of a nonprofit – Goonj. One of India’s leading social entrepreneur Anshu brings to the table an in-stinctive empathy and connect with people, moving the focus from the conventional - giver’s pride to the unconventional - receiver’s dignity. Anshu has done his Mass communications twice and his masters in Economics. He founded GOONJ with a mission to make clothing a matter of concern and to bring it among the list of subjects for the development sector. Today Goonj is a pan India movement, dealing with over 3000 tons of material annually. Anshu is an Ashoka and Schwab Fellow and has been listed by the Forbes magazine as one of India’s most powerful rural entrepreneurs.

Margaret Gupta co-founded one of the earliest global outsourcing companies. She is currently the President of Gupta Family Foundation (guptafamilyfoundation.org) and is also a Co-Founder of Win Virginia, LLC a PAC focused on electing Democrats to the Virginia State House in 2017.

Minoo Gupta currently works as Sr. director of engineering at Citrix, and is a Silicon Valley technology professional for the last 3 decades. Her passion for technology, education and empathy for others is demonstrated in her leadership skills that help build organizations. Minoo serves on a non-profit, Foundation For Excellence (www.ffe.org) board since 2012 and is President since 2015. She brings her seasoned engineering leadership skills to FFE and has championed delivery of technology platform, strengthen the FFE community to help double the funds raised, developed new programs and spurred growth across various cities in US, including inception of New York Chapter. Minoo also serves as advisory board member for University of San Diego's Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering.

Shashikant “Shashi” Gupta is a retired businessman focused on supporting NGOs across the globe whose mission is to empower disadvantaged children and adults to become self-reliant. Passionate liberal working to counter the damage being done to the nation's values and ethos by Trump.

S. K. Gupta is an expert in leadership development, change management, operations management, ES&H and nuclear, cyber and physical security. Currently he serves as an Executive Advisor to the Ascend Board and is the co-founder and Managing Director of Ascend-Pinnacle, a network of Asian American Corporate Board Directors. He is a Charter Member and angel investor at TiE. He also serves on the Board of Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund. S. K. has served on a wide range of boards, including the Sandia National Laboratories, Bay Area Council, San Jose Museum of Art etc. He was the Vice President of Operations for Lockheed Martin Space Systems across the US. He was honored with California Assembly Resolution in 2011 for his “long and distinguished record of professional service and on his outstanding display of civic leadership.” In 2010 he was presented the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Vinod "Vinny" Gupta currently serves as CEO on InNow LLC, a cross border technology implementation company across three continents. Its primary mission is to improve the quality of lives in India in drinking and waste water solutions by bringing the next millennium technologies to India. He is experienced in technology commercialization, technology management, and executive management and advanced materials companies. He has started and run a number of companies, including Ohio Cast Products, Progressive Home Care and Technocast. As Chairman of the Ohio Board of Regents, he has led the organization’s technology commercialization task force. Vinny has served as President of the Asian Indian Alliance, a bipartisan organization that promotes strong platform for active political, social and economic participation of Indian Americans in Ohio, and a number of company and philanthropic boards.

Sejal Hathi is an award-winning social entrepreneur and a graduating MD/MBA student at Stanford working at the nexus of clinical medicine, policy, and grassroots advocacy to foster better health systems for our most vulnerable globally. She is on the Board of Indiaspora and a graduate of Yale College.

Frank F. Islam is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, civic leader and thought leader. Frank has a special commitment to civic, educational and artistic causes. In all of his endeavors, he strives to create opportunities that are sustainable and uplifting for humanity -- guided by the virtues of hard work, focus, quality, innovation and kindness. Frank currently heads the FI Investment Group, a private investment holding company that he established in 2007 after he sold his information technology firm, the QSS Group. Frank founded the QSS Group in 1994 and built it from 1 employee to more than 2,000 employees and revenues of approximately $300M before its sale. Frank devotes the majority of time currently to a wide variety of civic and philanthropic activities.

Sheena S. Iyengar is the inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Columbia Business School. She has taught on a wide variety of topics, including leadership, decision making, creativity, innovation, and globalization. Considered one of the world's leading experts on choice, Dr. Iyengar’s core research focuses on the psychology of choice and decision-making, addressing how humans face challenges in a world where they are inundated with options. Her research regularly appears in premier academic journals and her book, “The Art of Choosing,” received one of the six Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Books of the Year 2010 awards, and was ranked #3 on the Amazon.com Best Business and Investing Books of 2010. Dr. Iyengar received the Presidential Early Career Award in 2002. Her TED Talks have received over five million views and her research informs markets, businesses, and people all over the world.

George Jacob is the President & CEO of Bay.Org that oversees six institutions (Aquarium of the Bay, The Bay Institute, Sea Lion Center, Eco Center at Heron’s Head Park, The Bay Model Alliance and Bay Academy) with a common mission to protect and conserve the San Francisco Bay. Trained at the Smithsonian, educated at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, University of Toronto, Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University and Yale School of Management, he is known internationally for spearheading stellar interpretive planning and design-build assignments and is one of the leading museum thinkers of our times. A Canadian Commonwealth Scholar, his $480 million + design-build portfolio of museums, nature parks, wetlands, sea, wildlife and science center assignments can be seen in countries around the world.

Medha Jaishankar is a producer based in Los Angeles. She began her career in New York where she worked in the camera and electrical departments for several feature films. She later served as a researcher, editor, camera operator and reporter for the BBC film review program ‘Talking Movies’. Returning to India, Medha consulted Indian corporations on their domestic and international media and entertainment ventures (including Reliane Entertainment and the Mumbai Mantra | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab). She also served as the director and executive producer of the music documentary series “The ABSOLUT blueFROG Diaries”. Medha now works as the Creative Director of JetSynthesys, a digital media and entertainment company.

Shaun Jayachandran is the founder of Crossover Basketball and Scholars Academy, which works towards changing the pathway of low-income marginalized students in India by engaging educators and schools to participate in a program designed to teach leadership, gender equity, and critical thinking. The program emphasizes attendance and completion of school and connects lessons to the students’ education, community, and family. Shaun is also an educator who has taught chemistry and worked in admissions, coached varsity basketball with over 40 student-athletes going on to play in college and four professionals, and led diversity initiatives while he created and grew Crossover Academy. He has given a TEDx Talk, featured in SLAM Magazine and IMBoston, been the chief guest to speak at schools in India, an author, been honored and recognized by the Philadelphia 76ers.

Sanjeev Joshipura been working as the Director at Indiaspora since July 2016. He has been professionally involved in the US-India realm for 5 years in business and public policy capacities. Previously, he has worked at Fortune 500 corporations in different industries in the US and in India, in corporate finance, business strategy and project management. Subsequent to that, for the past 9 years, he has been deeply engaged in public policy, politics, government relations and international affairs in Washington, DC. He has managed a US Senate election campaign; been the President of an international trade/industry association in the financial services and commodities arena with large member companies in 5 continents; and served as a staff member on Capitol Hill. He holds a computer engineering degree from Pune University; an MBA from the University of Toronto, Canada; and a Certificate in Financial Risk Management from the Illinois Institute of Technology, USA. He lives in the Washington, DC suburbs with his wife and 19-month old twins.

Sanjay Kadaveru is the Founder & President of Action For India (AFI), an initiative to help social innovators in India overcome barriers to scale and achieve greater impact at the Bottom of the Pyramid. AFI is headquartered in New Delhi, India and has a chapter in Silicon Valley, California. Sanjay has more than 2 decades of international experience spanning the domains of investments, management consulting and business development. Sanjay is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs, and served as a Co-Chair for TiECon East, one of the largest innovation focused conferences in the US. Sanjay founded the AP Technology Leadership Council, a non-profit networking organization that provides pro-bono business consulting services to civic and governmental causes in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Sanjay is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Arun Kankani is a founder member of Sewa International, USA. Arun has worked in IT industry for 10 years after completing Masters degree from University of Mumbai, before moving to Manufacturing and Distribution sector. Presently, he is working as Director of Inventory Management in Star Pipe Products in Houston, TexasHe is a member of National Executive Committee of Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh Inc, USA (www.hssus.org) which has more than 175 centers in USA. As a Certified MBTI trainer, he has conducted dozens of workshop for social workers and families for better understanding of difference in preferences for better self-management and understanding.

Kanniks Kannikeswaran is an award-winning visionary composer, music educator, scholar and thought-leader whose pioneering work in the area of Indian American choral music uses the transformative power of music to build diverse communities and has led to the founding of Indian diaspora choirs in over 15 cities in North America and Europe. His opening invocation ‘Mahavakya’ was performed at the historic reception accorded to the Indian Prime Minister at Madison Square Garden. His recent work with children from the Dharavi area was featured as the finale of INK Talks 2015 in Mumbai, India. He has collaborated with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops, the Martin Luther King Chorale, and many others. He is the founder of the American School of Indian Art, an institution committed to bringing the best of the East and the West to the Indian-American diaspora and beyond.

Jay Kansara is the Director of Government Relations at the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) based in Washington, D.C. He oversees relations with American federal, state and local governments. He also engages NGOs, foreign governments, and all relevant stakeholders to ensure policy concerns of the Hindu American community are given due consideration by key entities. Jay helps fulfill HAF's mission to address human and civil rights concerns of Hindus in the United States and around the world. In April 2015, he was invited to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee shortly after visiting Bangladesh to convey his findings on growing political and religious extremism there, and expounding upon implications on US counter-terrorism efforts in South Asia. Jay initiated HAF's annual advocacy forum in Washington, D.C. for Hindu Americans across the United States to address the community's policy concerns at the federal level.

Devesh Kapur is the Madan Lal Sobti Professor for the Study of Contemporary India and Director, Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania. He is the coauthor of The World Bank: Its First Half Century; Public Institutions in India: Performance; and Design and Against the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs. His three books on international migration examine the effects at a global level (Give us your Best and Brightest: The Global Hunt for Talent and Its Impact on the Developing World); on the country of emigration (Diaspora, Democracy and Development: The Impact of International Migration from India on India) and the country of immigration (The Other One Percent: Indians in America). Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania, he held appointments at the Brookings Institution, Harvard University and UT Austin.

Tanveer Kathawalla is the CFO of Analytical Space, a satellite communications company based in Boston. His career spans aerospace entrepreneurship, venture capital, and politics. Tanveer first joined NextGen Venture Partners as an associate and now continues his involvement as a Venture Partner. After raising their first round of capital, Tanveer joined Analytical Space as their first CFO where he leads their fundraising, and business development efforts. Additionally, Tanveer has worked and supported campaigns on various federal levels including helping lead Marco Rubio’s 2016 Presidential campaign millennial outreach. Tanveer graduated from the George Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and political science. In 2014 he was named a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and Aspen Ideas Scholar in 2017.

Suresh Katta founded Saama Technologies, Inc. with a vision to turn raw data into actionable insights that enable enterprise leaders to make timely and reliable decisions for critical business discovery. Suresh applied his lifelong love of mathematics to solve complex data analysis well before the term “big data” became ubiquitous. Today, Saama is made up of intelligent, helpful people with a passion for math, data, and analytics. Since the company’s launch, Suresh and his team have built an extensive history of providing data scientist led solutions and services in the big data and business analytics market for top enterprise companies, and public sector agencies. Suresh has successfully launched two startups, including co-founding GVI, which developed groupware applications and was sold to Netscape in 1995.

Avinash Kaza is the Co-Founder & CEO of Upswell, a cutting edge business service provider in data science & technology development and startup solutions. Upswell's customized data science and technology driven analytics and solutions empower the world's leading startups, hedge funds, corporations, and non profits to innovate, solve problems, and make optimal business decisions. Its startup solutions team provides advisory, business development, capital introduction, and strategic investments to leading startups and entrepreneurs. Prior to Upswell, he held senior level finance jobs across sales, trading, and research roles at Goldman Sachs, Perry Capital, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Avi serves on the Boards of Emerging Markets Charity Benefit, Hunger Free America, and World Connect. He also serves on the Funds Board for BRIC and the US Programs Leadership Committee for the International Rescue Committee. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Truman National Security Project. He holds a B.A. in Economics and M.A. in International Policy Studies from Stanford University.

Lena Khan, a writer and director, had her first film, “The Tiger Hunter,” release nationwide September 22nd. Lena gained experience at companies like Participant Media (Syriana, The Kite Runner) before focusing on directing her own work. Lena has directed commercials, films and music videos for international artists such as Maher Zain and her videos have been broadcast on TV across the world and received over 30 million hits on YouTube. Lena graduated from the prestigious UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, after which she spent years gaining experience at renowned film companies. She recently sold her first television show and is now working on another TV show, a movie and a children's book.

Anjali Kochar has worked on social justice issues for the past 24 years and is currently the Executive Director of the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation US. After completing her undergraduate degree from American University, she worked with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights where she focused on child labor issues in India’s carpet industry, supported the annual RFK Human Rights Award and served on the International Steering Committee for the Global March Against Child Labor. In 2001, she received a Masters in International Affairs with a concentration in economic and political development from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Anjali then joined Mothers Acting Up, an organization empowering mothers to take action on behalf of the world’s children, where she was able to combine her passion for advancing children’s rights with her belief in the power of mothers and young people to change the world.

Sunil Kolhekar was born in Ambala and raised in different parts of India: Chandigarh, Nagpur, Cuttack and Indore. In India he acquired his Bachelors Degree in Electronic Engineering from Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Sciences, Indore University. He immediately went for his graduate degree and completed his MBA (1983) from Panjab University. He completed a Doctor of Management in 2011 at University of Maryland. In August of 1996, CITI was founded, and he became its President/CEO, receiving their first contract within six months. Since then, CITI has been operating for the last 21 years with offices in India and Belgium. The company has developed four creative products in its repertoire. These software products are related to Border Management, Healthcare eHR Interoperability, state and local Benefits administration and Innovation award winner - Patient Buddy.

Arun Kumar is Chairman & CEO of KPMG India and formerly Asst. Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets & Director General of US & Foreign Commercial Services in the Obama administration. He led an organization with offices in 78 countries & all 50 states of US focused on enhancing trade & investment. He was a Partner & on the Board of Directors at KPMG US. Prior to that, he was a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, founding CEO & CFO of three tech ventures. He has been a member of Advisory council at Stanford University & University of California, Charter & board member of TiE Silicon Valley & on the Board of Directors, USIBC. He authored a book of poetry and a book on Kerala’s Economy: Crouching Tiger, Sacred Cows. He has a Master’s degree in Management from MIT & Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Kerala University, India.

Rishi Kumar is a community leader/elected official, a hi-tech Silicon Valley executive, former IBMer. Councilmember Rishi Kumar of Saratoga seeks to apply the hi-tech framework to city government and offer services that are cheaper, faster and better for his community. As Silicon Valley’s community organizer, Rishi is host of many community efforts/ community events, many of which are free and always inclusive usually addressing a need or a cause like the Unity in Community Day, Entrepreneurship bootcamp for the youth, Bike Safety workshop for 5th graders, Saratoga Creek cleanup, raising money for Saratoga Senior center and many more.

Shinjini Kundu obtained her PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016 and expects to complete her MD this year from the University of Pittsburgh. She is part of the medical scientist training program between the two universities. Her research is pushing the frontier of medical diagnostics for early detection of disease by using computer algorithms on medical images to foretell disease imminence. Her research lies at the intersection of mathematics, machine learning and medical imaging. She was named the NRI of the Year by the Times Network, one of Pittsburgh’s 40 under 40, and a global shaper by the World Economic Forum. She has presented scientific papers at national and international forums, including ICASSP and European Radiology. She has spoken at Pittsburgh’s TED conference, and at Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting, winning the best paper award. Previously, Shinjini graduated from Stanford University with BS and MS in Electrical Engineering at the age of 20.

Shohini Kundu is a doctoral student in Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She is interested in studying how monetary policy affects firm behavior. Earlier, she graduated with distinction and high honors from the Cornell University in three years, where she studied economics, computer science, and mathematics. Shohini is a regular contributor to several publications including Forbes, the New York Times, Huffington Post, and SeekingAlpha. She has received honors and awards from several notable organizations including the National Science Foundation, US Department of State, Intel Corporation, and Henry David Thoreau Foundation. Shohini serves on the board of directors of the Telluride Association, an educational non-profit organization with an endowment of >$50 million that offers educational opportunities and scholarships to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students with the greatest potentials.

Abin Kuriakose is a Program Manager at World Business Chicago, a public-private economic development partnership chaired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. His team leads tech, entrepreneurship & innovation-focused economic development strategy for the City of Chicago with focus areas in venture capital, tech job growth, industry-led innovation partnerships & community impact. Prior, Abin was Deputy Chief of Staff, Public Policy Director and Community Affairs Director at Cook County Government. He served on the leadership team for Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi’s 2016 campaign. He is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, member of the Chicago Leadership Alliance and Millennial Action Project’s Young Leaders Council in Washington DC and 2016 fellow for New Leaders Council. He also serves as an innovation advisor for the Indian Consulate General of Chicago. He was recently named “35 under 35 Making an Impact” by Chicago Scholars.

Shyam Lal is an independent advisor and board member to privately held (family- owned, private equity and venture-backed) businesses. He is also Senior Partner Emeritus with McKinsey & Company, where he worked for almost thirty years with leading companies in the industrial, travel and logistics and consumer sectors. At McKinsey, Shyam led a number of global practices including those in operations, business technology and travel & logistics. Shyam has been a board member at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the MMM Program at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Communities Thriving and is Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Bay School of San Francisco. Shyam holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, an MS from Penn State and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the IIT in Delhi. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Rami, and daughter, Annika.

Ajay Mago is a partner in Culhane Meadows' Corporate and Technology practices and is based out of the firm's Chicago and Dallas offices. Ajay is a nationally recognized lawyer, trusted boardroom advisor, and passionate advocate for individual, corporate and institutional clients across numerous industries. His legal work has been recognized in The Washington Post, India Business Law Journal, Law360, Inside Counsel, Legal 500 U.S.– Leading Lawyers for M&A: Middle-Market, among other publications. Ajay is committed to the community and engages in significant pro bono work. He has handled pro bono matters involving international and domestic microfinance, civil rights issues, immigration rights and countless other issues.

Neil Makhija is an attorney and educator based in Pennsylvania. In 2016, Neil was the Democratic Nominee for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from Carbon County. He outperformed the national Democratic ticket by 14 points. Neil has worked in the White House, the US Senate, New York City Hall, and attended Harvard Law School on the Lentz scholarship, endowed by a 19th century coal magnate. A proud native of Pennsylvania's coal country, Neil is the grandson of refugees and son of immigrants, and the first in three generations of his family to return to his hometown. Neil's advocacy focuses on bridging the urban-rural divide in American politics. He is currently writing a book on climate change & immigration and serving as a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Ranjan Manoranjan, Principal of PRIME AE Group, leads business development in the Midwest region. Prior to that, he was the CEO of 3SG Corporation. Ranjan was appointed to the Ohio Casino Control Commission in 2011 as the CPA representative and reappointed in 2014. He also currently serves on the World of Children Board of Governors, an organization comprised of 16 international business executives who contribute their executive skills to improving the lives of children worldwide. Ranjan currently serves on the Ohio Society of CPAs' Political Action Committee and has served on the Executive Board of the Ohio Society of CPAs, the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals, Columbus-Franklin County Finance Authority and Governmental Affairs Advisory Board. A CPA by profession, he serves on the boards of several state and philanthropic organizations.

Vivek Maru founded Namati in 2011 to grow the global movement for legal empowerment. Namati and its partners have built cadres of community legal workers-- sometimes called barefoot lawyers, or community paralegals-- in ten countries. The paralegals have worked with over 65,000 people to protect community lands, enforce environmental law, and secure basic rights to healthcare and citizenship. Namati convenes the Global Legal Empowerment Network, made up of over 1000 groups in 120 countries. Vivek was named a "legal rebel" by the American Bar Association and a Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum. He and Namati received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2016. Vivek's writing has been published in the Guardian, Foreign Policy, Wired, the Yale Journal of International Law, and many others. He is a student of the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira angola.

Shefali Mehta is an agricultural and environmental economist who has spent 10+ years helping organizations to develop and implement strategies tailored to address their complex problems holistically. She founded and currently runs Open Rivers Consulting Associates where she supports clients in tackling some of their toughest problems by finding economic- and science-based solutions. Throughout her career, Dr. Mehta has focused on collaborating across disciplines, industries and sectors to identify innovative and pragmatic solutions to complex issues. She worked in roles across private, public and non-profit sectors and continues to do so. She also serves on several non-profit boards.

Sameena Mustafa, Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois' 5th District, is a native Chicagoan who has advocated on behalf of women and girls throughout her career. Following her time managing a Planned Parenthood clinic on Chicago's West Side, Sameena transferred her leadership skills to commercial real estate, serving as a tenant advocate on behalf of nonprofits that serve marginalized groups. Sameena’s civic achievements include organizing a forum on how to elect more women and people of color, leveraging relationships with community organizations throughout Chicago. Most recently, Sameena was selected as a 2017 National Leadership Academy Fellow by the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies in Washington, D.C. Following the results of the 2016 election, Sameena was inspired to grow from activist to public servant. Sameena intends to fight for economic justice, human rights and political reform to show that the 5th District stands for bold, progressive and inclusive leadership.

Vinay Nair, Ph.D, is the Chairman at 55 Institutional Partners, LLC. Dr. Nair was the Founding Principal of Ada Investment Management LP where he helped form an investment platform and team to design portfolio solutions using financial research and quantitative methods. Prior to founding Ada, Dr. Nair was research director at Old Lane, a hedge fund firm founded by senior executives at Morgan Stanley. Dr. Nair is a visiting professor at the Wharton School and at The Sloan School at MIT, having previously been a full-time faculty member at The Wharton School, and has also been a visiting professor at the University of Pmpeu-Fabra (Barcelona), University of Amsterdam, and many others. He has a PhD in Financial Economics from the New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business with an award for the best thesis. Dr. Nair received a B. Tech from IIT, Madras.

Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of Social Venture Partners International and Executive Chairman and Founder of 5F World, a platform for Skills, Start-ups and Social Ventures in the country. He is also Chairman of Global Talent Track, a pioneer in Employability Skills Training in Asia. Ganesh’s industry responsibilities include Chairman of NASSCOM Foundation, Pune City Connect and Social Venture Partners Pune. He led the HBS Club of India for four years and is a member of the National Council of the CII.

Priya Natarajan is an astrophysicist, author, and Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University. She is a cosmologist who works on understanding structure formation in the universe with particular focus on the dark matter component and black holes. Her first book, Mapping the Heavens: Radical Scientific Ideas that Reveal the Cosmos, came out in April 2016, and takes the reader through the human and psychological side of understanding the cosmos. In addition to her academic position at Yale, she also holds the Sophie and Tycho Brahe Professorship of the Dark Cosmology Center, Niels Bohr Institute, at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She has been awarded fellowships at Guggeheim and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Priya has undergraduate degrees from M.I.T. and did her graduate work in theoretical astrophysics at Cambridge. She serves on the Board at Indiaspora.

Vijai Nathan is one of the leading Indian-American comedians making people laugh across America & internationally too! In August, she became a contributing writer for Washington Post's "Date Lab"- one of the publication's most popular features. You can catch her on an episode of Netflix's "Lady Dynamite," starring comedy legend Maria Bamford, and in the film "Meet the Patels.” Vijai was handpicked by Comedy Legend Arsenio Hall to open for him during his most recent sold-out shows at the DC IMPROV.; she has also opened for international joke-cracking juggernaut Russell Peters & is one of his top "two South Asian comics to watch." Her performance on NPR's "Snap Judgment" is one of the show's most audience-requested recordings. has CBS Online called Vijai one of the best comics in DC, and several online outlets feature Vijai as one of the top female comedians in the country.

Varun Nikore serves as President of the AAPI Victory Fund, a nationwide Super PAC mobilizing the AAPI community for electoral engagement. Varun also serves as Managing Director of Red Fort Strategies, a public affairs and government relations firm, specializing in assisting corporations, non-profits, government agencies, unions and others in achieving success with the Asian American community. Varun's backgrounds spans over 25 years in politics, international business, government and the aerospace and defense industry. Appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe, Varun currently serves the Boards of the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority and the Virginia Offshore Wind Development Authority.

Steven Olikara (@StevenOlikara) is a political entrepreneur and Founder of the Millennial Action Project (MAP), the largest nonpartisan organization of millennial lawmakers in the U.S. MAP’s work in Congress and twenty state legislatures has bridged the partisan divide and produced pioneering legislation on entrepreneurship, education, the environment, and more. Steven also serves as Senior Adviser to multi-platinum recording artist Akon's Lighting Africa, an initiative that has electrified over one million homes in Africa with solar power. A nationally recognized political commentator, Steven has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NBC News, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and many other media outlets.

Rick Pal is an entrepreneur and impact investor. Currently he serves as the chairman of Zuhne, one of the fastest growing brands in kitchen fixtures and EVP of Strategy at myLAB Box, the leading platform for at-home testing and treatment. He is the founder of Innokul, first privately funded incubator in eastern India and Ek Disha Foundation (now merged with America India Foundation). He is a limited partner of Houston Health Ventures and involved with several social ventures that include LegWorks, Wello Water, UE LifeSciences, KTK-BELT, and Embrace Global. He is a Board member of Texas Union Advisory Council, Asia Society Business Steering Committee, and Fort Bend Education Foundation and has served on City of Sugar Land’s Building Standards Commission, Fort Bend ISD Bond Committee, and Texas Exes Scholarship Committee. He is a TEDx speaker, Asia21 Leader, Texas Next Generation Project Fellow, and guest speaker at University of Houston’s SBDC.

Bijal Patel, CHA, resides in Santa Cruz, California and is a third generation commercial real estate entrepreneur and current Chief Executive Officer of Coast Redwood Hospitality. His company, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a full service management, investment, and development company specializing in hospitality, commercial real estate, and investments. Bijal grew up in the business and signed his first franchise agreement at age 17. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the California Hotel & Lodging Association (CH&LA). He also serves as a North Pacific Ambassador and Young Professional Committee Member at the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA).

Jigar Mukesh Patel graduated with LL.M. Honours in International Taxation from the prestigious NYU School of Law, where he was awarded the ‘International Student Leadership Award’ for his outstanding achievements. Jigar worked as an International Tax Attorney with PricewaterhouseCoopers at New York. He is currently the Executive Director of International Tax & Investment Consultants at Ahmedabad, specializing in Personal & Corporate Tax Planning, International Taxation and Tax & Investment Planning for NRIs. He is Vice-President of the Income Tax Bar Association, Ahmedabad and member of Direct Taxes Committee of the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Jigar has addressed several public forums and participated in TV discussions on a wide range of Taxation subjects. He was awarded ‘Upcoming Speaker 2016’ by the All India Federation of Tax Practitioners.

Mansi Patel comes to Indiaspora with a background in communications, policy, and public service. She previously worked at a bipartisan government relations firm, where she served as a Legislative Assistant working on education, tech and health issues. Prior to that, she served Congresswoman Frederica Wilson on Capitol Hill as part of her communications team. She has an extensive background in education, and has taught abroad in Seoul, South Korea, and Salamanca, Spain. She was previously a public school teacher in South Florida. Born in Chicago and raised in Stuart, Florida, Mansi graduated with a BA from Northwestern University.

Parita Patel serves as a director of strategic partnerships to Stand Together, a venture philanthropy organization that is part of the Charles Koch philanthropy network. Through her role, she serves a community of partners in the Western United States and provides counsel and support to enable them to achieve transformative and sustainable change in their communities. Over the past fifteen years she has held programmatic positions for private funding initiatives and direct service providers in Boston, New York, and India, as well as advised the corporate giving strategies of Fortune 100 companies through a philanthropic consulting firm. Prior to joining Stand Together, she served as a senior adviser and program officer to a federal program that provided competitive funding support to grow community solutions with evidence of effectiveness. Born in London and raised in New York City, Parita currently resides in Prince George's County in Maryland.

Radhe Patel is a Co-founder and Director of External Affairs of the Rikers Debate Project, the largest debate education non-profit for incarcerated and justice-involved individuals in the United States. The organization was recently featured on the Samantha Bee show and has expanded from Rikers Island to correctional systems across the country. She is also a Co-founder of Women of Color for Progress, a New York City- based 527 organization focused on funding and training women of color for elected roles and other leadership positions. Radhe is currently pursuing a JD at Harvard Law School and was previously on the Health and Human Services policy team for Mayor Bill de Blasio, focusing on public hospital finance and transformation.

Tarun S. Patel, CHA, is President of Pacific Hospitality Company (www.pachospitality.com), a family-owned, full-service real estate services company specializing in management, development, and investments in the hospitality industry where is has been involved in over $500M in hospitality development and transactions. He is also a Founder and Chief Financial Officer of Pracrea, Inc. a Silicon Valley based software company that has a lead generation and marketing tool for commercial real estate and businesses as (www.AQQIRE.com). Tarun serves on the Board of Governors of Northcott Hospitality and is a Charter member of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) Silicon Valley. He previously served on the Board of Directors of the US Travel Association and as Chairman of Board of Asian American Hotels Owners Association.

Salil Pitroda is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of Trinity Lane Capital, a private investment / company-building partnership. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Salil has extensive technology investing and company building experience across venture capital, growth equity and growth buyouts. He was a founding investor, executive and BOD Member at C-SAM, a mobile payments company that was acquired by MasterCard. He was a deal lead on Facebook’s corporate development team. He has worked in technology investing at Symphony Technology Group, Old Lane, THLee Putnam and General Atlantic. He started his career in the technology and corporate development practices of The Boston Consulting Group. Salil holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, with concentrations in entrepreneurship and finance. He also holds dual B.S. degrees in computer science and economics from MIT.

Aditya Pittie is the founder and Managing Director of PYN Autocomp Pvt. Ltd. - a precision component manufacturing company and a Director of Agni Solar Pvt. Ltd – a solar photovoltaic and solar thermal energy solutions company. He is also a Director of the Pittie Enterprises Group - family business office based in India with interests in real estate and diverse investments. Aditya is a founder member of the University of Michigan India Alumni Association (UMIAA) and a member of the Provost's Advisory Committee of the University of Michigan. He graduated first in his class and holds a B.S.Engineering degree (Summa Cum Laude) in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He also holds an MBA degree in Innovation and Global Leadership from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gautam Raghavan is an independent consultant who currently serves as Senior Advisor for the Indian American Impact Project, a new initiative to build political power by recruiting, training, and supporting candidates for elected office who reflect the Indian American community's values. Recently, Gautam served as Vice President of Policy for the Gill Foundation, where he managed multi-million dollar investments to secure federal and state-level policies that ensure a level playing field for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Americans. From 2011 to 2014, Gautam served as President Obama’s liaison to the LGBTQ and Asian American & Pacific Islander community. He is a board member of the Council for Global Equality, CenterLink, and OptionB.org. Gautam graduated from Stanford University.

Venkatesh “Venky” Raghavendra is a social entrepreneur with nearly three decades of philanthropy, CSR and development experience. He has successfully built global partnerships and mobilized significant resources for a number of international and national organizations. At present he is Vice-President at Safe Water Network helping create access to safe, affordable and clean drinking water to underserved communities. Prior to this he has worked with New York based American India Foundation, Washington DC based Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. He has offered his services and expertise to a number of global organizations like Common Purpose [www.commonpurpose.org], Open Society Foundations among others. He is as an advisor to Government of India, specifically to the National Skills Development Corporation an agency promoting skills development and jobs all across India.

Deepak Raj is founder and managing director of the New Jersey-based private investment firm Raj Associates with investments in real estate and public and private securities. He is also CFA and, with his wife Neera, the founder of the Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University. Deepak has extensive experience as an equity analyst and an investment banker. His leadership positions during 24 years with Merrill Lynch include senior analyst in research (and member of the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team); head of their Global Consumer Products Investment Banking practice; and senior vice president and member of the firm’s executive management committee. A chartered financial analyst (CFA), Deepak graduated from IIT Kanpur and earned an MBA from Northeastern University. He has served on the investment committee of Spring Mountain Capital. He is executive chairman of Pratham USA.

Jenifer Rajkumar serves on the senior leadership team in the Office of New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. She led a statewide effort to ensure immigrants in New York State have access to counsel through the Governor's first-in-the-nation Liberty Defense Project. Rajkumar practiced civil rights law for several years at Sanford Heisler Sharp LLP. She was part of the legal team on Velez v. Novartis, ranked by the U.N. as one of the top 10 cases in the world advancing women's rights. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School (JD) and the University of Pennsylvania (BA).

Kesha Ram grew up in her Indian immigrant father and Jewish American mother's Irish pub in Los Angeles, where she learned the value of family and hard work. She is currently a candidate to receive a Master of Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School after serving for eight years in the Vermont State Legislature representing Burlington. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Planning and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Vermont. She has served on the House General, Housing, & Military Affairs; Ways & Means; and Natural Resources & Energy Committees. She is a Morris K. Udall and Harry S. Truman Scholar, and serves on the boards of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and the Vermont Natural Resources Council.

Sushma Raman is the Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She brings a rich and diverse background in philanthropy, human rights and social justice through her work in the U.S. and globally with the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, as well as her experience leading human rights programs and social justice foundations. Sushma has taught graduate courses on public policy and communications; global civil society, the state and the NGO sector at Harvard University, USC and UCLA. Sushma graduated from the mid-career MPA program from Harvard in 2013, where she was awarded the Lucius N. Littauer Fellowship in recognition of her academic achievements and leadership role within the Harvard community. She has a B.A. in Economics from Smith College and M.A. from UCLA.

Sunder Ramaswamy is Vice Chancellor of IFMR in Chennai. He is also on leave from Middlebury College (Vermont), where he is a Distinguished College Professor of International Economics. From 2009 – 2015, he was the President of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California (MIIS); He has been a faculty & administrator at Middlebury College since 1990, and has had sabbaticals at the World Bank, Vanderbilt University, IFMR & the Madras School of Economics. He has co- authored and co-edited 4 books, written scores of articles, and delivered over 150 lectures on Globalization, Economic Development, Indian Economic Reforms and Economic Literacy. He is currently working to establish a residential liberal arts university in India (Chennai).

Sunny Ramchandani currently serves in a number of strategic roles in the Office of the Chief Medical Officer at Aetna. A highly decorated naval officer, his extensive experience in government and military medicine has given him a strong background in population health and primary care transformation. Sunny was the first Navy physician to be selected as a White House Fellow and served as the Chief Medical Officer of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). The FEHBP serves 8 million beneficiaries, contains over 200 healthcare plans, and has an annual budget of $43 billion. In 2009, Sunny deployed to Afghanistan as the Senior Medical Mentor for the Afghan National Security Forces and led the development of Afghanistan’s first national hospital standards. He graduated from Yale Medical School and Harvard’s school of Public Health.

MR Rangaswami thrives on creating influential communities that achieve global impact. Using his skills as a critic, cheerleader and facilitator, M.R. has united leaders and advanced strategic initiatives in the fields of software, corporate sustainability and entrepreneurship. In 2007, M.R. founded the Corporate Eco Forum, an organization dedicated to improving the effectiveness of eco-strategies at Global 500 companies. In 2012, he founded Indiaspora to lead unite Indian Americans and to transform their success into meaningful impact in India and worldwide.

Ramesh Raskar is an Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab. Ramesh Raskar joined the Media Lab from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in 2008 as head of the Lab’s Camera Culture research group. His research interests span the fields of computational photography, inverse problems in imaging and human-computer interaction. Recent projects and inventions include transient imaging to look around a corner, a next generation CAT-Scan machine, imperceptible markers for motion capture (Prakash), long distance barcodes (Bokode), low-cost eye care devices (Netra,Catra), new theoretical models to augment light fields (ALF) to represent wave phenomena and algebraic rank constraints for 3D displays(HR3D). Raskar has received numerous awards including the TR100 Award from Technology Review and the Global Indus Technovator Award. He holds over 80 US patents and has received four Mitsubishi Electric Invention Award.

Rahul Rekhi is currently on Lazard's investment banking team, where he focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and strategic advisory as part of the Global Healthcare Group. Previously he served as a staff economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, covering tax/budget policy, healthcare, and international finance; as a consultant for the World Bank; and at McKinsey & Company in New York. Rahul is a Truman and Marshall Scholar, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, and a Forbes '30 under 30', and his writings have appeared in The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, and Health Affairs. He holds graduate degrees in economics and engineering from Oxford and the London School of Economics, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Rice University.

Richard “Rick” Rossow is a senior adviser and holds the Wadhwani Chair in U.S.- India Policy Studies at CSIS. In this role he helps frame and shape policies to promote greater business and economic engagement between the two countries. He joined CSIS in 2014, having spent the last 16 years working in a variety of capacities to strengthen the partnership between the United States and India.

Avi Sahi has led global innovation and venture capital investments for Johnson Controls ($32B revenue) since 2014 with a focus on digital transformation, mobility and energy technology. Previously, he was Partner, Strategic Investments at NIKE. Earlier, he worked as an investor at a $2.5B fund private equity fund and was a energy technology investment banker before that. He holds an MBA from Georgetown University, an MA from NYU, and a BS from Rutgers University.

Nalini Saligram, Ph.D., is founder & CEO of Arogya World (arogyaworld.org), a global health non-profit committed to changing the course of chronic disease. She is an Ashoka Fellow. Under Nalini’s leadership, Arogya World designs and implements scalable, science-based diabetes prevention programs in India, taking prevention to where people live and learn and work. Arogya’s team has advanced workplace health in 79 companies spanning 2 million employees and has developed myArogya, a mobile App for chronic disease prevention for working Indians. A tireless advocate for NCD prevention, Nalini leverages public-private partnerships and global platforms to improve the world we live in: eg. Clinton Global Initiative (Commitments in 2011, 2013, 2016). Arogya was a finalist for the Drucker Award (2014) and is backed by Cigna, Merck, Novartis, Hans Foundation. Nalini has lived and worked in many parts of the world. She has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science.

Deval Sanghavi has provided funders with intelligent investment strategies directing over USD 60 million into the Indian social sector over the past 18 years. He incubated the Dasra Philanthropy Week – a multi-stakeholder national platform and also initiated the Dasra Giving Circle – India’s largest collaborative giving platform. He has written articles for media publications such as Mint, Business India and Alliance Magazine and has been quoted in NDTV, Times of India, Economic Times, Hindustan Times and Mint. He was recently awarded the Forbes Philanthropy Award in the 'Crossover Leaders' category for 2014 for successfully transitioning from a thriving career in investment banking to the non-profit sector. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration with a dual Honors degree in Business and Finance from the University of Texas, Austin, is a Cordes Fellow and a founding board member of Magic Bus and Villgro.

Anita Schwartz works for The Nature Conservancy’s India Program. The Conservancy is working in India to secure freshwater, green cities, advance renewable energy, protect forests, and improve agricultural practices. Anita’s role is to mobilize resources and build external partnerships. Anita has worked for conservation organizations for more than 20 years and started her non-profit career at Conservation International in Washington, D.C. in 1990. Anita earned a B.A. from American University with a double major in literature and American studies. She is a Certified Fund Raising Executive, having secured an internationally-recognized professional credential for philanthropic executives. Anita also completed a certificate program in authentic leadership at Naropa University. She serves on the Board of Directors of Boulder's Dairy Arts Center. Anita is a small business owner, an aspiring collage artist, and an avid reader.

Ami Anand Shah, MD FACP, FAARM is a “mommapreneur” entrepreneur, pharmaceutical industry executive, active part-time integrative medicine practitioner, philanthropist and leader in several local, state and national medical non-profit organizational communities. She has nearly 15 years of both clinical practice and global versatile pharmaceutical industry executive experience with demonstrated leadership, people management and business strategy and development. Ami is also the Founder of Face2Face Health, a digital web and mobile based platform for caretakers of children with challenges that offers telemedicine, resources and tools and parent communities in one place. She is seeking active investors to prep for Q1 2018 launch.

Amit Shah is a seasoned pharmaceutical development and manufacturing executive with over 15 years of experience. Amit heads corporate strategy and business development for Bio-Pharm, Inc. a USA FDA registered specialty drug developer and manufacturer.

Jigar Shah is the Co-Founder of Generate Capital. Shah was the founder and CEO of SunEdison (NASDAQ: SUNE), where he pioneered “no money down solar” and unlocked a multi-billion-dollar solar market, creating the largest solar services company worldwide. After SunEdison, he served as the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit founded by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to help entrepreneurs address climate change. Shah sees business model innovation as a leveraged tool for driving the next productivity revolution – resource efficiency. He is committed to helping entrepreneurs and large companies alike implement resource efficiency solutions using "no money down" project finance models. In 2013, Jigar authored Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy. Holds an MBA from University of Maryland and BS from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Khushali Shah is an organizational leader with experience in building trust, fostering positive culture and reinventing process in complex organizations. She has worked with governments and non-profits to create social impact and is skilled in working with internal and external stakeholders to reach common goals. She was most recently the Chief Operations Officer for the Asia Society, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization started by John D. Rockefeller 3rd to build bridges between Asia and the West. Khushali previously served as the interim COO for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a nonprofit founded by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations committed to improving the lives of smallholder farmers across Africa. Khushali previously served in the U.S. Government, in the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources at the U.S. Department of State, where she oversaw the allocation and use of the nearly $35 billion annual State Department and USAID foreign assistance budget; at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations; at the White House Office of Management and Budget; and on Capitol Hill.

Vandana Shah is the Director, South Asia Programs for the Campaign for Tobacco- Free Kids (CTFK), a US based non-profit organization that works globally to reduce tobacco use. She leads policy advocacy efforts in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and many other South Asian countries. She works with multiple stakeholders including government, media and civil society to formulate and implement political and media advocacy strategies. She was the Executive Director of the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund, a state foundation where she was responsible for developing and implementing statewide preventive health programs. She has law degrees from Duke and Calcutta University. She is the co-founder of KIRAN, a domestic violence organization for South Asians in NC and has served on the Boards of various health care and non-profit organizations in North Carolina.

Manvendra Singh Shekhawat’s love lies in hotels, heritage conservation, design, experiential real estate, agriculture, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. His work is a representation of a unique way of life, carefully preserving traditions of the past yet framing them in a modern idiom. His hotels, take the path less travelled and his NGO “I Love Jaisalmer”, was responsible for launching Jaisalmer’s largest cleanliness and conservation drive. He believes in India and its endless possibilities. Through his work, he wants to create mediums that can help maximise human potential. His love for travel and cultures over the years, has inspired him to become an avid movie maker. Manvendra is currently working on building experiential hotels, restoration of a 350 year old military fort and development of a renaissance township.

Amita Shukla is a thought leader, innovator, and entrepreneur focused on creating and scaling transformative innovations for human health, well-being, and potential. She is the founder and CEO of Vitamita and the author of Enduring Edge: Transforming How We Think, Create and Change and the Mind Tool Box: Powerful Mantras to Unlock the Mind’s Potential. Previously, she served as a venture capital (VC) investor at New Enterprise Associates, one of the world’s largest VC firms, where she invested in cutting-edge healthcare innovations. She has served as a Governor’s appointee to the board of Maryland’s Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) since 2010. She holds a BA in biochemistry from Harvard, an MBA from Stanford, and 10 patents.

Atul Singh is the Founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Fair Observer, a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit that informs and educates global citizens of today and tomorrow. Atul teaches global political economy and world history at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. He is a formidable writer, a charismatic orator and an unconventional thinker with an uncanny ability to connect the dots. Atul worked as a corporate lawyer in London and led special operations as an elite officer in India’s volatile border areas where he had many near-death experiences. Atul studied at Oxford on the Radhakrishnan Scholarship and did an MBA with a triple major in finance, strategy and entrepreneurship at the Wharton School. He has also been a poet, playwright, sportsman, mountaineer and a founder of many organizations.

Hirsh Vardhan Singh was recently a candidate for Governor of New Jersey as the youngest Indian American Gubernatorial candidate in US history. Hirsh is an engineer, businessman, and New Jersey native with a passion for finding, designing, and implementing solutions that keep the public and our soldiers abroad safe. Born in Atlantic City as the middle of three children, Hirsh learned the value of hard work, determination and respect from his parents who emigrated from India at a young age. Since completing his engineering degree, Hirsh has thrived in the aerospace, satellite navigation and defense industry directing and managing teams at Hi-Tec Systems Inc., where he manages the front-line work at its eight different locations. More than a manager, Hirsh is charged with finding and negotiating contracts that aim to provide cutting edge engineering solutions to both civilian and government agencies. Hirsh is a candidate for US Senate in 2018.

Preeti Sinha is Senior President and Global Convenor of the YES INSTITUTE at Yes Bank Limited. She also serves as an Advisor at Zone Startups. Prior to this appointment, Preeti was the Chief in the Delivery and Performance Office at the African Development Bank (AfDB). She has worked extensively on financing for development under Resource Mobilization and Strategy Development in over 4 continents – Asia, North America, Europe and Africa. With over 25 years of global experience, she now leads the YES Institute in New Delhi. Preeti was Project Director for the Financing for Development (FfD) Initiative at the World Economic Forum in Geneva and Davos, Switzerland. She has prior experience of over 15 years in investment banking for HSBC, Rabobank, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan. Preeti has an Executive Education degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a Master’s degree in Global Leadership from the World Economic Forum, an MBA from the Yale University School of Management (SOM), and a BA Honors degree from Dartmouth College.

Sascha Sippy Sascha Sippy , grandson of National Citizens Award winner GP SIPPY , who was most famously known for making the magnum opus film SHOLAY. Sascha owns the family businesses namely Sippy Films and Sholay Media. He has a wealth of experience as an entrepreneur who has lived in many countries including USA  where he has had a home throughout his life and was educated at Bentley College in Mass. Sascha's focus today is based on philanthropy, impact investing while involving business. He works closely with Akshayapatra on their U.K. DEVELOPMENT BOARD which has been set up to help eradicate food poverty in the city of London.

Ganesh Sitaraman is a Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. From 2011 to 2013, he served as Policy Director to Elizabeth Warren during her successful Senate campaign, and then as her Senior Counsel in the United States Senate. Professor Sitaraman is the author of The Crisis of the Middle Class Constitution (Knopf 2017) and The Counterinsurgent‘s Constitution: Law in the Age of Small Wars (Oxford University Press, 2012), which won the 2013 Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. An Eagle Scout and a Truman Scholar, he earned his A.B. in government magna cum laude at Harvard, a master‘s degree in political thought and intellectual history from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review.

Matthew Spacie, MBE, established Magic Bus with a small group of volunteers and over the years, has evolved it into a multiple award-winning NGO working to move millions of children and youth from highly marginalised communities out of poverty. When Matthew created Magic Bus at the age of 29, he was the COO of Cox and Kings, India’s largest holiday tour operator. In 2006, Matthew also cofounded cleartrip.com, which is today one of the largest pure-play online travel company in South Asia. He has been elected an Ashoka Fellow, a TED Fellow and as an Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (ACSEP) Fellow. Matthew is currently Executive Chairman of Magic Bus Global, leading operations in India, Singapore, the US, UK, Myanmar and Nepal. He also sits on the Global Advisory Boards of Etihad Airlines and DASRA. Matthew is a UK Citizen and lives in Mumbai with his family.

Deep Sran is running for Congress in Virginia. He is a teacher, school founder, edtech entrepreneur, and corporate lawyer with a doctorate in human development. He aims to be the first Indian American elected to Congress on the East Coast.

Krishna Srinivasa is President of Professional Consulting Services. He is also President of Cumberland Software, Vice President of Cumming Family Medicine, and Executive Director and Vice President of US India Security Council. Krishna V. Srivivasa is a businessman based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has a Master's Degrees in Economics and Information Systems and over 30 years in Data Processing. He is a Delegate to the National White House Conference on small business. He was the Past President, Indian American Forum for Political Education, C0-Chair, Asian Americans for Reagen-Bush, 1984. Chair, Indian Americans for Bush-Quayle 1988, 1992 and President, Professional Consulting Services, 1980-1998. He has supported the campaigns of the President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Krishna has planned, organized and raised funds, with the support of Indian Americans, for the reelection campaign of Senator John McCain, and many others.

Nageeb Sumar serves as Deputy Director on the Philanthropic Partnerships Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He oversees the foundation’s work on policy, systems and innovation in philanthropy. Prior to joining the Philanthropic Partnerships Team in September 2015, Nageeb served as a Senior Program Officer on the Donor Government Relations team, where he led and oversaw the Foundation’s engagement with Canada, Australia, Japan and Korea. He also assisted the US government relations team in building support and partnerships around the Foundation’s polio and vaccines work. Nageeb has also worked on international finance transactions, and at Oxfam America.

Anshul Tewari is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Youth Ki Awaaz, which is India’s largest digital platform for young people to express themselves on issues of importance. He has worked across new media and online journalism as a media entrepreneur and serves as a Trustee on the Board of Jhatkaa, a campaigning organisation committed to building grassroots citizen power across India. Anshul is also an Ashoka Fellow for social entrepreneurship and was named a Young Innovator by the United Nations ITU in 2012.

Navin Thukkaram is a technology investor and entrepreneur who has achieved a great deal at a relatively young age. He was previously a Partner at Vulcan Capital, where The Wall Street Journal reported his investments generated over $1.5 billion in returns. Following Vulcan, Thukkaram was Chief Operating Officer and an angel investor in Qwiki, a mobile video startup acquired by Yahoo! in 2013. He has been featured on CNBC, Fox News Business, Fortune and other major media outlets. Thukkaram is on the board of SkyKick, a cloud software company, and is an advisor to the Chief of U.S. Naval Operations (bio credit, Sotheby's)

Mini Timmaraju has over 20 years of professional experience in federal, state and local politics, as well as extensive advocacy and policy background on gender issues and outreach strategies for minority constituencies. She currently serves as an Executive Director on the External Affairs team for Comcast in Washington D.C. In this role she serves as a liaison between Comcast and external stakeholders including advocacy organizations, political organizations, and public policy groups.

Vamsee Tirukkala is the co-founder of Draup, a next generation enterprise sales enablement platform, and Zinnov, a global management consultancy firm focused on helping large technology companies with their business strategy. He has a wealth of experience in Launching Products, Market Development, Revenue Generation efforts, and Customer Engagements across the globe. He has been instrumental in successfully establishing sales enablement programs, customer service models, and strategic industry partnerships. Vamsee is also the co-founder of TalentNeuron (acquired by CEB a Gartner Company (NYSE:IT)) and worked at Centric Software, Inc. He has a US government patent on “Virtual Three-Dimensional Display for Product Development.” He holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Iowa State University.

Naveen Todi has a passion for developing and executing the strategic vision for successful businesses and organizations. He has had a successful track record in this capacity as both the COO / principal owner of the PMI Group as well as an avid investor and board advisor to talented entrepreneurs that are building highly innovative businesses in cutting edge markets. He completed his MBA at the Wharton School. He received his dual bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and Economics while enrolled in the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania.

Swetha Totapally is at Dalberg, where she works to create inclusive and sustainable communities across the globe. She seeks to identify exciting opportunities for the Indian diaspora to contribute to a more sustainable world.

Ira Trivedi is a writer and yoga acharya. She has written eight books in both the fiction and non fiction genres and she writes regularly for leading publications around the world. Her show “Yogaira” on India Today is a leading health show and she also has a TV show on Doordarshan, India’s national channel. She led the first international yoga day in New Delhi which broke the record for the largest yoga class in history, 55,000 people.Ira is also the founder of Namami Yoga, a NGO which teaches yoga to underprivileged children She is one of BBC’s “100 women” in 2017, a list of influencers from around the world.

Sheel Tyle is the Founder & CEO of Amplo, a venture capital firm focused on investing in the most impactful young entrepreneurs globally. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Andela, most recently named the #1 most innovative company in Africa by Fast Company. As an angel investor, Sheel has invested in the seed or Series A of Casper, Fiscalnote, Mark43, Robinhood, and others. Sheel graduated from Stanford University in three years, at the age of 19. He is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, and was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2013. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School. In 2016, upon invitation of the White House, Sheel was part of the US delegation with President Obama on his historic visit to Cuba.

Riaz Valani serves as a General Partner at Global Asset Capital. Mr. Valani has been with Global Asset Capital since 1997. He serves as an Advisor of Metabiota, Inc. He served as the President of IMDI/Sonique. Previously, he was a Managing Director of Global Entertainment Capital and was with Gruntal & Co., where he focused on private equity and asset securitizations. He served as the Chairman of Viventures Partners SA. Riaz has been a Director of Betawave Corporation since October 27, 2006. He serves as a Director of Ploom Inc., IGT, and Wafergen Inc. He is a Charter Member of TiE. He serves as a Director of Maritz Properties, Inc. and Avex Funding Corporation. He was one of the two investment bankers that engineered the acclaimed “David Bowie Bonds” which was awarded Deal of the Year in 1997.

Sachin Varghese is seeking to become the first Indian American elected to the Georgia legislature. He was born in India and immigrated to Georgia as a child. He grew up working class and his mom has been an hourly employee for over 30 years. Sachin grew up attending diverse public schools and was fortunate to receive a great education. He is a former public school teacher and now an attorney. He has lived in the district he seeks to represent for almost a decade with his wife and two young children. Sachin has fought against discrimination and on behalf of Georgians. He helped lead the challenge against Georgia’s discriminatory statewide redistricting maps and argued alongside Rep. John Lewis. Sachin’s life experience—growing up working class, as a minority and an immigrant, as a former teacher, and as a cancer survivor—has instilled in him a strong desire to run for office.

Anurag Varma is Head of Global Government Government Affairs for Infosys Limited, a global technology consulting firm, where he develops and executes public policy strategies involving national and regional governments in each of the company’s key markets, including the U.S., Canada, European Union, Australia and India. Prior to joining Infosys, Anurag served as public policy counsel before the U.S. Congress and Administration on behalf of foreign sovereign clients, Indian private sector interests and Indian American trade associations. In parallel, Anurag also worked on the lead litigation teams for national class action racial discrimination cases against the US government, resulting in $3 billion in compensation to African American and Native American farmers. He is married to Monika Kalra Varma, a human rights lawyer, and they have three children.

Balakrishnan “Bala” Venkatachalam is the Executive Director of Pratham USA.. Earlier, between 2003 and 2006, Bala led the National Operations for Pratham programs across India and worked closely with Pratham’s co-founder and former CEO, Dr. Madhav Chavan and the current CEO Dr Rukmini Banerji. Bala brings to this role his diverse leadership experience in the social and corporate sectors. Most recently he worked with the Monitor Group in India where he led identification of new business opportunities in affordable urban housing and was involved in developing that market. Prior to Monitor Bala was the co-founder of a startup mobile technology company that developed solutions for large-scale data aggregation and analysis. Bala has an MBA from INSEAD (France) and is a Chartered Accountant. He also played competitive cricket and table tennis representing Tamil Nadu state at a junior level. Bala lives with his wife and daughter in Cambridge MA.

SaiPrasad Venkatachalam is founder and chief inspirer at SaiAashraya, a platform to serve and share love, where a variety of services are provided to the underserved communities and in diverse and challenging locations through nothing but pure LOVE. Volunteers practice a unique 'Ceiling on Desires (COD)' in their daily lives and find joy and bliss in the convergence of lower & lower desires and sharing (giving & receiving) LOVE. Join our SEVA & uncover your true life journey - SaiAashraya.org

Rich Verma is Vice Chairman at The Asia Group, and most recently served as U.S. Ambassador to India from December 2014 to January 2017. He has more than two decades of experience at the highest levels of government, business, and diplomacy across the Indo-Pacific region. Rich began his career in the U.S. Air Force as an Air Force judge advocate. He has worked as a senior counselor at Steptoe & Johnson, as senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from 2002 to 2007, and as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs in the State Department from 2007 to 2011. He has extensive experience in national security and nonproliferation issues. In 2007, he was named by "India Abroad" as one of the 50 most influential Indian- Americans.

Krish Vignarajah was 9-months old when her family escaped the civil war in Sri Lanka and built a life in Maryland. She attended Yale College, where she earned a Master’s degree in Political Science and a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. She was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where she received an M.Phil. in International Relations, before returning to Yale Law School. Krish recently finished serving as Policy Director for Michelle Obama and led the Let Girls Learn initiative. Before the White House, she served as Senior Advisor at the State Department under Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Before joining the White House, Krish worked at McKinsey & Company, practiced law at Jenner & Block in Washington, DC, clerked for Chief Judge Michael Boudin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and taught at Georgetown University. Krish is married to Collin O’Mara, the CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. This past June, they welcomed a daughter, Alana.

Thiru Vignarajah is a partner at DLA Piper in Baltimore and previously served as Deputy Attorney General of Maryland. A native of Baltimore, Thiru studied at Yale University and Harvard Law School, where he was President of the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court. He then served as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland and as Chief of Major Investigations in the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office before being named Deputy Attorney General. Thiru has taught constitutional law and crime policy at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore Law School, and Maryland Law School, where he has repeatedly received the award for outstanding professor of the year. Thiru is a Democrat running for State’s Attorney for Baltimore City.

Sunil Wadhwani is the Co-Founder and Ex Chairman of IGATE Corporation. Sunil was one of the early pioneers of the IT industry, and his vision has guided the development and execution of IGATE's worldwide strategy. In addition to IGATE, Sunil is the Co- Founder and Chairman of the Board of Mastech Corporation, a provider of high-value information technology services and solutions. Sunil has started and co-funded several innovations-focused companies and start-ups for the past 30 years. To pursue his passion and commitment for improving healthcare service delivery, Sunil established Wadhwani Initiative for Sustainable Healthcare (or WISH Foundation), a non-profit headquartered in New Delhi to support innovations in healthcare. With an aim of building an equitable healthcare system, WISH is making quality healthcare accessible to underserved populations in priority states and has committed several million dollars to scale over 50 healthcare innovations.