Nalanda 2.0 has an exceptional team Board of Directors, and Global Advisory Council consisting of leaders from the academia, industry and civil society. The team collectively has leadership, academic, administrative, and educational experiences from several world-class multidisciplinary research universities such as Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, and India's premier institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Team also includes a growing group of volunteers and supporters.
empowering people. benefitting society.
Nalanda 2.0 has an exceptional team Board of Directors, and Global Advisory Council consisting of leaders from the academia, industry and civil society. The team collectively has leadership, academic, administrative, and educational experiences from several world-class multidisciplinary research universities such as Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, and India's premier institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Team also includes a growing group of volunteers.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Shailendra Kumar, Founder and President, Nalanda 2.0
Mr. Shailendra “Shail” Kumar is the Founder and President of Nalanda 2.0. He is also the convener of the initiative to build Ekagrid and its Chief Operating Officer.
He has a B.Tech with honors in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington. He was President of the IIT Foundation and co-founder of the Pan IIT alumni movement in the US. He is also a recipient of IIT Kharagpur’s Distinguished Service Award.
Shail spent over fifteen years in Silicon Valley, as co-founder and CEO of two start-ups, and held various roles in corporate strategy, global operations and planning, business development, and finance in several Fortune 500 companies such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, and FMC Corp.
Shail then switched from industry to academia and was an administrator at two world-class multidisciplinary research universities: UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. At UC San Diego, he led development teams for seven colleges and schools. He co-led the pre-planning for a $1 Billion fundraising campaign and co-led the successful close of the $50 million Invent the Future campaign for fellowships and scholarships. At UC Berkeley, he worked with university leaders and faculty members from across the campus to advance its research, entrepreneurship, and education priorities. Shail served on the management team for the $3 billion “Campaign for Berkeley.”
His experiences drove him on a mission to impact the higher education architecture of India.
He wrote "Building Golden India" (published 2015), the seminal book on the changes required in India's higher education policy. To take these ideas into actions, in 2016 he launched Nalanda 2.0, a non-profit organization. Nobel Laureate Prof. Randy Schekman of UC Berkeley presented this book to India’s Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in 2017. Many of the goals, ideas, and policy recommendations in India’s National Education Policy (NEP 2020) are in this book.
Ekagrid, a multi-disciplinary research university in India that would be in the top 25 universities of the world, is the manifestation of these ideas backed by a phenomenal team.
Arjun Malhotra
Mr. Arjun Malhotra is a pioneer of the Indian IT industry. He served as Chairman of Headstrong’s Board of Directors before its acquisition by Genpact in May 2011. Prior to Headstrong he was Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of TechSpan, which merged with Headstrong in October 2003.
Mr Malhotra is on the Board of Governors of ISB, Hyderabad, RGIIM Shillong and IIT (Kharagpur) Foundation. He is a past Co-Chair of the Global Pan-IIT Alumni Association. He is Fellow of IETE; A Member of Institute of Engineers, India. He is also a Member of IPSS and is on the Board of Governors of The Doon School. A Life Fellow of IIT Kharagpur, he has been awarded Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) in September 2012. Punjab Technical University conferred an Honorary PhD on him in 2013.
Mr. Malhotra studied at The Doon School, Dehradun, graduated from IIT Kharagpur with B.Tech. (Hons.) in Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering and received the Dr. B.C. Roy Gold Medal. In 1985, he attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. (click here for a more detailed bio.)
Krishna Saraswat
Prof. Krishna Saraswat is Rickey/Nielsen Professor in the School of Engineering, Professor of Electrical Engineering and by courtesy Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at Stanford University.
He was born in Pilani, Rajasthan, India and received all his initial education in Pilani leading to B.E. degree in Electronics in 1968 from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS). He moved to USA in 1968 and received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1969 and 1974 respectively from Stanford University. After graduating he joined Stanford University as a Research Associate in 1975 and later became a Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1983. He also has an honorary appointment of an Adjunct Professor at BITS, Pilani since January 2004 and a Visiting Professor during 2007 at IIT Bombay, India. He has been a technical advisor, board member and consultant to several industrial organizations in USA, Asia and Europe. He has also advised several academic and government organizations all over the world, including Indian Government, BITS Pilani, IISC Bangalore and IIT Bombay.
An award winning faculty member, he is listed by ISI as one of the Highly Cited Authors in his field. (click here for a more detailed bio.)
GLOBAL ADVISORY COUNCIL
Sudhir Jain
Prof. Sudhir Jain is the first Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) in Ahmedabad.
He is an internationally renowned scholar in Earthquake Engineering and a passionate academic administrator. Prior to IITGN and since 1984 he was on the faculty of IIT Kanpur. Prof. Jain is currently the President of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering.
Prof. Jain holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Roorkee, and Masters and Doctoral degrees from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
Devesh Kapur
Dr. Devesh Kapur is Starr Foundation South Asia Studies Professor and Asia Programs Director at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.
Earlier, he was Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds the Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India. Prior to that, he was Associate Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, and before that the Frederick Danziger Associate Professor of Government at Harvard. His research focuses on human capital, national and international public institutions, and the ways in which local-global linkages, especially international migration and international institutions, affect political and economic change in developing countries, especially India.
Dr. Kapur holds a B. Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University; an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota; and a Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.
Sridhar Rajagopalan
Mr. Sridhar Rajagopalan is an educational entrepreneur who has helped change the way student learning outcomes are seen in India. He is an IIT Madras - IIM Ahmedabad graduate who co-founded and ran Eklavya School Ahmedabad before starting Educational Initiatives (EI) in 2001.
EI researches and creates diagnostic assessments and offers ASSET, India’s largest diagnostic assessment. Mindspark, EI’s adaptive learning program, is used by over 80,000 students in India, the Middle East and the USA. It was the topic of a Harvard Business School case and featured in an Economist cover story in 2017. EI has worked with government schools in over 20 Indian states. Its Student Learning Study (supported by Google, Inc.) provides the most detailed picture available of student learning levels in 19 Indian states.
Mr. Rajagopalan is a member of various central and state government committees related to assessment and learning. He is a board member of Central Square Foundation and trustee of Pratham, Gujarat. He is based in the USA and runs EI’s US subsidiary.
Parth Shah
Dr. Parth Shah is the Founder and President of Centre for Civil Society (CCS). CCS advances social change through public policy. In the latest ranking of think tanks, CCS was ranked 51st globally and 1st in India.
Dr. Shah has a PhD in Economics, taught at the University of Michigan and been a visiting faculty at JNU, Delhi and M S University, Vadodara. He is a member of the education taskforce of the governments of Delhi and Karnataka and serves on the Senate of the Central University of Himachal and Tamil Nadu. He has spoken and written extensively on the issues of livelihood freedom, education choice, property rights approach to the environment and new public management. He has written and co-edited several books and monographs like Law, Liberty & Livelihood: Making a Living on the Street; Terracotta Reader: A Market Approach to the Environment; Profiles in Courage: Dissent on Indian Socialism; Morality of Markets; Social Change & Public Policy.
Kim Walesh
Ms. Kim Walesh is Director of Economic Development and Deputy City Manager, City of San Jose.
At the City of San Jose, Kim leads the implementation of city’s comprehensive economic strategy to catalyze job growth, private investment, revenue generation, and talent attraction. Prior to joining City of San Jose, Kim was co-founder and managing director of Collaborative Economics--a Silicon Valley-based consultancy that works with business and civic leaders to build stronger economies and better communities.
Kim is co-author of the books Grassroots Leaders for a New Economy: How Civic Entrepreneurs Build Prosperous Communities and Civic Revolutionaries: Igniting the Passion for Change in American Communities. She has written more than 50 other reports and publications, including key documents about the Silicon Valley region. She is a founding board member SPUR San Jose, the ZERO1 Art and Technology network, and the Prospect Silicon Valley innovation center.
Kim holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and humanities from Valparaiso University and a master of public policy degree from Harvard University, where she was a Kennedy Fellow. (click here for a more detailed bio.)