Sanjay has over two decades of international experience spanning the domains of investments, management consulting and business development. He has extensive business and personal relationships with leading executives, investors, and institutions in the US-India corridor, including a significant concentration of high net worth individuals, family offices, and venture capital/private equity firms. Sanjay 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 connects social innovators with impact investors, mentors, technology resources, government contacts and local partners. AFI is headquartered in New Delhi, India and has a chapter in Silicon Valley, California. Launched in 2012, AFI is inspired and guided by Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the Prime Minister of India and Chairman of India's National Innovation Council. Sanjay is also a co-founder of the Center for Healthcare Innovation, a best in class US based research center and thought-leadership institution focusing on the life sciences. He led CHI’s effort to engage top healthcare, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical executives, entrepreneurs, and investors, with a concentrated focus on the US and India. Previously, Sanjay served as a Senior Advisor for Strategic Initiatives at Hetero Drugs, India’s largest privately held pharmaceutical company. Sanjay was also with The Seven Hills Group, a US based family office making investments in the US-India corridor. During his five year tenure with the firm, The Seven Hills Group has invested more than 50M USD across a variety of sectors including Media & Entertainment, Healthcare, Technology, Clean Tech, Education and Real Estate. Sanjay is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs, the world’s largest network of 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 created to provide pro-bono business consulting services to civic and governmental causes in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. In an earlier role, Sanjay served as the Chairman of the Editorial Board of IIT Maanas, the alumni magazine of IIT Madras. Sanjay is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Dr. James J. Gillespie, the Co-Founder of Action For India, is an entrepreneur and executive with broad experience and deep experience focusing on analytics, data, and strategy in the biotechnology, healthcare, medical device, and pharmaceutical sectors. Dr. Gillespie’s work has appeared in Academy of Management Review, American Behavioral Scientist, Clinical Leader, European Journal of Social Psychology, Federal Reserve Bank, Harvard Business Review, Life Science Leader, Pharmaceutical Executive, and Strategic Management Journal. His education includes Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, M.A., Ph.D.; Harvard University School of Law, J.D.; Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy, M.P.A.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S.; Carnegie Mellon University Heinz School of Public Policy and Management; and RAND Graduate School.
Mr. Hiranmay Mahanta cofounded Techpedia in college to showcase innovations across universities in public domain to build a strong innovation culture across youth. He is passionate to develop and harness inclusive innovation and start-up ecosystems, processes, pedagogies & institution building involving youth, academia, industry and other actors to create sustainable innovation driven enterprises. He has been instrumental in conceiving & deploying youth centric innovation & start-up ecosystem for universities and helping various state govts and universities to shape policies and deploy them. He is a member of Global Shaper community an initiative of world economic forum at Ahmadabad. He acts as honorary director of GTU Innovation Council and Student Start-up Support System which caters the needs and support process of innovation and start-up efforts of half a million youth across GTU covering more than 500 professional colleges. For unique honorary contribution in last 5 years in building student innovation and start-up ecosystem in the state of Gujarat, GTU awarded him a special Gold Medal for his contribution to the State of Gujarat during GTU Innovation Sankul day. He is also a Member, University Start-up policy committee, Govt. of Gujarat .As a member of AICTE start-up policy implementation committee; he is making national strategy to take the innovation and student start-up movement across 10,000 plus colleges affiliated with AICTE across all states to harness creative potential of students across disciplines. He has been nominated to contribute to a dozen Technology Business Incubators to support young start-ups. He is a graduate of SVNIT Surat in Electronics & Communication Engineering class of 2010.
Hemanth has 30 years of experience in Industry, primarily with startups . Beginning his career with Philips India, he became a member of Tata Administrative Service in 1983. At Tata Tea Limited, he was part of the team that turned around the loss making packet tea division. He joined Tea Telecom Limited as its first employee and also served as the the Chief Operating Officer, Tata Advanced Materials Limited for ten years. He is currently working as a business consultant with startups and also teaches foreign students at Christ University.