Jignesh Patel | President

Jignesh is the President of IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, Palo Alto, California, USA. He is founder of Charioteer Capital LLC, which serves as a platform/family office for making investments primarily in commercial real estate. He also spends time on various non-profit endeavors, serving on the boards of IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation, Pratham USA Tristate, and the IIT Gandhinagar Foundation. Previously, he was a Senior Managing Director/Portfolio Manager at C-III Capital Partners from 2012 to early 2018 where he was responsible for a portfolio of CMBS, ReRemic, and CRE CDO securities. For three years prior to C-III, Mr. Patel managed National Australia Bank’s (“NAB”) approx. $1 billion CMBS, CRE CDO, and commercial real estate loan and swap portfolio in the US and UK. Previous to NAB, Mr. Patel was a member of the CMBS trading desk at Bear Stearns and J.P.Morgan for eight years. He was responsible for secondary trading of CMBS, ReRemic, and CRE CDO securities. He also headed the CMBS and CRE CDO structuring group, where he led the structuring of over $30 billion of transactions including fixed rate, floating rate, and single asset deals. Prior to joining Bear Stearns in 2001, Mr. Patel was part of the CMBS trading and structuring team at Nomura Securities International. Mr. Patel has also co-authored two chapters published in a CMBS handbook and an industry research periodical. He received an M.S. in Industrial Administration from Purdue University in 1993, a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1992, and holds a CFA designation.

Rounak Mehta | Treasurer

Rounak is the Treasurer, IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, Palo Alto, California. He graduated from IITGN in 2015 with a B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering. He subsequently pursued Masters in Engineering Management at Duke University and currently works as a Data Scientist at Salesforce in San Francisco. In his free time, he enjoys running marathons and is an avid reader.

Luv Gupta | Secretary

Luv is Secretary and a board member of IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, Palo Alto, California. He is a BTech alumnus of the pioneer batch with majors in Chemical Engineering. After graduating from IITGN, he pursued MS in Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. He is currently a Data Scientist at Facebook in San Francisco Bay Area, USA. He worked with Uber, AOL, and a bunch of other tech startups before joining Facebook.

Ruyintan (Ron) E. Mehta | Member

Ron has been a serial entrepreneur in the plastics industry in New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Canada. He is a licensed Professional Chemical Engineer in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and a Certified Volunteer Mentor of SCORE Central Jersey, a non-profit resource arm of the US Small Business Administration that provides free counseling and mentoring to small businesses and entrepreneurs. Mr Mehta received his BTech degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay and Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and in Engineering Administration from the University of Utah. Mr Mehta is currently President Emeritus of IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation, the alumni body of IIT Bombay in the US and he is the Co-Director of the Water program for Wheels Global Foundation, a US based non-profit started by IIT alumni in the US that involves using technology based philanthropy for rural development in India.

Arvind Jain, PhD | Member

Arvind was the Treasurer and past President off IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, Palo Alto, California. He is an internationally recognized authority in the aluminum industry with over 30 years of experience in the business. He founded AXJ Resources LLC, a metals and mining consulting company focused on aluminum, in 2013. Earlier he was Vice-President Strategy & Investments at Rio Tinto Alcan, in Montreal, Canada. Prior to that he headed the Energy Modeling Group at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. Dr Jain holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Operations Research from Case Western Reserve University and a BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur where he was awarded the B.C. Roy Gold Medal as the best undergraduate student of the year. He has been at the forefront of the IIT alumni movement in the USA for over 30 years, has served on the Board of PanIIT and is a past President of the IIT Kharagpur Foundation. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by IIT Kharagpur in 2011. Dr. Jain currently serves as an advisor to the Board of Trustees of Northern Light School, Oakland California.

Prabhakar Goel, PhD | Member

Prabhakar has held positions in engineering and technical management with IBM and Wang Laboratories. In 1990 Dr Goel was recognized as “Entrepreneur of the Year” for New England by Inc magazine and Ernst Young. Since 1992 Dr Goel has been a private venture capitalist involved with several companies. He currently serves on the boards of InsideVault Inc and FusionOps Inc. he is also a founding member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). Dr Goel won the 2003 IEEE Industrial Pioneer Award for his work on design modeling and design verification through Verilog and Verilog-based design. Dr Goel holds MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a BTech from IIT Kanpur where he was awarded the President’s Gold Medal for academic excellence.

Hemant Kanakia, PhD | Member

Hemant is now mostly engaged in philanthropic activities. He has established Maker Bhavan foundation, California based foundation aimed at bringing reforms in engineering education in India. He has been working closely with IIT-Gandhinagar to support activities such as Invention factory, Interactive classrooms, Makerbhavan and Tinkerers’ lab. He has previously made angel investments in India through Angel networks and has invested in 20 early stage companies since Jan 2010. These were in sectors ranging from Education, Technology and healthcare areas. Most recently, Hemant has been a partner with a Venture Firm based in East Coast of USA (2004-2009). There he had focused primarily on early-stage technology investments. After retiring from venture firm, he switched his focus to making investment overseas, particularly, India from his own investment fund, Kanakia Ventures LLC. Hemant has been on Board of Directors of Enpirion, Teranetics, WiNetworks, and Tilera. He was previously founder and CEO of Torrent Networking Technology (acquired by Ericsson for $500 M in cash) and co-founder of Photuris (acquired by Meriton) and Gemplex, inc. (acquired by Tata Telesystems). Prior to joining Columbia Capital, Hemant served on the Board of Directors of Photuris, Viagate, Price Hawk, Gemplex, and Torrent Networking Technology. Prior to starting Torrent, Hemant worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Tata Consultancy Services, India. Hemant received his B.Tech. degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, his M.S. degree from Case Western Reserve University, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Hemant has been a member of board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University and Virginia Polytechnic. He is past president of Washington DC chapter of TiE and also was part of the global board of trustees of TiE. Currently, he serves on the board of Aperture Foundation of New York.

Raj Mashruwala | Member

Raj serves on the boards of Syntel (SYNT), DeltaID Inc. and Healthifyme. He is a mentor/advisor to several early startup ventures. Mr Mashruwala retired from TIBCO Software Inc. as an Executive Vice President in the office of CEO. Prior to that, he was the Chief Operating Officer at TIBCO Software Inc. TIBCO Software, based in Palo Alto California, was founded in 1997 and did its initial public offering in July 1999. In the fiscal year ending October 2014, TIBCO Software had annual revenues of over one billion dollars. Mr Mashruwala built and led the worldwide sales and marketing operations since the founding of TIBCO. As Chief Operating Office, Mr Mashruwala was also responsible for engineering, professional and support services. Prior to joining TIBCO, Mr Mashruwala co-founded YieldUp International, a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company, Media Computer Technology Inc., an ASIC design house and Consilium Inc., a Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) software provider. Mr Mashruwala led Consilium’s R&D and professional services operations since the company’s inception. Mr Mashruwala has an MS in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay. He holds several patents on Object Oriented Modeling for Manufacturing Systems. Mr Mashruwala’s community service roles include:

● Chairman, IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation, Santa Clara, CA
● Co-founder, past President and former Treasurer, IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, Palo Alto, CA
● Director, Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), Palo Alto, CA
● Member of the Advisory Board of IIT, Hyderabad
● Director, Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship, Hyderabad

Chief Biometric Coordinator (2009-2011), UID Authority of India, Technology Centre. Mr Mashruwala has been an early volunteer in this ambitious nation-building project of Indian Government. UIDAI plans to issue unique ID to every Indian resident based on comprehensive biometric traits.

Bhupen Shah | Member

Bhupen is a serial entrepreneur with proven track record in technology and product development and engineering management in embedded digital media and communication. Over his career, Bhupen has on four occasions successfully exited the companies he co-founded or joined at early stage such as Sling Media maker of Slingbox and Sling TV. He has successfully built cost-effective India-based development organizations several times. Besides being a serial entrepreneur, Bhupen is also an angel investor and has funded 50+ companies, most of them started by Indian entrepreneurs. Bhupen is also an active investor in several early stage VC funds investing in US, India and south east Asia.

Bhupen is an active contributor to non-profit organizations such as Akshay Patra, Pratham, Yoga Bharati, IIT Gandhinagar, Foundation for Excellence and Maitri.

Bhupen holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Pratim Biswas | Member

Professor Biswas is the Dean, College of Engineering at the University of Miami. He is a faculty member in the Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with an affiliated appointment in the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Prior to joining the University of Miami, he was the Lucy and Stanley Lopata Professor and Chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He also served as the Asst. Vice Chancellor for International Programs, and as the Director of the McDonnell Academy Global Energy and Environmental Partnership (MAGEEP). Pratim Biswas received his PhD from the California Institute of Technology; MS from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his BTech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Professor Biswas's research and educational interests include aerosol science and engineering; nanoparticle technology; air quality engineering; environmentally benign energy production; combustion; materials processing for environmental technologies, environmentally benign processing, environmental nanotechnology, public health, and the thermal sciences. Work is conducted through the world renowned Aerosol and Air Quality Research Laboratory (AAQRL). His research is funded by the National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency and Industry. He has graduated and advised 60 PhD students, and with them published more than 450 refereed journal articles.

As the Dean of Engineering at the University of Miami, working with the faculty, staff, students, alumni and industrial partners; he has developed a strategic vision that will lead to the growth of an impactful College of Engineering that addresses and tackles global challenge problems. Facebook.

BV Jagadeesh | Member

Jagadeesh is a Silicon Valley-based serial entrepreneur with a track record of building and managing successful companies and market leaders. He has founded and funded numerous enterprise startups including Exodus, NetScaler, NetMagic, Nutanix, Cohesity, Balbix, Ocarina, Yodlee, Ankeena Networks, and many others.

Currently, he is a Managing Partner at Silicon Valley Quad (SVQ), FalconX Incubator and KAAJ Ventures. He is an active investor and serves on the board of several silicon valley startups. His investments include Denali Systems, Woxi Media, ScaleArc and Rakya Technologies. He is also an adjunct faculty at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, USA.

Under his leadership, Exodus doubled revenue quarter-to-quarter to become one of the most highly valued venture-backed companies with over $2B in annual revenues and a market value of $30B. He was also instrumental in Exodus’ highly successful IPO. He served as a Group VP and GM of Citrix Systems’ Application Networking Group after the acquisition of NetScaler for $325M.

Jagadeesh holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Bangalore University and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Bombay.

IIT Gandhinagar has setup “Anu and BV Jagadeesh Chair”, through a donation by Anuradha Jagadeesh and BV Jagadeesh. The chair will provide support for IITGN entrepreneurship initiatives and create opportunities for hands-on learning, professional development, and innovation.

Prerna Singh | Member

Prerna Singh is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Infrastructure Research Group in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. With a focus on fundamental capabilities of systems of systems, her research aims at developing qualitative and qualitative assessment approaches to evaluate the benefits of adaptive resilience investments at the organizational and project levels. Prerna holds her Ph.D. and MS degrees from Georgia Tech in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and her B.Tech from IITGN in Civil Engineering. She served as President of WTS, Georgia Tech Chapter, from 2019-2020 and was awarded the WTS National Maggie Walsh Leadership Legacy Scholarship by WTS International in 2020 - a scholarship that recognizes outstanding women pursuing graduate studies in transportation or a related field with a specific interest in advancing transportation innovation in the international arena. In 2021, she received the Graduate Student Excellence Award for Leadership and Service at Georgia Tech for her contributions to program development in the Office of Leadership Development and Education. In her free time, she enjoys painting, cooking, and playing board games with her friends.

Yash Kotak | Member

Yash is a BTech Class of 2014 undergraduate with a major in Electrical Engineering with minor in Management and Computer Science, currently working as a Product Manager at Google, USA.

Yash started as an entrepreneur after his graduation; he cofounded Lumos Automation, a startup to build smart devices that focused on automating air conditioners to save power. He then went on to join Myntra, where he was very successful as a Product Expert and led the Rapid technology project to develop AI-based Rapid fashion products. Later he switched to Swiggy as a Principal Product Manager. He gained enormous experience as an entrepreneur and product expert in AI-driven technologies. In 2020, he joined Google, USA as a Product Manager.

At IITGN, Yash received the Director’s Gold Medal for Outstanding Overall Performance and the Medal for Outstanding Innovation. In 2022, Yash set up an endowed scholarship to support students at IITGN, “Seva Scholarship” in honor of his parents Nina Kotak and Prashant Kotak. He likes traveling, reading books, and playing board games in his free time.

Yogesh Goyal I Member

Dr Goyal received his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the IIT Gandhinagar in 2012 and PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Princeton University. Dr Goyal is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. His lab is housed within the Center for Synthetic Biology. With a unique background in engineering, developmental biology, biophysical modeling, and single-cell biology, the Goyal Lab develops quantitative approaches to problems in developmental biology and cancer drug resistance. Yogesh's work has been awarded highly prestigious awards from various private foundations including from Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Jane Coffin Childs, Cancer Research Foundation, STAT Wunderkinds, and Schmidt Science Fellows.