About Us

Hemant Kanakia is a retired serial entrepreneur based in Washington DC, USA. Since 2010, he has made angel investments in 20 early-stage companies in India ranging across education, technology and healthcare sectors. Between 2004- 2009 He was a partner with a Venture Firm based in the East Coast of USA. Hemant was founder and CEO of Torrent Networking Technology (acquired by Ericsson for $500 M ) and co-founder of Photuris (acquired by Meriton) and Gemplex, inc. (acquired by Tata Telesystems). Prior to starting Torrent, he worked at the research arm of AT&T Bell Laboratories. Hemant holds an undergraduate degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, a M S from Case Western Reserve University, and a Ph D in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Hemant is an ex-member of the Board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University and Virginia Polytechnic. He was President of the Washington DC chapter of TiE and a member of the global board of trustees of TiE. He currently serves as a board member of several non-profit organizations in the art and cultural sectors.

This philosophy has become the key to my success in life. Early on, I spent a lot of time acquiring knowledge from classrooms and books. Only when I started learning by doing, my life turned around. Through this foundation, I hope many young folks get to learn this lesson early in their lives. As someone said, you do not learn to walk by rules of walking but by starting to walk, falling many times, getting up and trying again.

Aristotle said, “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”

Ashish Dhawan is a leading Indian philanthropist and former private equity investor. He co-founded ChrysCapital, one of India’s foremost private equity firms, in 1999 and served on its board until transitioning out of full-time investing in 2012 after two decades in investment management.

He subsequently founded the Central Square Foundation (CSF), a grant-making organization and policy think tank focused on transforming the quality of school education in India. Deeply committed to education reform, Ashish spearheaded the founding of Ashoka University, where he serves as Chairperson, and sits on the boards of several prominent education and governance nonprofits.

Ashish is the Founder and CEO of the Convergence Foundation (TCF), which incubates and supports nonprofits driving system-level impact across economic growth, equality of opportunity, sustainability, governance, science and technology, women’s economic empowerment, and air quality.

An alumnus of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Ashish also serves on Harvard’s India Advisory Board and Yale’s Development Council.

Adil Zainulbhai is the Chairman for Quality Council of India and TV18 Broadcast Ltd and Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. Adil is also on the board of 15 other companies including Reliance Industries, Larsen and Turbo, Cipla etc.
Previously Adil retired from McKinsey India as its chairman after 34 years with the legendary consulting firm, 24 of which were in the US. Zainulbhai joined McKinsey in 1979 straight out of HBS; he set up the Minneapolis, Minnesota, office and later led the McKinsey office in the US capital of Washington D.C., helping clients across sectors as diverse as telecommunications, consumer electronics, energy, banking, infrastructure, and healthcare.
He counsels the CEOs of many of India's largest companies in a range of industries, including infrastructure, metals and mining, financial services, and pharmaceuticals - and he has helped several such companies become global leaders. He has also helped leading multinational companies build large, profitable businesses in India.
Adil is passionate about strengthening India's public sector and contributing to the nation's development. He works closely with senior government leaders to drive growth and raise living standards, strengthen key sectors of the economy, and improve education, health, and welfare. In both his private and public-sector work, he develops long-term partnerships with his clients to deliver results and create true impact, while helping to build people's capabilities.
He serves on the boards of numerous nonprofit organisations, including the American India Foundation, the CII National Council, Saifee Hospital, and Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust, which is redeveloping Mumbai's Bhendi Bazaar. Apart from MBF, he serves on the advisory boards of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, the Ajay .G Piramal Foundation, the Wockhardt Foundation, and Institute Health Management Research, as well as on the global advisory board of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. He is president of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association, India.
Adil Zainulbhai holds a B Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT-Bombay and a post-graduate from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Sudhir Jain is a globally renowned earthquake engineering expert and visionary academic leader. He served as Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (2022–2025) and earlier as Director of IIT Gandhinagar across two terms (2009–2019, 2019–2022). Prior to this, he was a faculty member in Civil Engineering at IIT Kanpur for over three decades.

An internationally respected scholar, Dr. Jain has made seminal contributions to earthquake engineering practice, education, and seismic code development in India. He founded the National Information Centre of Earthquake Engineering (NICEE) at IIT Kanpur and led the National Programme on Earthquake Engineering Education (NPEEE), training thousands of engineers and educators. His work spans reinforced concrete structures, bridges, seismic codes, and post-earthquake damage assessment, with over 150 scholarly publications and extensive consultancy on major infrastructure projects.

Dr. Jain was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020 and elected an International Member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 2021. He has also received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Roorkee. He served as President of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering (2014–2018) and is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Under his leadership, IIT Gandhinagar emerged as one of India’s most globalised and innovative institutions, with strong interdisciplinary curricula, extensive international exposure for students, and a nationally acclaimed, sustainability-leading campus.

Dr. Jain holds a B.E. from the University of Roorkee and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao is the Group Vice-Chancellor of BITS Pilani, overseeing its campuses in Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa, Dubai, and Mumbai. Prior to joining BITS in 2023, he served as Director of IIT Delhi (2016–2021) and held Chair Professorships in Nanoelectronics at IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi.

An internationally acclaimed nanoelectronics researcher, Prof. Rao has authored over 500 research papers and holds more than 50 patents, including 20 US patents, with several technologies commercialized and deployed globally in hundreds of millions of integrated circuits. He is a co-founder of two deep-tech startups, Nanosniff and Soilsens, both of which have successful market-ready products.

Prof. Rao has played a pivotal role in establishing major nanoelectronics programmes in India and has supervised 52 Ph.D. graduates working across leading global academia and semiconductor industries. A recipient of over 35 national and international honours, his awards include the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, Infosys Prize, and the IEEE EDS Education Award. He is a Fellow of multiple national and international science and engineering academies and serves on editorial boards of leading journals. In addition, he chairs several national-level bodies, including JNCASR and NIFTEM.

R. Subrahmanyam is a Distinguished Fellow at the Pahle India Foundation and a former Indian Administrative Service officer with 37 years of service (1985 batch). His career spans the full spectrum of the social sector, including tribal development, rural development, poverty alleviation, education, and social justice.

As Secretary to the Government of India, he led key national reforms in higher education and social justice. He played a pivotal role in redesigning the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) by introducing IT-enabled systems, real-time monitoring, and transparency mechanisms such as social audits. As Education Secretary, he spearheaded the formulation of the National Education Policy 2020, working closely with academicians and experts.

Mr. Subrahmanyam was instrumental in establishing institutions to strengthen programme delivery, including the Higher Education Financing Agency and the National Testing Agency. His areas of expertise include large-scale programme design, rural development, and education reform.

He holds degrees from Madras Christian College, Jawaharlal Nehru University, the University of Bradford (Commonwealth Scholar), and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

Ashish Vengsarkar works at Google, building Google's Global Network, with a focus on optical networking and routing platforms. Over the last three decades, he has worked in telecom, with roles spanning R&D at Bell Labs, Product Management at large companies and running startups.

He has been actively involved in non-profits committed to STEM education via high school science fairs and animal causes via German Shepherd dog rescues. Currently, he sits on the boards of a medical device company, a pharma startup, and a non-profit focused on mental health.

Ashish has an MBA from Wharton, a Ph.D. in Fiber Optics from Virginia Tech, and a B.Tech. from IIT Bombay. In his free time, Ashish constructs crosswords and enjoys Bollywood and Indian classical music.

An alumnus of Stanford University, Paula Mariwala is Co-Founder & President of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs India, Managing Director of Seedfund Advisors, an early stage venture capital firm, and Promoter Director of Hinditron Group of Companies, one of India’s oldest technology companies. Paula is founding partner at Aureolis Ventures, w invests across stages in innovative companies focused on social impact.

Paula brings more than 25 years of entrepreneurial and operational experience with technology companies and 15 years of investing experience in early stage companies in the USA and India. In her role as Founding MD of Seedfund since 2006, Paula has been actively involved with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India to source, evaluate and mentor start-up companies having led investments in education, healthcare, deep technology and rural/social impact sectors. She works closely with portfolio companies to take them to their next stage of growth. As an angel investor she has a large portfolio of companies with Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs India and in her individual capacity through her family office.

She is on the board of Foundation of innovation and Technology Transfer, (FITT)- IIT, Delhi, Beyond Capital Fund, The Stanford SEED Transformation Program, Go Massive Incubator for Sustainability and Social Impact Platform iDoBro. She writes and speaks regularly at various startup events and serves on boards of several of her portfolio companies. She is also President of the Stanford Alumni Association – India.

Paula is deeply committed to the causes of education, environment, gender equality, human rights and women empowerment. She supports several NGOs and serves on the boards of The Gender Lab, Avanti Young Women Leaders Program and Katalyst India. She is an advisor to the SDG Philanthropy Platform, India, The UN India Women Entrepreneurship network. In addition, she mentors women entrepreneurs as well as young women from socially disadvantaged backgrounds through various personal and professional networks.
Paula is a founding member on the Board of Management of KREA University, India, The Governing Board of K.J. Somaiya College of Engineering and on the Advisory Board of Physics Department of her alma mater, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

She also serves on the Advisory Boards of The Centre for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University and Stanford SEED, India.

Paula holds an MS in Applied Physics from Stanford University and BSc (Hons) inPhysics from St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai.

Gautam brings with him over 28 years of diverse global experience in IT services delivery, program management, and sales. Prior to joining us, he was leading delivery and partnerships at the Center for Open Societal Systems (COSS), where he focused on accelerating the global adoption of Digital Public Goods (DPGs) like the Sunbird platform. Additionally, Gautam served as an advisor to the eGov Foundation, playing a key role in developing their comprehensive business plan for expanding their flagship platform (DIGIT) and Urban governance suite to Global North.

Before joining the social impact sector, Gautam was the Senior Vice President and Strategy and Growth Head for Wipro Digital and Cloud (WDC) service line. In this role, he shaped the overall strategy, operationalized it, managed mergers and acquisitions, oversaw sales operations, and built the WDC brand. His previous experience also includes being the Vice President and Global Head of the Application Modernization practice at Infosys, where he led initiatives in cloud, open source, Agile/DevOps, low code/no-code platforms, and legacy modernization.

Gautam is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (BTech in Chemical Engineering), and the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. He has been a keynote speaker at industry conferences and has served on the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Governing Board and partner advisory forums for Red Hat and AWS.

Gautam practices Vipassana meditation and Yoga for a healthy mind and body. He is an avid reader and very passionate about leadership development. His leadership is characterized by a commitment to mentorship, inclusion, and lifelong learning - values that align closely with MBF’s mission to advance innovation and education across India.

Vaibhav Jindal brings together rigorous academic training, on-ground public policy experience, and a deep commitment to improving education and governance in India. Over the past decade, he has worked across government systems, civil society, and mission-driven initiatives, helping design and implement programmes that strengthen institutions and expand opportunity for young people.
Vaibhav is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he completed his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, and the Institute of Education, University College London, where he studied as a Commonwealth Scholar in Education Economics and Policy. He began his public service journey as a Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellow (PMRDF), working at the district level in North Kashmir. Since then, he has supported education and governance reforms in Jammu & Kashmir and Chhattisgarh, working closely with state departments to strengthen education systems, improve learning outcomes, and build local implementation capacity. Prior to joining MBF, he worked on national initiatives through advisory roles with the National Health Authority for Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY and CoVID vaccination and as Chief Consultant to the Union Minister of Education, helping design programmes, monitoring frameworks, and delivery models in Higher Education in alignment with National Education Policy 2020.
Beyond his professional work, Vaibhav is deeply interested in Indian philosophy. He is also an open-water diving and paragliding enthusiast.

Shruti has spent over two decades building and protecting reputation for global leaders and brands.

She currently leads brand and reputation for Maker Bhavan Foundation™, shaping the narrative for India's Maker Movement — a movement set to transform how the country's engineers are trained to think and build. Her path into the impact sector began at Nasscom Foundation, where as Chief Communications Officer she built the organisation's "Tech for Good" identity from the ground up.

Before entering the impact sector, she was part of the founding team of Ruder Finn, the global communications consultancy, when it entered India in 2011. She led the technology practice across Asia Pacific, running communications and analyst relations mandates for Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IEEE.

Shaping leadership communications has remained central to her work — notably for Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and John Chambers, Chairman of Cisco and USISPF, experiences she counts among the most valued of her career. She holds a postgraduate degree in Marketing Management from the Institute of Management Technology and a degree in English Literature.

Outside work, she's a keen reader, an adventure sports enthusiast, and a passionate traveller.

Namita is a program management and operations professional with 14 plus years of experience in the non profit space. Previously she has been the Chief Operating officer at IIT Bombay Alumni Association and Head, Operations at Technology Innovation Hub Foundation for IOT and IOE. A people person and a team player, she is passionate about programme implementation and stakeholder management. Namita, has a Masters in Human Resources Development.

Rishabh Bansal is a public policy and social innovation leader with over a decade of experience driving large-scale, technology-enabled reforms. His expertise spans education, skilling, governance, child rights, and social security. Rishabh has led the design and rollout of multiple flagship programs with government bodies, developing robust monitoring systems that have resulted in measurable public savings and transformative impact for millions of citizens.

Rishabh is an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, where he completed his Bachelor's in Civil Engineering; he also holds a Master’s degree in Political Science. His journey into the development sector began as a Teach For India Fellow. There, he spent two years teaching children from under-resourced backgrounds, an experience that fueled his co-founding of a non-profit aimed at enabling parental participation in public schools.

Beyond his professional work, Rishabh is a lifelong learner with a deep interest in exploring new domains. When not working on policy reforms, he can be found reading or exploring diverse cuisines and cultures.

Pankaj is a seasoned engineer with over 10 years of experience, including 8 years in the education technology space.
His expertise spans across project management, customer experience, academic initiatives, and workflow optimization.
Known for his data-driven approach, Pankaj has led impactful assessments that have improved both learning outcomes and operational efficiency across multiple education programs.
At MBF, Pankaj works as Principal Program Manager, where he focuses on strengthening processes and enhancing quality across our initiatives. This will help in ensuring our programs deliver lasting value to learners and stakeholders alike.

Sandeep Natekar is a passionate technologist, teacher and trainer. Born and brought up in Mumbai, he spent several years abroad for higher education and employment thereafter. He is extremely enthusiastic about enabling aspiring innovators acquire relevant skills and abilities to excel while facing the challenges of the future. He was in-charge of the Innovation Hub - a unique skills and abilities development facility at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Muktangan Exploratory Science Center (www.exploratory.org.in) in Pune from 2017 to 2020.

Sandeep loves working with his hands fixing or enhancing broken stuff like furniture, electronic gadgets or kids toys and enjoys being a handyman. He actively participates in adventure activities like trekking, long distance road-trips, river rafting. He has also dabbled in amateur theater and enjoys singing. World history and biographies are his reading interests. He holds a BE in Electronics Engineering from Mumbai University and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University, New York, USA.

Neha Ganatra is a passionate and driven professional dedicated to transforming education. An engineering graduate from D. J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, she has spent the last six years in the non-profit sector, designing and delivering impactful programs with strategic clarity and attention to detail. Known for her optimistic, problem-solving mindset, Neha balances big-picture thinking with grounded execution, making her a key force behind lasting, meaningful initiatives. Beyond work, she’s an avid traveler who enjoys exploring new places and cuisines. A romance novel enthusiast, Neha finds joy in heartfelt stories and quiet escapes.

Suhas Labade is a digital fabrication specialist with over 13 years of hands-on experience in makerspaces, fab labs, and innovation ecosystems, backed by a Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering and a Diploma in Digital Fabrication from the Fab Foundation, USA. He serves as a Remote Instructor and Global evaluator for the Fab Academy program and has deep expertise in core electronics, IoT development, embedded systems, CNC manufacturing, robotics, and prototyping. He spent more than 12 years as a Fab Lab Manager at Vigyan Ashram, where he led lab operations and contributed as core staff and contributed research and development projects. Suhas has actively mentored national initiatives such as the Smart India Hackathon, AICTE IDEA Lab Faculty Development Programs, and AIM–Atal Tinkering Labs, while also supporting makerspaces globally across China, Egypt, Bhutan, UAE, and Bangladesh. He is highly skilled in mentoring, training, and managing advanced fabrication tools and workflows, with a strong focus on enabling innovation-driven, hands-on learning environments.

Accountant extraordinaire with four years of experience, Krina Sheth has her eyes set on a PhD. Beyond her professional pursuits, she harbours a deep-seated love for teaching. Rooted in her culture, as a true Gujarati, Krina is always ready to burst into garba. Her collaborative nature and dedication to fostering camaraderie make her a valued asset in any team she joins.

Yogesh is a bachelor in biomedical engineering with a knack for innovation. His career began as an R&D engineer, where he reverse-engineered market products to create new ones from scratch. At CFT, Yogesh brought his vision to life by designing cutting-edge projects like a Mars Rover. His journey has also encompassed roles in data analysis and project management, with a particular focus on marketing and statistics. Currently, Yogesh is channelling his expertise into the Maker Bhavan Foundation™, continuing to drive transformative change in his field.

Aditya is a marketing specialist and an alumnus of NMIMS, where he honed his skills in the field of marketing. With a knack for creativity and a strategic mindset, he navigates the dynamic world of brand promotion with finesse. Beyond the boardroom, Aditya finds solace and exhilaration in the open road, indulging his passion for riding bikes. His adventurous spirit is matched only by his quick wit and infectious sense of humor, making him a delightful companion both in professional settings and during leisurely escapades.

He is driven by the passion for connecting with people and loves being in conversation with individuals who want to make the world a better place.

Nandini Bhatra is a creative and curious professional with a strong interest in data, communication, and strategy. A BBA Marketing graduate from NMIMS, she has gained hands-on experience in PR, event management, and content creation, blending analytical thinking with a creative edge. Known for her thoughtful approach and eye for detail, Nandini enjoys uncovering insights that shape impactful ideas. Outside of work, she finds joy in dancing and exploring different forms of art.