Dr. Ajay Kela, former MD and Chief Mentor of Symphony Services – the outsourced product development company which was part of the $3 billion Symphony Technology Group founded by Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, has been appointed President and CEO of the multi-million dollar, not-for-profit Wadhwani Foundation, based at Bangalore. Laura A. Parkin, Executive Director, Wadhwani Foundation who co-founded the National Entrepreneurship Network(NEN) now becomes CEO of the NEN to further deepen the impact and take to the next level India’s largest and most active entrepreneurial community comprising more than 500 member institutes, 1200 faculty and 70,000 individual student members, plus the NEN Trust.
Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, Chairman and President, Wadhwani Foundation said, “We want to accelerate economic development in creative and entrepreneurial ways. To make a real difference, the Wadhwani Foundation initiatives have to be large scale and high impact for which we are willing to back with capital over long periods of time. We have demonstrated this with the National Entrepreneurship Network and will focus on additional niche areas. The extensive corporate leadership experience that Ajay brings to the Foundation and having worked with Ajay for over six years at Symphony Services gives me the confidence in achieving the Foundation’s vision through this leadership appointment. Laura has done a phenomenal job with NEN and will now be able to exclusively focus on scaling and global expansion of this initiative. “
In his new role, Dr. Kela will oversee all of Wadhwani Foundation’s initiatives which besides NEN, include:
-- Opportunity Networks for the Differently Enabled (OND)
-- Biosciences and Biotechnology Research and
-- Indo-US Govt Chair for Policy Advocacy
An IIT-Bombay alumnus with a Ph.D. in Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Rochester, New York, Dr. Kela will bring to the social sector over 25 years of global experience in the IT industry having helped scale start-ups and mid-size companies to several billion dollar organisations. His previous assignments include Entrepreneur in Residence with New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a Silicon Valley venture capital firm; with Autodesk as Corporate VP and as Research Scientist at GE Corporate Research and Development.
Dr. Kela said, “We want to accelerate the economic development of emerging economies. Our goal is that by 2015 Wadhwani Foundation Initiatives would generate 100,000 high quality jobs per year in unaddressed areas through bringing entrepreneurial mindset, innovation and successful business models to the emerging economies. The Foundation will pick niche, high impact employment generation initiatives and through demonstrated success act as a catalyst to Government/Corporate programs that affect several orders of magnitude more employment”
Laura A. Parkin said, “Not only has the NEN scaled in size, we are seeing real impact – entrepreneurs are emerging as a result of the initiatives and this trend will accelerate. We will now focus on taking the NEN to the next level, supporting high growth entrepreneurs create wealth for themselves as well as for society, generating employment and contributing to economic development.”
The Wadhwani Foundation’s Opportunity Network for the Differently Abled (OND) will focus on
-- Placement of 100,000 disabled into high quality jobs through customized training and a business value proposition for the Corporate
-- Effect several orders of magnitude additional employment by Corporate through this pilot
-- Drive government policy towards employment and training
In Biosciences and Biotechnology Research, the Wadhwani Foundation will fund world class research with a focus on solving problems specific to India and developing economies, and also large scale employment in the sector. Starting with a $ 5 million fund to create a Biosciences and Biotechnology Research Centre at IIT-Bombay, the Foundation will fund three to four such centres.
The NEN was initiated in 2003 by the Wadhwani Foundation, and co-founded by IIT Bombay; IIM Ahmedabad; BITS, Pilani; SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai; and the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore with a mission to create and support high-growth entrepreneurs, driving job-creation and economic growth.
Source: IndiaPRWire
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