Global IndianstoryAnshu Ahuja and Renee Williams: Making takeaway in London sustainable with DabbaDrop

Anshu Ahuja and Renee Williams: Making takeaway in London sustainable with DabbaDrop

Compiled by: Charu Thakur

(February 10, 2024) Dressed in a white outfit and traditional Gandhi topi, an army of about 5000 dabbawallas push through every nook and corner of Mumbai to satiate the hunger of over 200,000 Mumbaikars daily with home-cooked food for 125 years. This very lifeline of Mumbai inspired a Mumbaikar, who is now settled in London, to start DabbaDrop – London’s first plastic-free, waste-free and emissions-free takeaway. In just five years, co-founders Anshu Ahuja and Renee Williams have saved 2,03,370 plastic containers and prevented 2,500 kg of food waste from going into landfills through DabbaDrop.

“In the past few years, people have started ordering a lot, thanks to the arrival of food delivery apps. After having that food, we end up with a bin full of plastic. The packaging is very wasteful and greasy. You can’t recycle it. So, I wanted to find a better way to order in,” the Global Indian said in an interview.

Renee Williams and Anshu Ahuja

Zero wastage takeaway

Growing up in Mumbai with a Tamilian mother and a Punjabi father, food remained a big part of Anshu’s life. As a teenager whenever she stepped out to try some food, she would end up recreating the same in her kitchen upon her return. “This way I could continue to taste the flavours.”

However, after moving to London and working a high-pressure job as a TV producer, she would often end up ordering food. But the options for vegetarian food were very limited and the food always arrived in plastic containers. Keen to find a better way, she quit her 15-year-long stint in TV production to start Dabba Drop. It began with her reproducing her family’s recipes, packing them in reusable metal tiffin or dabbas, and delivering it by bike in the nearby areas of Hackney. She texted a handful of friends about the idea, and the first week saw six people ordering in, and later the number rose to 25. In just 18 months, DabbaDrop was feeding 300 people weekly across Hackney, Leyton and Walthamstow.

Eco-friendly delivery

One of her first messages landed in Renee William’s textbox, who was a restaurant event producer. Coming from New Zealand, she believes in nature and sustainability and instantly fell in love with the concept of DabbaDrop. “I loved the theatre of not knowing what was inside the dabba before I opened it, and the wholesome food and sustainability element really ticked all the boxes for me,” Renee said in an interview. In no time, the conversations between the two turned into how to make this idea bigger and better.

Offering healthy South Asian cuisine

They work on a flexible subscription-based system that allows people to sign up weekly or fortnightly, with a set menu for every week. They curate the mains, and customers can add the sides. “We cook all our dals, curries and subzi’s from scratch in our commercial kitchen, using 100% natural ingredients – vegetables, lentils, legumes, healthy fats, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Our handmade spice mixes are made fresh every week and everything is made in small batches,” reads their website. With DabbaDrop, Anshu and Renee wanted to introduce Londoners to Indian flavours and textures. “What we serve is not something that is easily available in a traditional Indian restaurant.”

“Our meals are vegan and South Asian. We want to follow the journey of the curry. This way, we are uncovering the history of Indians as they emigrated across the world,” added Anshu, who avoids wastage, thanks to pre-orders. The chefs cook for the exact amount of people who have ordered, as one dabba can easily serve two people.

DabbaDrop | Global Indian

The dabbas that serve meals from Japan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Kerala, Delhi, and Hyderabad are then mounted onto bicycles, e-bikes, and other emission-free vehicles for delivery in Zones 1-3 of London And the empty dabbas can be picked up during the next delivery. “We use everything that is reusable. We are constantly trying to improve our packaging. We want to leave a better planet for our kids,” added Anshu.

Dabbadrop has more than 2,000 subscribers and delivers food all over East London. They want to grow bigger in the future. They got £500,000 in their first funding round, which made the company worth £2.7 million. “We want to change the way London does take away,” said Anshu.

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Published on 10, Feb 2024

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Greenhouse-in-a-box: How Kheyti brings smart tech to small farmers

(October 26, 2023) Of the world’s 570 million farms, over 80 percent cover less than two hectares, the size of three football pitches. Together, these small-holding farms produce a third of our food, but those who farm them are among the poorest people on the planet and the most affected by climate change. It was to address this inequality that the start-up, Kheyti, was founded in 2015 by Ayush Sharma, 37, Saumya Sahay, 33, and Kaushik Kappagantulu, 36. It's a “greenhouse-in-a-box” concept—an affordable, modular greenhouse that uses 90% less water than standard greenhouses, grows seven times more food, and gives farmers a steady, dependable income. The founders knew each other, as they had worked with each other in different capacities earlier, and all of them were keenly interested in helping fight issues facing smallholder farmers. The start-up won the coveted Earthshot Prize in 2022 and took home the eye-watering prize money of one million pounds. Founded by Prince William (of the British Royal family), the awards are dubbed Eco-Oscars, and Kheyti won the award in the ‘Protect and Restore Nature’ category because of its novel low-technology solution. Greenhouse in a box Kheyti’s innovation is that they have created a durable greenhouse

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Greenhouse in a box

Kheyti’s innovation is that they have created a durable greenhouse that cuts off heat, prevents bugs, and saves water. The combination of three is helping small farmers earn an extra profit of Rs 60000 to Rs 1 lakh per year.

The start-up’s vision is to see a world where every farmer is climate-resilient through easy access to climate-smart farm technologies. Kaushik explains, “Since our inception, the biggest challenge in democratizing technologies democratising small farmers for cost. Greenhouses are not new, they have been around for decades. However, conventional greenhouses are expensive and are normally only available in commercial sizes new; acre to 1 (½A small farmer who owns 1-2 acres of land can never afford to spend acre). lakh 30–40 acre to buy a greenhouse, even with government subsidy.”

Also, the existing greenhouses were also primarily made for export crops and not really for conventional fruits and vegetables that the smallest farmers in India grow. Kheyti overcame this challenge by putting the small farmer first and designing for them.

“We started with talking to 1000+ small and marginal farmers and tried to understand what a greenhouse designed for them and by them would look like,” Ayush tells Global Indian and adds, “We tried to understand what the protection requirements were for the horticulture crops that they grow, consume, and. This is what led us to design our first version of our greenhouse.”

[caption id="attachment_46251" align="aligncenter" width="702"] Team Kheyti[/caption]

Innovation for a change

The team continued to experiment over nine iterations for six years and included hundreds of farmers in the design process.

Kheyti not only managed product evolution but also succeeded in bringing down cost from Rs 3 lakhs to Rs 65,000. Apart from experimenting with material, a game changer was that while the standard size of a greenhouse available was an acre, they got it down to one tenth of an acre, thereby bringing the cost down. It is the first greenhouse that works for Indian small and marginal farmers.

While greenhouses were usually earmarked for exotic veggies like broccoli and lettuce, the start-up adapted them for wider use (almost all Indian vegetables, from cabbages to cauliflowers, leafy vegetables, and other common ones like tomatoes and potatoes, among others), created protocols for use, and started enabling them for wider use. This meant that the farmer’s produce too had a wider base, as the exotic vegetables were only consumed by niche households and had a limited clientele.

The entrepreneurs installed their first greenhouse in 2017 in Siddipet (Telangana) before expanding to seven states across India, including parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Orrisa, among others. Along the way, they have also raised five million dollars in seed funding.

Customer-driven

The most important lesson the founders have realised along the way is to be 100% customer and problem obsessed, not solution obsessed. Saumya says. “Too often, and I am guilty of this too, we are solution obsessed—we start with an interesting idea and try to find a market, customer, or problem to apply that idea to. This is important because entrepreneurs have to be excited about the idea.”

However, the team at Kheyti has learned the importance of being customer- and problem-focused. A good way to do this is by “apprenticing with the problem,” as Kaushik has done. Before starting Kheyti, he spent five years working at another startup and living and working in rural India.

He recalls. “Just before starting Kheyti, my cofounders and I spent six months travelling across India talking to around 1,000 farmers. All of that apprenticing helped us clearly see the challenges that climate change posed to agriculture. Only after all of that did we start looking at solutions and then come up with the idea of the greenhouse-in-a-box.”

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Global fame

Winning the Earthshot prize has landed the start-up in the global limelight. Kaushik explains. “The problems we are trying to solve—rural poverty, climate change—are big problems that cannot be solved by Kheyti alone. When I started working in rural India 15 years ago after studying at IIT, nobody wanted to get into this sector. Today, a whole host of young people, investors, and experienced professionals want to work in AgriTech.”

Forums like the Earthshot Prize helped the business spread awareness and optimism. Through their exposure, they now partner with funders, government officials, and potential employees—all needed if they are to achieve their vision.

Kheyti’s most important value is farmer-centricity. Kaushik agrees: “Farmers are our reason for existing and are at the centre of what we do. If we hold that value, every crop becomes as important to us as it is to the farmer, and therefore the ‘difficulty’, in my opinion, becomes a moot point.”

Kheyti is currently at the beginning of an ambitious 5-year plan to scale their work to 100,000 farmers and create a foundation to reach a million farmers. They currently work with 3000 farmers, 90% of whom they added in the last 18 months. Focused currently on executing on the ground and building the organisation to scale, these young entrepreneurs are a catalyst for turning around the fortunes of small farmers.

Follow Kheyti on Instagram

Reading Time: 6 mins

Meet Bulu Imam, the archaeologist who is protecting tribal art

(March 23, 2024) He dedicated his youth to conserving the tribal art and thick forests of Jharkhand. Now 79 years old, Padma Shri Bulu Imam lives in a colonial house nestled in a grove of tall trees and lush bushes, in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. The hunter-turned-environmentalist and archaeologist who revives tribal paintings, Bulu currently runs an art museum, The Sanskriti Centre. He is also the author of several books and was awarded the International Peace Award by the Gandhi Foundation for his humanitarian work. [caption id="attachment_24269" align="aligncenter" width="550"] Bulu Imam receiving the Padma Shri from President Ram Nath Kovind, in 2019[/caption] "Our museum is home to old rock paintings that are about 10,000 years old. They belong to the Mesolithic, Chalcolithic, and Neolithic eras," shares the archaeologist during an interaction with Global Indian, adding, "This land of coalfields has been home to millions of tribal people, who lived there for centuries. The coal mining here was not only destroying the beautiful jungles of the land but also affecting the megaliths, some even dating back to before 2000 BC." Son of the forest The grandson of Indian High Court judge and India’s Congress President Sir Syed Hasan Iman, Bulu was born in

nd but also affecting the megaliths, some even dating back to before 2000 BC."

Son of the forest

The grandson of Indian High Court judge and India’s Congress President Sir Syed Hasan Iman, Bulu was born in the lap of luxury. Like his father, the archaeologist was a big-game hunter and would animals that posed threats to human life. "My mother was of French ancestry, whereas my father was of Arab ancestry. My father was very fond of big-game hunting and as a child, I would accompany him on several hunting trips. I grew up surrounded by forest and tribal people, which is why I believe I feel so strongly in them," shares the conservationist.

Unusually, Bulu did not receive any formal higher education. "I have studied till standard XII in St. Xavier's School, Hazaribagh. My entire family has studied at Oxford and Cambridge. But my uncle, who was an Aurobindo-man had his own ideas about education. Upon his suggestion, my parents didn't send me to any school or college. And I feel, had my uncle not taken that stand, the world would not have seen the Sohrai and Khovar paintings," laughs the archaeologist.

Archaeologist | Bulu Imam | Global Indian

Growing up, Bulu was fond of painting, reading, and writing poems. However, hunting was his passion. "I loved to go on hunting trips, but we never killed the animal for pleasure. During the ’60s and ’70s, I hunted 19 elephants and many man-eating tigers most of my early adulthood was spent organising tiger hunts with my father in the region of Jharkhand," the archaeologist shares.

ALSO READ | Meet Dr Masooma Rizvi, the art curator for Ayodhya International Airport

Turning point

It was a hunting trip that would be a turning point in the archaeologist's life. In 1979, when the conservationist was on a journey around the state with British traveller-writer Mark Shand and his elephant, he saw the destruction of thick forest for coal mining by the state for the first time. "I was shaken by the mass-scale destruction of the forest," share Bulu. Upon approaching the forest officials, learned that the Central Government had allotted contracts to mine six million tonnes of coal at 30 sites in Damodar Valley. "That was when I decided to oppose the decision and spearheaded a movement," he recalls.

[caption id="attachment_24267" align="aligncenter" width="551"] Archaeologist | Bulu Imam | Global Indian Bulu's daughter, Juliet Imam, making a tribal art[/caption]

Coal mining in the area was also displacing the local tribal community and affecting their livelihoods, which depended on the forest. Eventually, the Global Indian became a strong propagator for tribals and wildlife in the North Karanpura Valley against open cast mining. He also brought attention to the need to protect elephants and tigers' corridors to have distinct habitats.

Tracing the tribal past

After five years of fighting with the authorities to prevent the destruction of local culture, biodiversity, and distinct animal habitats, Bulu became quite well-known in the country. However, not much came out of his protests against the government. "The coal mining didn't stop in the area," shares Bulu, who wasn't disheartened and continued to raise his voice against the mining.

[caption id="attachment_24264" align="aligncenter" width="551"] Archaeologist | Bulu Imam | Global Indian Bulu Imam, Tarshito, Erwin Neumayer, and Philomina painting in Vicino Lantano Festival[/caption]

In 1986, the archaeologist explored the Adivasis's identity and was chosen as regional convenor for INTACH, a Delhi-based NGO. In the following years, the conservationists conducted various campaigns to stop the mining activities from Damodar Valley to Hazaribagh. And around the same time, he discovered ancient art that helped him save the local traditional culture.

"One evening in 1991, an Australian Jesuit priest, Father Tony Herbert - who ran a night school for the children in Barkagaon Valley adjacent to Hazaribagh - approached me with the news of some red markings found in one of the caves in the mining area. I was intrigued and decided to visit the site. I realised that those markings were ancient rock art and knew we had discovered something significant,” the archaeologist says.

[caption id="attachment_24266" align="aligncenter" width="552"] Archaeologist | Bulu Imam | Global Indian Bulu still likes to sketch whenever he finds some free time[/caption]

The paintings discovered were a dozen prehistoric rock art sites more than 5,000 years old. During the same time, Bulu also found palaeoarchaeology sites associated with Mesolithic rock art, ancient megaliths, and Buddhist archaeological sites. These sites were acknowledged by the Archaeological Survey of India, enriching the cultural tradition of the region.

"I was able to find a link between these prehistoric art paintings to the paintings Adivasi women draw on the mud walls of their home. The painting style can be distinguished into Khovar and Sohari. The local women paint their homes inside and out, twice a year, celebrating harvest and marriage time," Bulu explains.

ALSO READ | Revati Singh is crafting artistic narratives that transcend boundaries

The road ahead

Married to two Adivasi ladies, the archaeologist lives in Hazaribagh with his son Gustav Imam. The father-son duo runs the Tribal Women Artists Cooperative (TWAC), to empower and encourage Adivasi women to continue painting. To help raise funds for the tribal community, Bulu has been putting these paintings on canvas and cloth and exhibiting them all around the world. TWAC has held more than 50 worldwide exhibitions so far

"These mud wall paintings are not new but have been in existence since the Chalcolithic and Iron Age period. I didn't just want to protect this culture but collect and showcase them. So, I started collecting such stone tools in my museum and it is one of the recognised museums by the government," shares the archaeologist.

[caption id="attachment_24270" align="aligncenter" width="553"] Archaeologist | Bulu Imam | Global Indian Bulu with his son, Gustav Imam[/caption]

Gustav has been instrumental in documenting the artefact present in the museum which could be used by further researchers, academicians, and students. "Sanskriti museum is a result of 30 years of research. Each artefact or stone tool present in this museum has a story behind it linked to human evolution. I really hope that these documents will help the future generation of researchers," concludes the archaeologist, with a smile.

Follow Bulu Imam on his website

Reading Time: 6 mins

Preeti Aghalayam: Pioneering the global reach of world-class education as IIT Zanzibar’s woman director

(September 15, 2023) Nestled amidst the breathtaking landscapes of Zanzibar, the Bweleo district is a paradise for both nature enthusiasts and academic aspirants. Located just 15 kilometers south of the bustling Zanzibar Town, this coastal gem is chosen by IIT Madras to establish its first international campus, promising world-class education. Come October, and the very first session for IIT-M Zanzibar will begin with 70 students under the guidance of its first-ever woman director Preeti Aghalayam. An alumna of IIT-M, she has scripted history as the first woman to lead an IIT. "For me, the fact that it is the first IIT campus abroad is more important than me being the first woman to head an IIT. It is not just about breaking the glass ceiling for me. It is more of 'once an IITian, always an IITian' for me," Preeti said in an interview. A significant step in the internationalisation of IIT-M, Zanzibar campus offers a four-year bachelor of science degree in data science and artificial intelligence, as well as a two-year master of technology degree in the same discipline. Setting up their first international campus is a proud moment for IIT-M, and the 49-year-old academician echoes the sentiment. "I

l campus is a proud moment for IIT-M, and the 49-year-old academician echoes the sentiment. "I am an alumnus of IIT Madras and doing something of this magnitude for the institute and the country is such a big honour."

[caption id="attachment_44966" align="aligncenter" width="825"] IIT Zanzibar[/caption]

Curiosity alchemised into life-long passion

A professor in the Chemical Engineering department, Preeti's curiosity was always welcomed in her home in Mysuru, where she grew up with a sister, and academician parents - one was a Chemistry professor and another a linguistic scholar. Her inquisitiveness led her to dismantle toy cars and clocks in her playtime, and to satiate her creative side, she would craft mirrors from plain glass. "I was chatty and curious, and our parents were very indulgent. There were simply never too many questions,” she told Hindustan Times. Passionate about science and math, she knew what she wanted to do.

This desire to learn led her to the gates of IIT Madras in 1991 for her BTech in Chemical Engineering, a place she knew she was meant to be at. She later moved to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2000 for her PhD. Before returning to her alma mater in 2010 as a professor of Chemical Engineering, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, Cambridge and faculty at IIT Bombay. "The infrastructure in the US was great; the student community, more diverse. But women were still a minority there in the late ’90s, especially in leadership roles. As an Indian woman, I was part of an even smaller minority group,” the Global Indian said.

[caption id="attachment_44967" align="aligncenter" width="774"] Preeti Aghalayam | Global Indian Preeti Aghalayam is the director of IIT Zanzibar.[/caption]

Coming from a family of academicians, she was sure that she wanted to pursue academics as a career path. "I knew what I wanted to do ever since I was in Class 8 and it has been a fulfilling journey." At IIT-M, she worked as a nodal officer within the campus division of the GATI (Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions) program, whose primary objective is to recognize and rectify disparities while fostering greater opportunities for women within IIT campuses. Within few years of working at IIT-M, she was recognised as one of the 75 women in STEM for exceptional contribution to the scientific community.

Aiming to promote girls in STEM

However, Preeti is aware of the gender-skewed ratio at the IITs, and how women only form a minority at IITs. It took seven decades since the inception of the first IIT in Kharagpur in 1951 to appoint a woman as the head of the institute. "It is a fact that women have been a minority at IITs. Things have improved a bit in the past few years but the problem still exists and it is at all levels - both at students and faculty. We are about 12 per cent women faculty at IIT Madras. The problem is not about gender inclusivity on campuses but about the whole perception around technology institutions, " she said in an interview.

Preeti Aghalayam | Global Indian

But this is the perception that Preeti is keen to change with IIT Zanzibar campus. "Every time we visited Zanzibar as part of the IIT Madras contingent, we noticed that the representation of women on their side is quite significant. So, it was important that we do this mindfully and our effort will also be to have gender balance in the new campus. There are no rigid norms around it right now but in the coming years, we will definitely work towards achieving it," she added. Preeti understands the importance of women in STEM as she considers women equal to men in skill and intellect, and believes that exclusion of women leads to lost opportunities as a society. She believes the answer lies in holding the space for women - and asking them what they want in terms of opportunities and safe spaces. "Rather than waiting for women to participate, we need to create opportunities for them to speak, conduct surveys to understand roadblocks, reward women for achievements and proactively seek them out while hiring.”

Preeti Aghalayam | Global Indian

With IIT Zanzibar campus, Preeti is turning a new page, giving a taste of world-class education to the world. A marathon runner and a blogger, Preeti is currently juggling her life between Zanzibar and Chennai, where she lives with her husband who is head of a finance and investment firm.

Follow Preeti Aghalayam on LinkedIn

Reading Time: 4 min

Meet Dr Mukesh Aghi: A significant pillar of the US-India ties

(May 14, 2023) “This year, United States became India's largest trading partner with trade nearing near the $200 billion mark,” shared a happy Dr Mukesh Aghi, President and CEO of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) in one of his social media posts last week. Since the inception of USISPF in 2017, Dr Aghi has played a pivotal role, working with business and government leaders in the US and India to promote trade and strengthen ties between the two countries. “It's a remarkable achievement but more can be done, as the Indian government sets policies and executes new schemes to improve and enhance the business environment in India, thereby creating a stronger environment to create more foreign investors,” the business leader added. A recipient of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman 2021 for his outstanding contributions to the Indian diaspora, through promoting economic ties between India and the US, Dr Aghi has immense love for his native country. Although he was born in India, Dr Aghi has lived around the world to study and work. With a distinguished career spanning both the private and public setors, Dr Aghi has held senior leadership positions in companies like IBM (Singapore and India), Steria (France), and L&T

r Aghi has immense love for his native country. Although he was born in India, Dr Aghi has lived around the world to study and work. With a distinguished career spanning both the private and public setors, Dr Aghi has held senior leadership positions in companies like IBM (Singapore and India), Steria (France), and L&T Infotech (USA).

Indian CEO | Dr Mukesh Aghi | Global Indian

As the President and CEO of the nonprofit organization USISPF, Dr. Aghi has been a vocal advocate for the interests of the Indian American community. He has pushed for policies that benefit Indian companies operating in the United States and has been a strong proponent of initiatives that promote education, innovation, and entrepreneurship among the Indian diasporas.

The Global Indian has been recognized for his leadership and contributions through various awards and accolades, including the JRD Tata Leadership Award. He was recognized by the New York-based Esquire Magazine as a Global Leader. For his extensive philanthropic work, he received the prestigious ‘Ellis Island Medal of Honor’ in America in 2018.

Taking US-India strategic partnership forward

“I believe that the US-India relationship is the most important relationship of the 21st century. This has been stated by President Obama, President Trump and President Biden,” Dr Aghi remarked in a chat show conducted by Business World during his recent visit to India.

His non-profit, USISPF serves as a platform for dialogue and collaboration between businesses, government officials, and thought leaders from India and USA.

Established with the goal of enhancing bilateral trade and investment ties, fostering economic growth, and advancing shared interests and values between the two countries, USISPF focuses on various sectors including technology, energy, healthcare, defense, education, and agriculture. “India's demographic dividend, (now as the world's largest populous country) and tech talent, and the robustness of the American tech economy enable a synergy in the tech space,” Dr Aghi remarked in a social media post emphasizing how both countries complement each other.

[caption id="attachment_38609" align="aligncenter" width="443"] Indian CEO | Dr Mukesh Aghi | Global Indian Dr Mukesh Aghi with US President, Joe Biden[/caption]

The organisation acts as a forum for stakeholders to exchange ideas, address challenges, and explore opportunities for economic cooperation. It also organizes high-level meetings, conferences, and events that bring together industry leaders, policymakers, and influencers to discuss key issues and promote business partnerships.

USISPF also provides research and analysis on important economic and policy issues affecting the U.S.-India relationship. It produces reports and publications that offer insights and recommendations to policymakers, businesses, and other stakeholders.

Utilizing India’s potential

In his recent conversation with Business World Dr Aghi said, “India has tremendous resources to build AI, while the US has fantastic algorithms on the AI side. If we merge those algorithms with the data of 1.4 billion people, we can come up with fantastic solutions that will be a win-win. However, it is important for policymakers on both sides to sit down and discuss how they can establish certain fences around AI so that it does not become a threat to society.”

Fully invested in his purpose of leveraging the high potential of US-India partnership, he remarked that the time is ripe to enhance the two countries’ collaboration in the space sector, and work towards enhancing supply chain resiliency, ‘a focus for Prime Minister Modi and President Biden ahead of the Quad Leadership meeting’.

Expressing his joy, he added, “India is now becoming a hotbed of innovation which is going to the rest of the world. We have over 326 space startups in India, and they are doing fantastic innovation.”

[caption id="attachment_38610" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Indian CEO | Dr Mukesh Aghi | Global Indian Dr Mukesh Aghi in a meeting with PM Modi[/caption]

At the top of his game

Climbing peaks whether as a business leader or as a mountaineer is the Indian-origin leader’s core competency. While Dr Aghi served as chief executive and member of the board at L&T Infotech, he played a key role in tripling the company’s valuation. He expanded the business on a global level, led the company’s commercial growth strategy, established its global services function, and built the global sales leadership team preparing the organization for an IPO.

During his time as CEO at Steria, a European digital services and software development company, Dr Aghi successfully spearheaded the merging of Xansa and Steria into a more than $2 billion business. He managed P&L, sales strategies, service delivery, strategic partnerships, a global workforce of over 6,000 people, and the top 50 global accounts of the organisation. The business leader also directed the building of innovation labs and business solutions and liaised with the World Economic Forum and lobby groups in India and Europe during his time at Steria.

As the general manager of outsourcing in Asia-Pacific and President of India at IBM, Dr Aghi tripled the company’s revenue in three years and grew the market share, gross margins, and caliber of talent. He helped set up the IBM Lab in India and registered multiple patents from it.

Fluent in many international languages, as well as an avid marathon and mountaineering enthusiast, the business leader has competed in more than 27 international marathons and climbed some of the highest peaks in North America and Europe.

[caption id="attachment_38612" align="aligncenter" width="815"] Indian CEO | Dr Mukesh Aghi | Global Indian Dr Mukesh Aghi with Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal[/caption]

Reaping growth

Dr Aghi is the founding-CEO of Universitas 21 Global, which went on to become one of the world's largest e-learning joint ventures, hailed by global educational bodies as a premier online institution. He was responsible for Building the company from the ground up and spearheading strategies for all aspects.. He also led the board of corporate and academic leaders.

The company's online program became the fastest-growing online program with enrollment growing to more than 7,000 MBA students from 70 countries across the world. Five years after founding Universitas 21 Global, Dr Aghi sold the company to a private equity firm for a profit which was twelve times his investment value.

“We as individuals must decide on our own what our priority is. You must reflect ‘am I being a parasite in the world or am I being a contributor’. It's ok to create wealth but there must be a balance – a balance between accumulating the wealth and bringing change and contributing to society,” he said in a thought leadership conversation organized by Giggr.

[caption id="attachment_38615" align="aligncenter" width="779"] Indian CEO | Dr Mukesh Aghi | Global Indian Dr Mukesh Aghi with industrialist Shiv Nadar[/caption]

Giving back

A noted philanthropist, Dr Mukesh Aghi has been involved with several charitable organisations and supported causes related to education, healthcare and poverty alleviation. He has been at the forefront of relief efforts for issues ranging from the pandemic to the 2018 floods in Kerala. He also works with initiatives aimed at promoting clean energy and sustainability and has served as the CEO of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-profit organization in India that aims to bring transparency to the country’s democratic system.

He has also been involved with the Pratham Education Foundation, one of India's largest NGOs, which works to provide quality education to underprivileged children in India.

Indian CEO | Dr Mukesh Aghi | Global Indian

In 2017, Dr Aghi received the Community Leadership Award by the American India Foundation (AIF) for his philanthropic work. “Indian Americans are the most affluent and most philanthropic minority group in the US. It shows that as a community, we are not just focused on enhancing our own lives, but also the environment around us and the different cities we are staying in,” he said at a conference.

Dr. Aghi holds several degrees, including an advanced management diploma from Harvard Business School, a Ph.D. in international relations from Claremont Graduate University, California, an MBA in international marketing from Andrews University, Michigan and a BA in business administration from the Middle East College, Sultanate of Oman. Though he is based in the US, the business leader extensively travels to India for help power his country's growth.

Follow Dr Mukesh Aghi on LinkedIn and Twitter

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The Mathemagician: Field’s Medal winner Manjul Bhargava bridges tradition and modernity

(July 6, 2024) In the summer of 1998, Manjul Bhargava's eye caught a mini Rubik's cube sitting in a corner of his room. He began visualising numbers on each of the corners and in his own words, "saw binary quadratic forms coming out, three of them." Bhargava, who was a student at Harvard University then, wrote down the relations between them and realised he had found a description of Gauss' Law (which explains how electric fields behave around charged objects). He linked it to the work of the ancient mathematician Brahmagupta, which he had read in Sanskrit as a child. It was one of Bhargava’s first major breakthroughs, which paved the way for his winning the Fields Medal in 2014. To Bhargava, Math is music, and poetry and patterns – and magic. He brings this playfulness to his lectures at Princeton too, where he became the youngest ever full mathematics professor at the age of 28. In class, he is known to use magic tricks, puzzles, toys, poetry and music, which he believes "should all form a key part of the mathematics classroom. When people see mathematics done as described above, as a playful, creative, interactive subject, they see that

eves "should all form a key part of the mathematics classroom. When people see mathematics done as described above, as a playful, creative, interactive subject, they see that it is not terrifying at all," he gushes. "It is beautiful!" Once, he even used chocolate bars to demonstrate the principles of algebra, cutting and rearranging the pieces to solve equations. This hands-on approach not only demystifies complex concepts but also infuses a sense of play and discovery into the learning process.

[caption id="attachment_48752" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Manjul Bhargava[/caption]

Apart from the Fields Medal, Bhargava's accolades include the Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian awards in India, and the Infosys Prize, recognizing his contributions to the mathematical sciences. He has also been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, an honor reserved for distinguished scholars in recognition of their original research.

Early life

Manjul Bhargava was born on August 8, 1974, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, to a family deeply rooted in academia and the appreciation of classical Indian culture. His mother, Mira Bhargava, who is a Mathematics professor at Hofstra University in New York, told Quanta that his interest in Math became evident when he was a toddler. The only way to make him sit still, she said, was to ask him to add or multiply large numbers, he would do by "flipping his fingers back and forth and then give the right answer. I always wondered how he did it, but he wouldn't tell me," she said.

At the age of eight, he would stack oranges into pyramids before they went into making juice. Several months later he produced an equation to figure out a formula for the number of oranges in a pyramid. By this time, he was also attending his mother's math classes in college, even correcting her if she made an error.

[caption id="attachment_48753" align="aligncenter" width="469"] Photo: Peter Murphy[/caption]

Another big influence in his life came from his occasional trips to Jaipur to see his grandparents. His grandfather was Purushottam Lal Bhargava, a renowned scholar of Sanskrit and head of the Department of at the University of Rajasthan. Learning from his grandfather, Manjul Bhargava fell hopelessly in love with Sanskrit poetry, and found, to his total delight, that they were highly mathematical. "I also learned from my grandfather how much incredible mathematics was discovered in ancient times by scholars who considered themselves not mathematicians but poets. Linguists such as Panini, Pingala, Hemachandra and Narayana discovered some wonderful and deep mathematical concepts while studying poetry."

He found math in music too and learned to play a number of instruments although he had a special love for the tabla. He enjoyed thinking about the mathematics of the complex rhythm structures contained in Hindustani and Carnatic classical music.

University life

In 1991, Manjul Bhargava graduated from Plaineridge High School in North Massapequa, and had already been admitted to Harvard University. That was where he decided on a career in Mathematics - he had toyed with many options, including being a musician and an economist. He graduated in 1996, winning the Morgan Prize for his research. From there, he went to Princeton University with a Hertz Fellowship and worked under Sir Andrew Wiles, a Royal Society Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. By this time, he had a slew of awards to his name, including the Hertz Fellowship, the Hoopes Prize and the Morgan Prize.

In 1991, he graduated from Plaineridge High School in North Massapequa, and had already been admitted to Harvard University. He graduated in 1996, winning the Morgan Prize for his research. From there, he went to Princeton University with a Hertz Fellowship and worked under Sir Andrew Wiles. It was during his time at Princeton as a graduate student that he also solved a 200-year-old math problem.

Solving Gauss' composition law

As a child, Bhargava had read, in one of his grandfather's Sanskrit manuscripts, a theorem developed by the great mathematician, Brahmagupta, which had excited Bhargava very much at the time. Then, during his time at Princeton, he discovered the work of Carl Gauss and his composition law, which is one of the pillars of electromagnetic theory. Was there a simple way to describe Gauss' 20-page law, Bhargava wondered.

He sat with the question and one night, as he sat in his room which was "littered with mathematical toys," he looked at a mini Rubik's Cube. There are three ways to cut a Rubik's Cube in half, and each of the three forms, Bhargava found, add up to zero. He had found an elegant, more minimalist explanation of Gauss' Law, which today is known as Bhargava's Cube. That became the core of his PhD thesis at Princeton, for which he won a five-year Clay Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Making history at Princeton

Bhargava used the funding to stay on at Princeton for another year, as well as at the Institute for Advanced Study, and then moved to Harvard. He was now a very sought after mathematician and at 28, after considering a food of job offers, accepted a position at Princeton University.

In 2014, Manjul Bhargava was awarded the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul for "developing powerful new methods in the geometry of numbers. He applied these to count rings of small rank and to bound the average rank of elliptic curves. One year later, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. In 2017, he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and like his mentor, Sir Andrew Wiles, was conferred a Fellowship at the Royal Society in 2019.

Manjul Bhargava’s work has been described as “epoch-making,” and is widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of our time. He also remains a passionate musician and occasionally trains under Ustad Zakir Hussain.