Ramji Raghavan

Ramji Raghavan is an India based social innovator and entrepreneur. He is the Founder and Chairman of Agastya International Foundation,^[1] a Non Profit, sparking curiosity, creativity and leadership amongst underprivileged children and government school teachers.^[2] Ramji is also a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education, Government of India, Karnataka State Innovation Council,^[3] a board member of Vigyan Prasar,^[4] Government of India, board member of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, executive committee member of the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum and has served as a member of the Working Group on Attracting Children to Science and Math of the Prime Minister’s National Knowledge Commission.^[5] He is also a well recognized public speaker and has spoken at the Education World Forum,^[6] the annual INK Conference in association with TED,^[7] the Clinton Global Initiative, Harvard India Conference, MIT Media Lab,^[8] Peking University, Indian Institute of Science,^[9] the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research^[10] the PanIIT Conference,^[11] the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore, the WISE Summit 2014, Qatar and Indiaspora, USA.

Early life and education

Ramji was raised in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Calcutta where his father KV Raghavan^[12] served as Managing Director of the ICI Group company, Alkali and Chemical Corporation of India Limited and later as Chairman of Engineers India Limited, Delhi and President of EID Parry Limited.^[13] Ramji's father and his maternal uncle, Dr. P. K. Iyengar, former Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission were founder trustees of Agastya International Foundation.^[14] A product of Rishi Valley School,^[15] founded by the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ramji was early on exposed to the power of self-awareness to create social change and dreamt of building a school for creative leaders in India.^[16] With support from the government of Andhra Pradesh, Ramji and his colleagues established a 172-acre campus creativity lab near Bangalore. In 2010 the Government of Karnataka signed an MoU with Agastya International Foundation to establish an ecosystem for hands-on science education in the state. Ramji is married to Monica (nee Sanghani), great great granddaughter of Devkaran Nanjee, the founder of Dena Bank. Ramji holds an MBA from the London Business School and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Development Studies from The International Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands. He graduated from Hans Raj College, University of Delhi.^[17]

Career

As per popular media, Ramji started his career as a Consultant with A. F. Ferguson & Co., followed by Citibank in India, Puerto Rico and New York. Later he worked with the Europe based Cedel Group as Director and member of the Strategic Advisory Group.^[18]

In 1998, Ramji left his commercial career in banking and finance to create Agastya International Foundation,^[19] which has reached creative hands-on science education to over 5 million underprivileged children and government school teachers across India ^[20]

Recognitions

In 2009, Ramji was elected as a senior fellow by Ashoka: Innovators for the Public.^[21] In 2011, Ramji was featured on Indian TV channel Times Now^[22] in its program Amazing Indians and honoured with the People’s Hero award by the Coimbatore unit of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at its silver jubilee celebrations.^[23] In 2012, Ramji was featured on CNBC Awaaz’s program "Bharat Bhagya Vidhata".^[24] Under Ramji’s chairmanship Agastya International Foundation won the Google Global Impact Award 2013 and was ranked by The Rockefeller Foundation NextCentury Awards among the top 100 global innovators.

References

24. Article on Aah! Aha! Ha-ha!: http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/from-ah-to-ha-ha-114110701255_1.html

External links

• Website: