Founding Team
Gram Vaani has been founded by a team of young professionals keen to follow their passion and leverage their background for creating meaningful change in society.
Aaditeshwar Seth: The technical spearhead behind Gram Vaani, Aaditeshwar is passionate about social development and strongly believes in the strength of appropriate technology to bring change. He recently graduated with a PhD degree in computer science from the University of Waterloo in Canada and is now an assistant professor at IIT Delhi. He completed his B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur in 2002, and received the Ratan Swaroop Memorial Award given to the best all-rounder of the batch. Aaditeshwar has been involved with entrepreneurship since a long time. After completing his BTech, he founded an e-learning software product company, Kalzoom Technologies, in Pune. During his PhD at Waterloo, he co-founded a non-profit student organization, Udai, to help NGOs in India with technical support.
Mayank Shivam: With a background in management consulting, Mayank has helped some of the leading global firms on their strategy, operations and organizational issues. He brings his leadership and strategy skills to Gram Vaani, which are much needed to revolutionize the rural development scenario in India. Mayank completed his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur in 2002, where he won the Motorola Gold Medal for outstanding all-round performance and leadership. Mayank then did his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Lucknow, and was awarded the prestigious LIMKA (Leaders in the Making) award at the national level, and also the Chairman’s Gold Medal for securing the 1st rank among the graduating batch.
Parminder Singh: Parminder is a social entrepreneur and has been developing business solutions for the rural market ever since he completed his studies. He brings his experience of rural markets and business development to Gram Vaani. Parminder is also Chief Operating Officer and Director-on-Board with eGovServices. eGovServices focuses on the deployment of rural Internet kiosks in India, and is one of the most prominent players in this space with over 1,500 kiosks all over India. Parminder also advises governments on e-Governance strategies and has organized workshops that enable government departments to create their own e-Governance roadmaps. Prior to his tenure at eGovServices, Parminder was Director-on-Board in CEON Solutions, a startup involved in the development and deployment of ERP systems for educational institutes. He completed his B.Tech and M.Tech in Information Technology from the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management at Gwalior in 2003, while also winning numerous awards in leading business plan competitions.
Balachandran Chandrasekharan: Bala is the technical architect of all Gram Vaani offerings. With a BTech from the Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad, and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Bala has been an active contributor on many open-source software in the past. He has a strong belief in participatory democracy, and the ability of community media to help reach the goal. Always aiming for perfection, Bala brings careful forethought on Gram Vaani’s technology and methodology, and an indispensable guidance on the development
Zahir Koradia: Zahir is a PhD student in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and is the lead developer for Gram Vaani’s MINP platform. Zahir is passionate in using ICT for social development: his Masters from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was also focused on building low-cost systems for Internet connectivity in rural areas. Zahir brings the much needed technical expertise and versatility to deliver on Gram Vaani’s technology, research, and social development agenda.
Mentors and Advisers
GramVaani has been fortunate to have a distinguished set of mentors and advisers who, with their experience and knowledge, ensure that we always focus on the right issues and continue to keep our feet on the ground.
Prof. Srinivasan Keshav: Prof. Keshav is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Tetherless Computing at the School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Canada. Earlier in his career he was a researcher at Bell Labs, an Associate Professor at Cornell, and a co-founder of Ensim Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup. He is the author of a widely used graduate textbook on computer networking and has been awarded the Director’s Gold Medal at IIT Delhi, the Sakrison Prize at UC Berkeley, and the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. His current interests are in infrastructural issues underlying tetherless computing. Keshav received a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Delhi in 1986 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1991, both in Computer Science. Much of the ideas and many parts of the technology behind Gram Vaani evolved under his mentorship. His feedback has been invaluable both on the technology development as well as on inspiring and motivating the team to work in the area of community media. Prof. Keshav is also on the Board of Directors of Gram Vaani.
Prof. Huzur Saran: Prof. Saran is a professor of computer science at IIT Delhi and Heads, the Amar Nath & Shashi Khosla School of Information Technology, at IIT Delhi. His research is in the areas of Computer Systems, Security and Algorithms. Dr Saran has been actively working in the area of access technologies to enable ICT for masses, and provides invaluable feedback on the technology behind Gram Vaani. Many components of the technology crucial to Internet connectivity of the radio stations were developed under his supervision at IIT Delhi as part of a joint research program with the University of Waterloo. Dr Saran has also led many other entrepreneurial technology development efforts. He was chief scientific adviser to Solidcore Inc., a leading Software Security startup which was recently purchased by Mcafee for their Dynamic Whitelisting technology, developed entirely in India under Prof Saran’s Leadership. Prof. Saran is also on the Board of Directors of Gram Vaani.
Prof. Sanjiva Prasad: Prof. Prasad is a professor of computer science at IIT Delhi. He has been involved in numerous social development organizations, and is an important source of guidance in reaching out to appropriate partners. He has also been involved in the technology development of various components required for robust Internet connectivity of the radio stations.
Aromar Revi: Aromar is an Ashoka Fellow and the founder of Taru, a non-profit focused on helping governments formulate policies in the areas of media outreach, housing, and slum development. A graduate from IIT Delhi, he has many years of experience in the social development sector and has won numerous awards for his work. Aromar brings to the team a perfect blend of research, activism, and advocacy on policy issues.