Nandan Nilekani
Co-founder and Non-Executive Chairman, Infosys- An alumnus of the prestigious Bishop Cotton Boys' School in Bengaluru, Nandan Nilekani graduated as an Electrical Engineer from the Indian Institute of Bombay in 1978
- After graduation, he joined Patni Computer Systems where he met Narayana Murthy. In 1981, the duo and five other colleagues founded Infosys. From 2002 to 2007, Nilekani served as the MD and CEO of India's most-valued technology company and during his tenure, Infosys' topline grew over six-fold to $3 billion
- The tech magnate played a crucial role in co-founding Indian IT industry lobby body, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM)
- In 2009, he resigned from the Infosys Board as then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh invited Nandan Nilekani to head Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), in the rank of Cabinet Minister
- Nilekani was mandated with issuing unique, 12-digit Aadhaar ID numbers to all residents of India and he remained as head till he stepped down in 2014
- Known for timely execution and ability to work with diverse interests, the technocrat returned to Infosys in August 2017 as Non-Executive Chairman. In his second stint, he replaced R Seshasayee, who resigned as chairman of the board of Infosys
- His philanthropic initiatives include teaming up with Ratan Tata and setting up a microloan-focused NBFC called Avanti Finance, with initial investments of Rs 50 crore each
- In 2015, Nilekani and his wife Rohini, along with Shankar Maruwada, co-founded a not-for-profit technology-enabled platform to improve basic literacy and numeracy for millions of children. Based out of Bengaluru, they named the initiative EkStep, the funds for which came from the Nilekanis
Before you go ...
- Nandan Nilekani is a voracious reader and has authored two books, an autobiography in 2009 titled, 'Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation'. In 2015, he co-authored, '
Rebooting India : Realizing a Billion Aspirations' with Viral Shah. - Nilekani has received numerous awards during his lifetime, the major ones being Padma Bhushan in 2006, and the famous Joseph Schumpeter prize in 2005 for innovative services in economy and politics.
- He has also been honoured by Forbes,
Fortune , TIME Magazine, The Economist, Foreign Policy magazine among others.. - Nandan and Rohini Nilekani decided to donate 50% of their wealth to charity and signed the Bill Gates' Giving Pledge in 2017.
Nandan Nilekani News
Flexiloans, an NBFC focusing on small businesses, secured Rs 375 crore in funding, led by existing investors like Fundamentum and Accion. This capital infusion, a mix of primary and secondary, will fuel its expansion into secured lending and insurance distribution. Flexiloans achieved profitability for three consecutive years, with Rs 263 crore revenue and Rs 3 crore profit in FY24.
AI4Bharat aims to gather 15,000 hours of transcribed data from over 400 districts encompassing all 22 scheduled languages of India. In parallel, its in-house team of over 100 translators is creating a parallel corpus with 2.2 million translation pairs across 22 languages.
Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani warns global businesses about navigating a world fragmented into blocs due to geopolitical uncertainties. Companies must adapt strategies, diversify sourcing due to tariffs, and modernise legacy systems to harness AI's potential.
Existing backers Z47, RTP Global and Lightspeed, besides Aditya Birla Ventures, participated in the funding round. Per cofounder Saurabh Jain, the funds will be used to expand its suite of wealth products and speed up customer acquisition. Since its launch in 2022, Stable Money has onboarded more than 150,000 users, who have invested in FDs and bonds, taking its total assets under management (AUM) to over Rs 3,000 crore.
IT CEOs have indicated that AI-led productivity is changing the business model, with revenue growth and headcount growth being de-linked. “The last couple of years, we have been challenging our teams on how you can deliver twice the revenue and half of the people,” said HCLTech CEO Vijayakumar in February.
Girish Karnad, the celebrated playwright and actor, had an unexpected connection to India's IT boom. Initially reluctant, he invested in Infosys shares at the urging of Nandan Nilekani. This decision proved life-altering, providing financial stability and enabling him to purchase a house.
India aims to be an $8 trillion economy by 2035, facing challenges like income disparity and low formalization. Real estate tokenization offers a solution by converting property value into digital tokens, increasing liquidity and lowering investment barriers.
The gap between global developments and AI adoption in India will be very short due to the digital transformation India has already undergone, he said, adding that the digital public infrastructure (DPI) will serve as the foundation for implementing AI at scale for a billion people.
Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani believes India shouldn't worry about lagging in AI model development, emphasizing the nation's AI mission and smaller models. A Chinese startup, DeepSeek, has launched a low-cost, open-source AI model challenging established players like Baidu and even impacting global tech giants, sparking discussions about India's AI innovation pace.
Nandan Nilekani's proposal to tokenize land assets in India has sparked a debate, with Sridhar Vembu, Zoho's founder, expressing concerns. Nilekani believes that digitising land titles could unlock economic opportunities, but Vembu warns that turning land into a liquid asset could lead to financial risks for vulnerable individuals. Both agree that land reform is key, but they differ on the potential consequences of tokenisation.
