Prof. Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Advisor, Government of India, Faculty, IIT Chennai Indian Institute of Technology
Ashok Jhunjhunwala is an Institute Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras at Chennai, India. He is currently on deputation as Advisor to Minister of Power and MNRE, Government of India.
Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala did B.Tech from IITK, MS and Ph.D from the University of Maine and was a faculty at Washington State University from 1979 to 1981, before joining IIT Madras in 1981.
Dr. Jhunjhunwala is considered the pioneer in nurturing Industry – Academia interaction in India towards R & D, Innovation and Product Development. His group (TENET) at IIT Madras has innovated, designed, developed and commercialized a large number of technologies in the area of Telecom, IT, Banking and Energy sectors, especially in solar rooftop and electric vehicles. He conceived and built the first Research Park (IIT Madras Research Park) in India which houses over 65 R & D companies and 100 incubated companies. He leads IITM Incubator which has incubated 120 companies so far.
Dr. Jhunjhunwala has been Chairman and member of various government committees, Boards of education institutions and was Board Member of a number of public and private companies. The companies include State Bank of India, TATA Communications, BSNL, Bharat Electronics, Mahindra Electricals, Sasken, Polaris, NRDC, BIRAC, Intellect, Tejas, TTML, IDRBT, HTL. At each place he has driven innovative and comprehensive changes, especially in the area of technology. He is currently on the Chairman of Technology Advisory Group of SEBI.
Dr. Jhunjhunwala was conferred Padma Shri in 2002, Shanti – Swarup Bhatnagar award, Vikram Sarabhai Research award, H. K. Firodia award, Silicon India Leadership award, Millenium Medal at Indian Science Congress, UGC Hari Om Ashram award, IETE’s Ram Lala Wadhwa Gold Medal, JC Bose fellowship and Bernard Low Humanitarian award. TiE conferred on him the title of “Dronacharya” for his contributions to the cause of entrepreneurship. He is fellow of IEEE, INSA, NAS, IAS, INAE and WWRF. He has also been conferred Honorary Doctorate by University of Maine and Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden.