Sreenath Sreenivasan
Professor and Dean of Student Affairs, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Sree Sreenivasan is a journalism educator and freelance journalist. He is Dean of Student Affairs at Columbia University's journalism school, where he runs the new media program. He also serves as a technology reporter and commentator for a variety of news outlets. Most recently, he spent two years as the tech reporter for WNBC-TV in NYC and various NBC News programs (he previously spent six years as WABC's Tech Guru). His work explaining technology has appeared in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Rolling Stone and Popular Science.

He is co-founder of SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, a group of 1,000+ journalists across the US and Canada. In March 2004, Newsweek magazine named him one of the 20 most influential South Asians in the nation and in July 2007, India Abroad named him one of the 50 most influential Indians in America. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Roopa Unnikrishnan (a business strategist, Rhodes Scholar and former world-class sports rifle shooter), and their young twins. More on his work at http://www.sree.net

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Joseph Stiglitz
Nobel Laureate and University Professor, Columbia University

Joseph E. Stiglitz was born in Gary , Indiana in 1943. A graduate of Amherst College, he received his PHD from MIT in 1967, became a full professor at Yale in 1970, and in 1979 was awarded the John Bates Clark Award, given biennially by the American Economic Association to the economist under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the field. He has taught at Princeton, Stanford, MIT and was the Drummond Professor and a fellow of All Souls College , Oxford . He is now University Professor at Columbia University in New York and Chair of Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought. He is also the co-founder and Executive Director of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia . In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information.

Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-95, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-97. He then became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000.

Stiglitz helped create a new branch of economics, "The Economics of Information," exploring the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneering such pivotal concepts as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have now become standard tools not only of theorists, but of policy analysts. He has made major contributions to macro-economics and monetary theory, to development economics and trade theory, to public and corporate finance, to the theories of industrial organization and rural organization, and to the theories of welfare economics and of income and wealth distribution. In the 1980s, he helped revive interest in the economics of R&D.

His book Globalization and Its Discontents (W.W. Norton June 2001) has been translated into 35 languages and has sold more than one million copies worldwide. Other recent books include The Roaring Nineties (W.W. Norton), Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics (Cambridge University Press) with Bruce Greenwald, and Fair Trade for All (Oxford University Press), with Andrew Charlton. His newest book, Making Globalization Work, was published by WW Norton and Penguin/ Allen Lane in September 2006.

Gururaj Deshpande
Co-founder and Chairman, Sycamore Networks

Dr. Deshpande is an influential technology entrepreneur and visionary whose companies and ideas often reshape entire industries. Led by Dr. Deshpande's vision and direction, Sycamore has helped create a fundamental paradigm shift in the role and architecture of the optical network.

Dr. Deshpande is also widely respected for his contributions to education and the greater community. Dr. Deshpande serves as a member of the MIT Corporation, and his generous donations have made possible MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. On the community front, The Deshpande Foundation, which is the family foundation of Gururaj ("Desh") and Jaishree Deshpande is a leading philanthropic foundation in Massachusetts and India in the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and international development.

Prior to co-founding Sycamore Networks, Dr. Deshpande was founder and chairman of Cascade Communications Corp. Between 1991 and 1997, Cascade grew from a one-person startup to a company with $500 million in revenue and 900 employees. In June of 1997, Cascade was acquired by Ascend Communications for $3.7 billion.

Parag Saxena
Founding General Partner & CEO , NSR Growth Capital

Prior to co-founding New Silk Route, Parag co-founded Vedanta Capital, LLC in 2006, a private equity group focused on global private equity fund of funds and direct private equity investments. Before embarking on these recent ventures, Parag was the Managing Partner and a co-founder of INVESCO Private Capital where he was responsible for both direct venture capital and private equity investing and fund of funds investment activities. Parag joined Citicorp Investment Management in 1983, which was spun out in 1988 to become Chancellor Capital Management, and was eventually acquired by INVESCO. Parag led the firm to over $8 billion of assets under management at its peak. In addition to being an original investor in iconic companies such as Starbucks, Amgen, Polycom and Whole Foods, Parag led more than 90 investments for Chancellor and INVESCO Private Capital, a third of which have gone public.

Parag serves on the Foreign Direct Investment task force reporting to the Prime Minister of India as well as the Committee on Venture Capital and Innovation for the Government of India. He serves on the boards of Global Alliance for TB (Treasurer), pan-Indian Institute of Technology, TiE (Tri-State President), Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and other organizations.

Parag received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the West Virginia College of Graduate Studies.

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Frank G. Wisner
Ambassador to India: 1994 to 1997, International Affairs Advisor, Patton Boggs LLP

Frank G. Wisner is International Affairs Advisor, at Patton Boggs, LLP. A career diplomat with the personal rank of Career Ambassador, he previously served as Ambassador to India from 1994 - 1997. Additionally, he held the positions of Ambassador to Zambia (1979 - 1982), Egypt (1986 - 1991), and the Philippines (1991 - 92). Mr. Wisner has served in a number of positions in the U.S. government, including Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (1993 - 1994), Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs (1992 - 93), Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs (1982 - 86), and Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State (1977). During the course of his career, Frank Wisner served in the Middle East and South and East Asia.
Today Mr. Wisner is a member of the Boards of Directors of EOG Resources and Ethan Allen, as well as the boards of numerous non‐profit organizations. He is an advisor to Kissinger Associates.

A native of New York, Mr. Wisner was educated at Princeton University.

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