Mr. Sam Pitroda is an internationally respected development thinker, policymaker, inventor, and entrepreneur who has spent over 55 years in Telecom developments.  

Credited with having laid the foundation of India’s Technology and Telecommunications revolution in the 1980s, during Rajiv Gandhi’s government, Mr. Pitroda has been a leading campaigner to help bridge the global digital divide. In the mid-1990s, He founded Worldtel in London to help privatize telecom in developing countries. He invented the electronic diary in 1974, mobile wallet in 1996, and set up C-SAM Inc., acquired by Master Card in 2013. From 2005 -2014 Mr. Pitroda was Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission and Advisor to the Indian prime minister with a cabinet minister’s rank. He was also Chairman of the National Innovation Council, Smart grid task, Railway modernization, and public broadcast reforms. He is the founder, investor, and Chairman of six start-ups and five nonprofit foundations. Mr. Pitroda holds over 100 patents, 20 Hon. Ph.Ds. and has published and lectured extensively globally. He is a member of the American Academy of Engineers. His biography was published in 1992, and Penguin published his autobiography “Dreaming Big” in 2015.