Raghu Dharmaraju, CEO of ARTPARK at IISc, has been building and scaling innovations and institutions for impact for over two decades. He is also a Fellow of the Lancet Commission for Reimagining India’s Health Systems.
ARTPARK fosters innovations in AI & Robotics through startups, platforms, and skilling. It is helping impact-focused orgs leverage LLMs for societal good at scale in LMICs, and building DPIs (digital public infrastructure) and DPGs (digital public goods) in health, climate, and languages partnering with Office of PSA, MEITY, ICMR, NITI Aayog, and some states and cities. Along with partners ARMMAN and Belongg, it is a double winner of the Global Grand Challenge for Equitable AI.
Previously, as a founding leader of Wadhwani AI, he built a portfolio of AI-based solutions that won global awards (Google AI Impact Challenge winner and AI XPrize shortlist). Partnering with the Ministry of Health and WHO, he established TRACE-TB, a program harnessing data and AI for India’s National TB Elimination Program. During the COVID pandemic, he led a team that closely supported Mumbai and Jharkhand.
Earlier, as a selector/mentor for DBT-BIRAC, Stanford Biodesign, and Grand Challenges India, he advised several med-tech startups. He took the award-winning Embrace infant warmers from first users to over 300,000 vulnerable babies in 20 countries. At Xerox PARC and Corning, he helped commercialize technology and build a new $150M/yr global business. He is an alumnus of IIT Madras, UMass Amherst and Cornell.
