Wadhwani Foundation is a not-for-profit with the primary mission of accelerating economic development by driving job creation through large-scale initiatives in entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation, and skilling. Founded in 2000 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dr Romesh Wadhwani, today, the Foundation is scaling impact in multiple countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Wadhwani Foundation works in partnership with governments, foundations, corporations, and educational institutes through the below Initiatives:
Wadhwani Advantage: Empowers thousands of small and medium size businesses with capabilities to maximize their growth potential.
Wadhwani Entrepreneur: Inspires, educates and enables tens of thousands of startup entrepreneurs.
- Wadhwani Inspire: Establishes a culture of entrepreneurship at a national level
- Wadhwani NEN: Empowers professionals, post-college, college and pre-college students with knowledge and skills to create high-potential startups
- Wadhwani Venture Fastrack (VFT): Empowers entrepreneurs and incubators to build successful and scalable startups
Wadhwani Opportunity: Empowers millions of students with core skills/soft skills to improve employability and higher wages.
Wadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy (WITP): Leverages emerging technology for well-informed policy formulation, implementation, and outcomes/impact measurement.
Wadhwani Community College: US-based platform and programs for enabling digital transformation of Community Colleges to skill and place 1M students in jobs of the future.
Wadhwani Institute for Digital Public Health (Vision): US-based, global platform for enabling digital transformation of public health organizations and programs to improve their speed, scale, impact to improve the lives of hundreds of millions.
Wadhwani Catalyst and Wadhwani Technology Platform support the Foundation’s Initiatives.
Dr. Romesh Wadhwani
Founder and Chairman
- Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist
- Until 1999, built three successful companies, the last of which was exited at over $9 billion
- Founding Chairman and CEO of $3.5 billion Symphony Technology Group
- Founder and Chairman of Wadhwani Foundation (2003)
- Founding Chairman of enterprise AI software firm Symphony AI (2017)
- Founding Chairman of AI life sciences firm ConcertAI (2017)
- Founding Chairman of SAIGroup investment firm (2021)
- Member of the Gates Buffet Giving Pledge
- Padma Shri 2020 awardee
- President Obama appointee to the Board of Trustees of the John. F. Kennedy Center
- Board Member of Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Ajay Kela
President and CEO
- Expanded Foundation’s initiatives across 20 countries and enabled over $100M of Govt. investment during the past ten years
- Scaled startup Symphony Services to $175M with exit at $780M
- Grew AutoCAD business from $170M to $850M during 10 years at Autodesk
- PhD research on computer graphics lead to multi-million-dollar products at GE and Autodesk
- B-Tech, IIT Bombay, India; Ph.D. University of Rochester, USA

Winning Values

Give Forward
-- Wear your passion on your sleeve
-- Give with a smile
-- Share knowledge unselfishly
-- Think Impact, not activity

Together Is Better
-- Partner around purpose
-- Network actively
-- Be super-responsive
-- Reach out; solve together

Make It Large
-- Think big & beyond
-- Considered risk-taking
-- Embrace agile – test, learn, scale
-- Empower down the line

With You All The Way
-- Proactively engage to support
-- Partner across the life cycle
-- Measure success, assess impact
-- Digital for lifelong engagement
Foundational Values
At Wadhwani Foundation, our six values represent a strong belief in the contribution we are making towards a better future. These values dictate our actions and are based on a framework of passion, commitment, enduring quality and impactful socio-economic delivery.
Innovation
Effective deployment of technology along with new ideas, new possibilities and new ways of working to maximize impact & benefits to our stakeholders
Collaboration
Working with diverse individuals and organizations to achieve common goals and inclusive solutions, in a mutually empowering way
Integrity
Being honest and dedicated with transparency in ownership and communication, and a zeal to meet commitments
Excellence
Driven by high professional standards in delivering quality products and services to our stakeholders
Leadership
Leading with an agile approach to problem-solving and creating a balance between grassroots experience, strategic thinking and policy making
Impact
Creating transformational, sustainable and scalable economic acceleration in emerging economies with high-impact outcomes