Public Health Policy & Digital HealthCare Systems for Dealing with Pandemics - WHEELS Global Foundation

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Public Health Policy & Digital HealthCare Systems for Dealing with Pandemics

Panelist’s Overview

Mr. Rajat Gupta is Chairman of WHEELS Global Foundation (WGF) and serves on its board as a key strategist in defining the direction and focus of the non-profit organization. Mr. Gupta brings his considerable skills to WGF, along with his leadership associations and advisory roles to many other non-profits such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

Mr. Rajat Gupta is a leading Indian-American businessman and Philanthropist who has co-founded successful world-class institutions including the Indian School of Business(ISB), American India Foundation(AIF), New Silk Route, and Scandent Solutions. He was ranked 15th in the nation in the entrance exam for the Indian Institutes of Technology, IIT JEE. He received a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-Delhi) in 1971 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1973.

Mr. Gupta joined McKinsey & Company in 1973 as one of the earliest Indian-Americans at the eminent consulting company. In 1994, he was elected the firm’s first managing director (chief executive) born outside of the US and then was re-elected twice in 1997 and 2000. Mr. Gupta is widely regarded as one of the first Indians to successfully break through the glass ceiling, as the first Indian-born CEO of a multinational corporation (not just a consultancy). During Mr. Gupta’s tenure as head of McKinsey, the firm opened offices in 23 new countries and doubled its consultant base to 891 partners, increasing revenue by 280 percent to $3.4 billion.

Mr. Arjun Malhotra is a pioneer of the Indian IT industry, Mr. Malhotra served as Chairman of Headstrong’s Board of Directors before its acquisition by Genpact in May 2011. Prior to Headstrong, he was Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of TechSpan, which merged with Headstrong in October 2003. Mr. Malhotra has had a long string of entrepreneurial successes. He co-founded the HCL group in 1975, taking it from a six-person “garage operation” to one of India’s largest InformationTechnology corporations. The first leading Indian entrepreneur to relocate to the USA, Mr. Malhotra took over HCL’s US operations (now known as HCL Technologies) in 1989 and grew it to nearly $100 million in annual revenues.

In 1992 he ran the HCL-HP joint venture in India, and in 1996 he set up and ran the joint venture with Deluxe Corporation. Mr. Malhotra is on the Board of Governors of ISB, Hyderabad, and IIT (Kharagpur) Foundation. He is a past Co-Chair of the Global Pan-IIT Alumni Association. He is also a Member of IPSS and was on the Board of Governors of The Doon School. A Life Fellow of IIT Kharagpur, he has been awarded Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) in September 2012. Punjab Technical University conferred an Honorary Ph.D. on him in 2013.

Prof. (Dr.) S.K. Sarin is the Senior Professor, Hepatology, and Vice-Chancellor, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), New Delhi. He was instrumental in setting up the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, under the auspices of the Govt of Delhi. He is also the Director of, WHO Collaborative Centre on Chronic Liver diseases and Viral Hepatitis at ILBS. He serves as Adjunct Faculty, Molecular Medicine at JNU due to his deep interest and contributions to translational science. He is credited with several new treatment protocols for liver diseases, especially variceal bleeding, liver regeneration, hepatitis B, and acute-on-chronic liver failure. He has more than 680 publications to his credit, edited 13 books on liver diseases, and contributed 90 chapters to various medical textbooks. He has helped develop 20 major guidelines; including six major Asian Pacific Treatment Guidelines in Liver diseases. Prof. Sarin has shown leadership roles in being the President of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology, Indian Association for the Study of the Liver, Asian Pacific Association of Liver (APASL), and Chairman Steering Committee of the APASL.

He has been awarded the prestigious Henry L. Bockus Medal -2017 by World Gastroenterology Organization, as also Ralph Kohn Memorial Lecture at the Institute of Hepatology, London, and Prof. Telfer Reynolds Memorial Oration at the University of Southern California. He has been bestowed with Padma Bhushan by the Govt of India. He is also a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, The World Academy of Medical Sciences (TWAS) International Prize, EASL International Recognition Award, Om Prakash Bhasin Award, Dhanvantri Medical Award, Ranbaxy Medical Sciences Award, and the ‘Best Teacher Award, besides being a founding Editor of Hepatology International. He developed with other Board of Governors the ‘Vision 2015’ document for Medical Education in India during his tenure as Chairman of the Medical Council of India.

Prof. K. Srinath Reddy is the President of, the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Under his leadership, PHFI has established five Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPHs) in different regions of India, to advance multi-disciplinary public health education, research, health technologies, and implementation support for strengthening health systems. He was appointed as the First Bernard Lown Visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in (2009-13) and presently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard (2014-2023). He holds advisory positions in several national and international bodies and recently published the book Make Health in India: Reaching A Billion Plus. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, and an Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney. He is the first Indian to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine, USA, and was awarded several prestigious international and national doctorates and fellowships. He was President of the World Heart Federation (2013-15). He is a Padma Bhushan awardee. He is also an Advisor to the Governments of Odisha, Punjab, Haryana, and Andhra Pradesh on Public Health. He served as a physician to two Prime Ministers of India.

Prof. Reddy obtained his medical degree from Osmania Medical College (Hyderabad), M.D. (Medicine), and D.M. (Cardiology) degrees from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Delhi) and M.Sc. (Epidemiology) from McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada). Having trained in cardiology and epidemiology, Prof. Reddy has been involved in several major international and national research studies including the INTERSALT global study of blood pressure and electrolytes, INTERHEART global study on risk factors of myocardial infarction, national collaborative studies on the epidemiology of coronary heart disease and community control of rheumatic heart disease. Widely regarded as a leader of preventive cardiology at national and international levels, Prof. Reddy has been a researcher, teacher, policy enabler, advocate, and activist who has worked to promote cardiovascular health, tobacco control, appropriate nutrition across the life course, chronic disease prevention and healthy living across the lifespan. He edited the National Medical Journal of India for 10 years and is on the editorial board of several international and national journals. He has more than 500 scientific publications in international and Indian peer reviewed-journals.

Dr. Krishna S. Vatsa has worked in the area of disaster risk reduction and recovery for the last 25 years. Prior to joining as Member, of NDMA, Krishna S. Vatsa worked as Policy Advisor, Disaster Recovery, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS), UNDP in New York and Nairobi during 2015-20. He served as the Regional Disaster Reduction Advisor, South & South- West Asia in New Delhi from 2008 to 2014. He joined UNDP in 2007 as an Early Recovery Coordinator in the Philippines.

As a career civil servant, Krishna S. Vatsa joined the Maharashtra Emergency Earthquake Rehabilitation Programme in the state of Maharashtra in 1995 and implemented a large-scale earthquake recovery program during the next four years. He has also served as Secretary to the Government of Maharashtra, Relief, and Rehabilitation from 2003 to 2006, and then as Secretary, Rural Development & Panchayati Raj from 2006 to 2007. In course of his career, he extensively consulted for several national and international organizations in the area of disaster risk reduction and recovery. Krishna S. Vatsa has a Doctor of Science in Disaster Risk Management from George Washington University, Washington, DC, and published extensively on the subject.

Ambassador Pradeep Kapur is an acknowledged “luminary diplomat,” with a distinguished career working with leaders and policymakers around the world. Author and editor of many books, he was Ambassador of India to Chile and to Cambodia and Secretary at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He is Executive Director of Smart Village Development Fund (SVDF). He received a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering in 1977 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. In 1979, he received a Master of Technology in Management and Systems from IIT, Delhi. As a career Indian Foreign Service officer from 1979 to 2013, he held many government posts both in India and abroad. From April 2001 to January 2005 he was the Indian ambassador to Cambodia. From October 2007 through January 2009, he was joint secretary of the Foreign Service Institute in New Delhi. From January 2009 to December 2013 he was the Indian ambassador to Chile.

WHEELS Global Foundation(WGF), “An Initiative of IIT Alumni, USA” with the mission of Technology-Enabled Philanthropy. WHEELS has also been selected by NITI Aayog, Govt. of India as a member of the Committee for Innovation and Technology Transfer. WHEELS has also signed an MOU with the Ministry for Panchayati Raj for a technology partnership in Rural Development.