The Founder

SMITA SRINIVAS

Smita Srinivas is a globally influential thinker. She specializes in economic development with a unique combination of scholarly and practical impact areas of economic development including technological innovation, industrial policy, knowledge and culture.

She is the recipient of the Joan Robinson Prize (formerly Myrdal Prize) in 2015 by the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) and recognized as the 2021 Clarence E. Ayres Scholar from the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE), USA.

With a Ph.D. from MIT in economic development and technology planning and numerous fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, she has over 3 decades of experience teaching thousands of students in the world’s leading universities, and multiple departments and research centers.

She speaks frequently to university communities and to students, committed to the fit of students to their chosen goals and to learning to live a full life well beyond their training. Her students hold rewarding positions across the globe.

As a higher education advisor, director, co-founder or chair of committees in multiple countries, she has designed or led economic development programs with a sustainability and health focus. Srinivas has held full-time Professor, Fellow, or Visiting and Honorary Faculty appointments in the world’s leading universities in diverse schools and centres. These include at Columbia University, Harvard University, the Innogen Institute, the Open University UK, the London School of Economics and Political Science, University College London, the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR), the Indian Institute of Science, the MIT Industrial Performance Centre, and multiple think tanks.

She has been an advisor to global Fortune 500 companies, global councils and foundations, non-profits, government and multilateral and international development agencies.