1. Gururaj Deshpande is an Indian American venture capitalist and entrepreneur, who is best known for co-founding the Chelmsford, MA-based internet equipment manufacturer Sycamore Networks, the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT and the Deshpande Foundation.
Presently, Deshpande is the Chairman of A123Systems, Sycamore Networks, Tejas Networks, HiveFire, Sandstone Capital, Sparta Group, and sits on the Board of Airvana.
Gururaj Deshpande is a life member of the MIT Corporation, the Board of Trustees of MIT, and sits on the board of the MIT School of Engineering Dean's Advisory Council.
In July 2010, Gururaj Deshpande was appointed by President Barack Obama to the co-chairmanship of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a group established to support the US President's innovation strategy.
Gururaj Deshpande's father was a labor commissioner with the Indian government.
Gururaj Deshpande graduated with a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
Gururaj Deshpande started his career at Codex Corporation, a Motorola subsidiary located in Ontario, Canada which manufactured modems, before moving to the US in 1984.
Gururaj Deshpande left the company prior to its sale in 1993 to SynOptics.
Gururaj Deshpande knew Peter Brackett PhD, a professor of electrical engineering at Queen's university in Ontario for a few years in between industry positions.
In 1990, Gururaj Deshpande co-founded Cascade Communications, whose products were important in routing the early internet, initially as its president and later executive vice president; he hired Dan Smith as CEO.
Gururaj Deshpande sold Cascade to Ascend Communications for $3.7 billion in 1997.
In September 2011, the Gururaj Deshpande Foundation gave $2.5 million to the University of New Brunswick to launch the Pond-Gururaj Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Since its inception, the Pond-Gururaj Deshpande Centre has worked with hundreds of emerging entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada through early-stage innovation grants, mentorship, new venture acceleration and the hosting of multiple conferences bringing thought leaders together from across North America.
Gururaj Deshpande was the chairman of Akshaya Patra USA from 2008 to 2020.
Gururaj Deshpande is married to Jaishree Deshpande nee Kulkarni, who is the sister of Sudha Murthy and Caltech astrophysicist Shrinivas Kulkarni.
Gururaj Deshpande is the co-founder of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT.