नंदन नीलेकणि Nandan Nilekani
Nandan Nilekani was born in Bangalore in 1955. He studied electrical engineering at IIT Bombay and co-founded Infosys with N. R. Narayana Murthy and five others in 1981. He was CEO from 2002 to 2007. From 2009 to 2014 he was founding chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India. He returned to Infosys as non-executive chairman in 2017. He has written Imagining India, Rebooting India and The Art of Bitfulness.
Curated by Nikhil Sharma: an IIT Bombay engineer who co-founded Infosys in 1981 and ran it as CEO. He left in 2009 to give every resident of India a digital identity. Aadhaar became the base layer for UPI and the open rails now called India Stack. Today he argues that India should lead the world in putting AI to use.
- 1981 Infosys co-founded: With N. R. Narayana Murthy and five other colleagues from Patni
- 2009 UIDAI founding chairman: A cabinet-rank post he held until March 2014
- 25.47bn UPI payments in a month: October 2026. He played an advisory role in UPI’s open design
- ₹400 cr Given to IIT Bombay: Cumulative after a ₹315 crore gift in 2023
The facts
- Born
- 2 June 1955 in Bangalore. His family are Konkani speakers from Sirsi (Wikipedia: Nandan Nilekani)
- Education
- Bishop Cotton Boys’ School in Bangalore and schools in Dharwad. B.Tech in electrical engineering at IIT Bombay. He joined in 1973 (Business Today: Nilekani donates Rs 315 crore to alma mater IIT Bombay (20 June 2023))
- Now
- Non-executive chairman of Infosys since 24 August 2017 (Business Today: Nilekani makes comeback at Infosys as chairman (24 August 2017))
- Public roles
- Founding chairman of UIDAI from 2009 to 2014 with cabinet rank. Chair of the 2026 task force on examination reform (Khaleej Times: Modi announces task force for exam reforms led by Nilekani (26 July 2026))
- Non-profits
- Co-founder of EkStep Foundation (2015) with Rohini Nilekani. Co-founder of FIDE, the genesis author of the Beckn Protocol (CXOToday: Beckn and Finternet together for global climate impact (26 October 2024))
- Honours
- Padma Bhushan (2006). TIME 100 (2009). Nikkei Asia Prize (2017) (Wikipedia: Nandan Nilekani)
- Giving
- Signed the Giving Pledge with Rohini Nilekani in 2017. ₹400 crore to IIT Bombay in all (Business Today: Nilekani donates Rs 315 crore to alma mater IIT Bombay (20 June 2023))
- Family
- Married to Rohini Nilekani since 1981. Two children, Nihar and Janhavi (Wikipedia: Nandan Nilekani)
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