DEEPANWITA CHATTOPADHYAY

IKP Knowledge Park

Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, Chairman & CEO, IKP Knowledge Park, developed the first Life Science Research Park in India, in Hyderabad. She pioneered a Hardware Product Incubator and Makerspace, IKP EDEN, in Bangalore and works with Indian and global partners to support over 1400 innovation projects and early startups. She authored the India Chapter for the Global Innovation Index Report GII2020. She received the FICCI FLO Influential Women Award, 2021 for Outstanding Contribution to the Innovation Ecosystem. In 2018 she was awarded the “Top Women Achievers of the Year 2017 in Asia” by AsiaOne Business Magazine and “Women of the Decade in Life Sciences & Innovation” by the Women Economic Forum.

After brief stints as an engineering faculty at BITS, Pilani, India and as freelance science writer for children, Deepanwita joined ICICI Bank in 1994 in the telecom practice of ICICI Advisory Services Division and worked in telecom regulation and policy and advised the government and the private sector on telecom regulation, market forecasts and market entry strategies. She was deputed to IKP Knowledge Park as its CEO in August 2001. Deepanwita took over as the Chairman of IKP in November 2015. She is a Director on the Boards of IKP Trust, IKP Ventures, Suven Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and the Research & Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH), and the President of IKP EDEN. She is the Founder Chairman of Support Elders Pvt. Ltd.

Deepanwita serves as the Treasurer of the International Association of Science Parks (IASP) with its global headquarters in Malaga, Spain. She is on the Research Council of the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), Executive Council of AGNIi (Accelerating Growth of New India’s Innovations), Board of Governors of the Society for Technology Management (STEM) and on the Governing Council of several Incubators in India. She is a member of several National level committees including the S&T Cluster Apex Committee under the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Govt. of India, Committee of the Prime Minister’s Fellowship for Doctoral Research, DST, GoI, Consultative Committee of S&T and Innovation in NITI Aayog, DBT Committee on Biotech Parks and the Taskforce of Startup20 under G20.