The Akshaya Patra Foundation will be holding its 2015 Bay Area Benefit Event, Sept. 20. T.V. Mohandas Pai, co-founder of Akshaya Patra India, will serve as the keynote speaker for the event. This event will also feature special guest Arvind Gupta, head of technology for the Bharatiya Janata Party and the founder member of Digital India.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is one of the largest NGO-run school meal programs in the world and serves over 1.5 million children daily in over 11,936 schools through 24 kitchens in ten states in India.

The event will be held at the Marriott hotel in San Mateo, Calif. Over 350 businesses, non-profits, government, and philanthropic leaders from around the region are expected to attend and support the organization’s dual mission of addressing childhood hunger and malnutrition and to promote education for underserved children in India.

Akshaya Patra continues to expand to reach more children and opened its newest kitchen in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.  At full capacity, the kitchen can serve 100,000 children daily. The organization recently opened a field kitchen in Nepal to provide emergency food aid to survivors of the two devastating earthquakes that devastated the country, last spring. The Nepal kitchen has served one million plus meals to earthquake survivors.

In a career spanning over 30 years, Mohandas Pai has made significant contributions in the area of finance, information technology, policy formulation and startup ecosystem. He is the chairman of FICCI Higher Education committee. He is the chairperson of the board of Manipal Global Education Services and advisor to the Manipal Education and Medical Group. He is also on the board of Havells India Limited and Ascendas Property Fund Trustee, as trustee-manager of Ascendas India Trust.

Akshaya Patra India co-founder T.V. Mohandas Pai and Head of technology at BJP Arvind Gupta.
Akshaya Patra India co-founder T.V. Mohandas Pai and Head of technology at BJP Arvind Gupta.

Pai co-founded Aarin Capital Partners to fund opportunities in health care, life sciences, education and technology. He has also co-founded Reservoir Investment Managers to launch Exfinity Technology Fund I focused on providing capital and operational support to technology companies with an India base or focus.  Prior to this, he was a member of the board at Infosys Ltd.

Arvind Gupta currently heads BJP’s Information and Technology group and advises on e-governance, digital outreach and other technology initiatives. He led the Digital and Social Media campaign for Team Modi/BJP during the elections in 2014 and the subsequent state elections. He heads the Digital India Foundation, which works on digital inclusion, Internet governance and smart cities.

Arvind is an innovation evangelist who has over 20 years of experience in leadership, policy and entrepreneurial roles, both in Silicon Valley and India. He is an active member of industry forums NASSCOM, TiE and founding member of ISPiRT (Indian Software Products Industry Round table). He is a guest speaker at Global B-Schools and CxO events. He is also an Eisenhower Fellow for Innovation.

This year’s event will feature an evening of networking, entertainment, and dinner. Seating is limited, so please RSVP soon. For more information, please go to www.foodforeducation.org

For information: Geeta Kulkarni at Geeta@apusa.org or 408-209-8368

For tickets or table sponsorships: www.foodforeducation.org/bay-area