Dr. Shashi Buluswar is a scientist and a serial social entrepreneur working on a range of areas including global health, energy access, water and food security.
Most recently, he served as the founding CEO of Global Health Labs, a new nonprofit created by Bill Gates to develop technology breakthroughs in global health, in partnership with the Gates Foundation. Under his leadership, GHL grew to a team of 100+ scientists and engineers, and has developed a broad portfolio of technologies including advanced molecular diagnostics for TB and other infectious diseases, FDA-approved rapid tests for COVID-19, AI-enabled image analysis for cervical cancer and maternal health, and oxygen delivery systems. Before that, Shashi was the founding CEO of the Institute for Transformative Technologies, incubated at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as a special initiative of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy under the Obama administration. With a mission to build technology solutions for sustainable global development, ITT launched India’s largest infrastructures for off-grid solar power and natural sanitation, which collectively serve hundreds of thousands of the country’s poorest citizens. In response to COVID-19, Shashi also led ITT’s launch of Oxygen Hub, which has become Africa’s largest medical oxygen franchise with operations in Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Prior to creating ITT, Shashi was a Partner at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a mission-driven strategy consulting firm, and served several international NGOs, foundations, governments, social entrepreneurs, the World Bank, and a number of UN agencies. Among his projects at Dalberg was the launch of Educate a Child, a major multilateral initiative responsible for enrolling 10 million of the world’s most vulnerable children into primary schools. Before joining Dalberg, he was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, a Vice President at Zurich Financial Services, and a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University.
Shashi is a recognized thought leader in the broader global equity and justice movement. He is the lead author of the “50 Breakthroughs” study, widely considered the technology complement to the Sustainable Development Goals. He has also co-edited a book on civil conflict and human rights in India, and has written numerous articles on issues such as global health, water security, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, environmental protection and technology-for-impact. Shashi also teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.
He recently joined the board of the Skoll Foundation, and has been a long-term volunteer advisor to a number of NGOs such as Human Rights Watch (a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize), The Citizens Foundation (which provides education for hundreds of thousands of low-income children in Pakistan), and the Pacific Institute (a leading think-tank on water security).
Beyond his professional interests, Shashi spent a decade competing on the Indian national rowing team, and made a critically acclaimed documentary film about the India-Pakistan conflict and “cricket diplomacy”.
He holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts in Artificial Intelligence, an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Goshen College.
Shashi was born and raised in India.
