Dr. Anand Deshpande is the Founder, Chairman, and Managing Director of Persistent Systems, a global leader in digital engineering and enterprise modernization. He holds a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Kharagpur and a Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington. Since founding Persistent in 1990, he has grown the company into a publicly traded powerhouse with over 23,000 employees. A visionary technologist and philanthropist, he actively supports entrepreneurship through the DeAsra Foundation and serves on various academic and industry boards.