Akshay is an award-winning social entrepreneur. He co-founded Avanti Fellows (www.avantifellows.org) in 2010 with the mission of creating equitable access to India’s top STEM professional colleges. Avanti runs India’s largest free test preparation program – reaching over 55,000 students in seven government school systems. >70% of Avanti’s students pursue technical education and >18% place into India’s top 5% STEM colleges.

For his work at Avanti, he was awarded the Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2024, IIT Bombay Young Alumni Achiever Award in 2023, Ashoka Fellowship, Draper Richards Kaplan Fellowship and Echoing Green Fellowship in 2012. Before Avanti, Akshay served on the founding team of HeartFlow, a venture-backed medical diagnostics company that raised over $600M from top venture funds. He also has prior work experience with the Boston Consulting Group, the World Food Programme and the International Save the Children Alliance. Akshay graduated from IIT Bombay in 2006 with a degree in Chemical Engineering and is on a leave of absence from the MBA program at the Harvard Business School.