Rikin Gandhi (Chief Executive Officer - rikin@digitalgreen.org)

Rikin Gandhi is chief executive officer of Digital Green. 

His interests include sustainable agriculture and technology for socioeconomic development. Gandhi received a master's in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor's in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to his days in rural India, Gandhi was a software engineer at Oracle and a pilot with ambitions for joining the astronaut program. Born and raised in the U.S., Gandhi "reverse-migrated" to India to help start a biodiesel venture on the wastelands of Maharashtra. 

He then joined Microsoft Research India in Bangalore, India as a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets team that developed the Digital Green system.  Digital Green has now spun-off as an independent, not-for-profit organization.  Gandhi leads the extension of the system in collaboration with grassroots-level partners to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across the developing world.