Aditya Dev Sood

Dr. Aditya Dev Sood is a serial social entrepreneur with a background in Design and the SocialSciences. He is a former Fulbright Scholar with two doctorates from the University of Chicago. Sood has built several different kinds of organizations, all of which are co-located at the Vihara Innovation Campus in New Delhi. The Center for Knowledge Societies (www.cks.in) is an innovation consulting firm, which focuses on user research, user experience design, design strategy and systems innovation. The Bihar Innovation Lab (BIL), supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, works with the Bihar state government to promote innovation in health and other developmental areas. The Adianta School for Leadership (www.adianta.org) provides a professional post-graduate diploma through a unique learning-by-doing pedagogic approach, delivered through a network of working professionals. The Startup Tunnel (STun) is a new kind of incubator-accelerator focused on social impact challenges in health, education, financial services and governance. The Civic Innovation Lab (Civilab) is a new initiative focused on citizen participation, open data and the citizen-centric delivery of urban services. The Vihara Innovation Network, which interconnects these organizations, is based in Singapore, and it is now working with the MAMPU program and the Pulse Lab, both based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Sood has recently been involved in setting up MAMPU’s network of Innovation Labs across Indonesia. He is also exploring ways for local governments to use data more effectively, for example on the island of Lombok. Since 2011, Sood has routinely convened the Design Public Conclave dedicated to exploring how innovation can serve the public interest. He is now collaborating with the Social Innovation Exchange towards a Summer School in India in 2015. On weekends he can be found making sculpture, brewing beer and trekking with his wife and young son.