In July 2010, Deshpande was appointed by President Barack Obama to the co-chairmanship of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a group established to support the US President's innovation strategy.[3]
Early life and education
Gururaj Deshpande was born in Hubli, Karnataka in India. His father was a labor commissioner with the Indian government.[7]
Deshpande started his career at Codex Corporation, a Motorola subsidiary located in Ontario, Canada which manufactured modems, before moving to the U.S. in 1984. Later, he co-founded Coral Networks, a router developer. He left the company prior to its sale in 1993 to SynOptics. He sold the company for $15 million.[8]
Deshpande knew Peter Brackett PhD, a professor of electrical engineering at Queen's university in Ontario for a few years in between industry positions. Brackett offered Deshpande a job at Codex. Brackett also sponsored him for Canadian residency.[9]
In 1990, Deshpande co-founded Cascade Communications, whose products were important in routing the early internet, initially as its president and later executive vice president; he hired Dan Smith as CEO. He sold Cascade to Ascend Communications for $3.7 billion in 1997.[4]
Subsequently, with the help of MIT researchers, he launched Sycamore Networks in 1998. Sycamore Networks went public in October 1999, and raised a market cap of $18 billion. With his 21% shareholding in hand, this IPO made Deshpande one of the wealthiest self-made businessmen in the world. In 2000, he was featured on the Forbes 400 listing of Richest Americans.[10]
He is also chairman of A123Systems,[11] which manufactures high-power lithium-ion batteries, which went on NASDAQ in October 2009, and raised $438 million and trading at a 50% premium on the day of listing.[4]
In December 2010, the Deshpandes gave a $5 million pilot grant to start the Merrimack Valley Sandbox (later renamed to Entrepreneurship for All (EforAll) in Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts. Since its inception, Entrepreneurship for All has helped thousands of entrepreneurs launch ventures which, in turn, improves the social and economic well-being of the entrepreneurs and their communities nationwide.
In September 2011, the Deshpande Foundation gave $2.5 million to the University of New Brunswick to launch the Pond-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (PDC). Along with a $2.5 million gift from serial tech entrepreneur Gerry Pond, the PDC was tasked with the mandate of catalyzing more entrepreneurial activity in the province of New Brunswick both traditional market driven entrepreneurship and social mission driven entrepreneurship. Since its inception, the Pond-Deshpande Centre has worked with hundreds of emerging entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada through early-stage innovation grants, mentorship, new venture acceleration and the hosting of multiple conferences bringing thought leaders together from across North America.
In 2012, he founded the Dunin-Deshpande Queen's Innovation Centre at Queen's University. Its mission is to catalyze entrepreneurial mindsets and fostering a culture of innovation across Queen's University, the Kingston community, and globally. It encourages and supports entrepreneurial initiatives through incubators, workshops, programs, courses, and pitch competitions.[13]
Deshpande was the chairman of Akshaya Patra USA from 2008 to 2020.[14]
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