Ashwin Mahesh

Ashwin Mahesh is an Indian urbanist, journalist, politician, social technologist,^[1] former Antarctic climate scientist and astronomer,^[2] former NASA scientist^[3][4][5] and a former leader of Lok Satta Party.^[6] He was the Karnataka State party president^[7] and thereafter national Vice-President and member of the Steering Committee of Loksatta until July 2016, when he stepped down after the party's decision to quit electoral politics. He is a co-founder of the national public affairs magazine, India Together. He also founded the social technology firm, Mapunity, and is one of the co-founders of the electric vehicles-based transportation company, Lithium. He is also a founder member of Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC). Ashwin Mahesh was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2009.^[8]

Personal life

Ashwin Mahesh did his schooling at Army High School, Bengaluru and Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School (1986), Chennai and then studied Physics at St Joseph's College of Arts and Science (1989). Later, he did his MBA from Pondicherry University (1991), M.S. in Astronomy from Vanderbilt University (1993) and PhD in Atmospheric Science/Climate Science/Geophysics from the University of Washington (1999). He is married to Sapana Rawat and has two daughters, Aditi and Mahiti. He returned to Bangalore in 2004.^[4]

Career

Ashwin Mahesh was a research faculty at NASA Goddard Earth Science and Technology Centre in USA.^[1] He discovered a star, known as 'the companion to LkHα 234'. He spent a decade as an atmospheric scientist studying clouds and snow in Antarctica, and also working on satellite-based detection technologies.^[9]

After returning from the US, Ashwin became a researcher at IIM, Bangalore & at the CiSTUP in IISc.^[10] He was also an adjunct faculty member at International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.^[1] and Urban Research Strategist at the Office of Urban Affairs for the Karnataka government.

In 1998, he co-found India Together, an online magazine that covers public affairs, policy and development in India.^[8] He co-founded & is the CEO of Mapunity, a social tech company in Bangalore, that develops IT-led solutions to social problems and development challenges in India.^[11] In October 2014, he co-founded India's first 100% Electric Vehicles-based transportation service, Lithium, which began deploying electric vehicles to serve the employee transportation market in Bangalore. He also helped establish the Centre for Public Problem Solving, an action-research group for building capacity in public administration and planning.

Ashwin become a driving force behind numerous urban development projects in Bangalore including traffic management solutions,^[12] cleaning up and preservation of lakes.^[2] He was also part of the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure and Development Task Force (ABIDe).^[13]

Political career

Ashwin Mahesh was associated with the anti-corruption initiative, Corruption Saaku, since its inception, and later played an active role as it grew into India Against Corruption (IAC)'s demand for the Lokpal Bill.^[13]

He was listed in the The Smart List 2012: 50 people whose ideas will change the world by Wired UK.^[1] He was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship for Social Development.

Ashwin ran his first political campaign in 2012 for the upper house of the Karnataka assembly, which he finished fourth.^[4] He had started many initiatives called Missed Call Campaign to raise awareness and increase the number of registered voters before the MLC elections.^[3] He had enrolled more than 15,000 voters, but ended up with only 4,349 votes in the Bangalore graduates' constituency elections.^[14] Bangalore Mirror newspaper noted, if every one of the voters Mr Mahesh enrolled for voting had turned up to cast their ballot on election day, he would have won by a thumping majority'.^[14]

In 2013, Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections, Ashwin Mahesh contested from the Bommanahalli constituency,^[7][15] garnered 11,915 votes^[6] and finished third.^[16] The Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC), an initiative which was launched by the business community of the IT capital of the nation, endorsed Ashwin in the Bommanahalli constituency.^[10][17][18] He secured 6.75 per cent of the total votes polled, beating even the Janata Dal(JDS) and Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) candidates.^[18]

References