Anurag Behar

CEO of Azim Premji Foundation and vice chancellor, Azim Premji University

Anurag Behar is CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation, and Vice Chancellor of the not-for-profit Azim Premji University, which oversees education and development teaching and research programmes. The Foundation, which is committed to creating a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society, runs institutions and programmes in India in collaboration with various state governments to improve education.  Mr Behar is also active with Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, a grant-making organisation supporting not-for-profit organisations working on social sector issues, and has actively worked on efforts to improve public education systems in India for 14 years.  Mr Behar also serves on various government and industry councils including the National Mission on Teachers and Teacher Education and the CII’s National Climate Change Council, and was elected as a ‘Young Global Leader’, by the World Economic Forum in 2008. His current and prior roles at WIPRO of Chief Sustainability Officer, and CEO, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering (with a focus on clean energy and water), respectively, add an insider’s view into both the possibilities and limits of markets on education and the environment. Mr Behar writes a fortnightly column for the newspaper Mint, on Education and Ecology.

Recent contributions

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