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Rishi Jaitly
A graduate of Princeton University, Rishi has extensive social entrepreneurial, public leadership, and digital marketing experience across sectors and around the world. He is passionate about the power of the web to amplify voice, unlock leadership, and empower people. He leads Twitter's efforts in India.

From March 2011 through October 2012, Rishi led investments for the Knight Foundation in Detroit, investing in technology, digital tools, and media that furthered the voice, leadership, and entrepreneurial momentum of Detroiters. His leadership was featured on MSNBC, The Huffington Post, Xconomy, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and more. He built a portfolio of civic technology investments that include the BME Social Network, the Urban Innovation Exchange, Detroit4Detroit, Hatch Detroit, Code For America, Community PlanIt, Mobilize.org, TurboVote, and more to drive growth of local civic innovation movement.

In 2010, Rishi co-founded Michigan Corps, a statewide platform empowering Michiganders to use the web to lead change across the state. After serving one year as full-time CEO, Rishi is now the organization's Board Chair. Michigan Corps' Founding Corps Members include: Google Executive Chairman Dr. Eric Schmidt; Emmy Award-winning Sportscaster Dick Enberg; CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta; Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Jeffrey Eugenides; Former Digg CEO Jay Adelson; Skoll Foundation President Dr. Larry Brilliant; and Sun Microsystems Founder and Former CEO Scott McNealy.

Rishi's leadership of Michigan Corps has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Associated Press, and numerous other local and national media.  In January 2011, Michigan Corps was named a Semifinalist for the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship for social entrepreneurs worldwide. To date, the Michigan Corps community has connected business entrepreneurs with mentors, helped students generate ideas for community change, and built public policy capacity among social entrepreneurs. Rishi initiated and led Michigan Corps' launch of Kiva Detroit, a citizen lending effort for Detroiters that was heralded by former President Clinton and represents the first community microlending  effort in the United States. Rishi also led Michigan Corps' incubation of the Detroit4Detroit citizen philanthropy platform, the first such initiative in the country.

From July 2009 through March 2010, Rishi was Director of Strategy at College Summit, the leading organization increasing college enrollment rates in U.S. high schools.  College Summit, which activates networks of students to build college-going cultures within schools, was named U.S. Social Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2009 World Economic Forum conference in Davos.  At College Summit, Rishi brought together a coalition of cross-sector leaders, including the CEOs of PepsiCo, Google, Deloitte, and Princeton University, to ensure college proficiency is a success measure for the American K-12 education system.

Prior to joining College Summit, Rishi was a Google executive living in New Delhi, India where he was Head of Government Affairs and Public-Private Partnerships for the company across South Asia. There, he led philanthropic projects with partners like Ashoka India, conducted public policy advocacy, overturned Internet censorship in Pakistan and Bangladesh, mobilized India's top political parties to use the Internet for the first time, and led the development of Google's first ever election-transparency and citizen-empowerment product. While in India, Rishi launched India Voices, an online media platform amplifying the voices of average Indians on a range of issues; India Voices has been featured as part of YouTube's "Citizen Tube."

Previously, while based in Silicon Valley, Rishi supported Google's worldwide public policy advocacy efforts from Lansing to Paris, led Google.org's product partnerships with the United Nations, and supported communications for Google's CEO.

Earlier in his career, Rishi has served as Coordinator of Public Policy and Government Affairs at College Summit and Commissioner of the New Jersey State Commission on Higher Education.  In November 2010, Rishi was appointed to the Governor-elect of Michigan's economic development advisory panel. In October 2011, Rishi was named by Crain's as one of Detroit's "Top 40 Leaders Under 40".  He is also a recipient of Princeton University's Class of 1901 Medal and a former Trustee of Princeton University.
   
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