Abhay Karandikar

Abhay Karandikar is an Indian educator, engineer, innovator, and administrator best known for his work in the telecommunication sector in India. Currently, he is serving as the Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India from 1 October 2023 onwards. Previously, he served as the Director of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur from 1 April 2018 to 30 September 2023. Prior to that, Karandikar held a number of positions, including Dean, Head of the Department of the Electrical Engineering, and Institute Chair Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He was one of the founding members of Telecom Standards Development Society of India and appointed as its first Vice Chairman from 2014 to 2016, and then was appointed its Chairman from 2016 to 2018. Karandikar contributed to conceptualization and establishment of new technical standards work programmes for TSDSI. In 2016, he was awarded with IEEE SA's Standards Medallion for his work to Indian Technology, Policy and Standardization with IEEE guidelines.