Vivek Wadhwa

Vivek Wadhwa is a fellow with the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and executive in residence/adjunct professor at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. He helps students better prepare for the real world, lectures in classes and leads groundbreaking research into globalization and the U.S. competitive advantage. He is also an advisor to several start-up companies and a regular columnist for BusinessWeek.com.

Wadhwa has long been a pioneer of change and innovation in the technology industry, and has founded 2 software companies. He started his career as a software developer and gained a deep understanding of the challenges in building computer systems.

His quest to help solve some of IT's most daunting problems began at New York based investment banking powerhouse CS First Boston, where he was Vice President of Information Services. There he spearheaded the development of technology for creating computer systems which was so successful that CSFB decided to spin off this business unit into its own company, Seer Technologies. As Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Wadhwa helped grow the nascent startup into a $118 million publicly traded company.

With the explosion of the Internet, Wadhwa saw an even greater opportunity to help businesses adapt to new and fast changing technologies, and started Relativity Technologies. As a result of his vision, Wadhwa was named a "Leader of Tomorrow" by Forbes.com. Relativity was named as one of the 25 "coolest" companies in the world by Fortune Magazine.

Wadhwa’s research at Duke University has focused on the impact of globalization on the engineering profession, the competitive threat from India and China, and one of America’s greatest advantages – its skilled immigrants. This research has received worldwide attention and acclaim.

Mr. Wadhwa holds an MBA from New York University and a B.A. in Computing Studies from the Canberra University in Australia. He is founding president of the Carolinas chapter of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TIE), a non-profit global network intended to foster entrepreneurship. He has been featured in thousands of articles in worldwide publications including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, Washington Post, New York Times, U.S. News and World Report and Science Magazine. He has also made many appearances on U.S. and international TV stations including CNN, ABC, NBC, CNBC and the BBC.