Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande
Chairman Sparta Group LLC
 Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande is an influential entrepreneur and visionary with a proven track record of translating innovative technologies into successful businesses. From next-generation networking to state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, Dr. Deshpande's initiatives have reshaped industries and inspired a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Dr. Deshpande found his calling in 1988, when he acted on a hunch that all companies would soon want the stand-alone PCs scattered throughout their organizations to connect to each other, and he formed Coral Networks.
With his next company, Dr. Deshpande correctly anticipated how quickly networking would connect all the PCs in the world. Cascade Communications grew from a one-person start-up to 900 employees and $500M in revenue in just 6 years. By 1997, when Ascend Communications acquired Cascade for $3.7B, more than 70% of all Internet traffic was moving through Cascade switches. A year later, Dr. Deshpande's founding vision for Sycamore Networks pioneered the concept of intelligent optical networking.
Early in his career, Dr. Deshpande held management positions at Motorola, and taught at Queens University in Kingston, Canada. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, an ME in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and a PhD in Data Communications from Queens University, Canada. Dr. Deshpande has received several honorary doctorates and is the recipient of numerous business and industry awards in the United States and his native India; and is frequently invited to deliver keynote addresses at technology, education, and government conferences.
Today, as a member of the MIT Corporation Dr. Deshpande nurtures leading-edge technologies and the dreamers who create them. The Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT was made possible by a generous gift from Jaishree and Desh Deshpande. The Deshpande Center supports collaborative efforts among entrepreneurs, young companies, MIT students, alumni, and faculty.
Deshpande also shares his wealth and business acumen with a number of high-technology companies as a founding investor and Board Member. These companies include Sycamore Networks, Tejas Networks, Airvana, A123 Systems, Sandstone Capital and HiveFire.
He and his wife are trustees of the Deshpande Foundation and are involved in several non-profit initiatives that include support for Akshaya Patra Foundation, Public Health Foundation of India and the Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox in India.
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