Mr. Shailendra “Shail” Kumar is the Founder & President of Nalanda 2.0 (www.Nalanda2.org) and the author of Building Golden India: How to unleash India's vast potential and transform its higher education system. Now. (2015)
He has a B.Tech with honors in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington. He served as President of the IIT Foundation and co-founded the Pan IIT alumni movement in the US. In recognition of his contributions, he received IIT Kharagpur’s Distinguished Service Award.
Shail spent over fifteen years in Silicon Valley working in high-tech companies. He was co-founder and CEO of two start-ups, and held progressively senior roles in corporate strategy, global operations and planning, business development, and finance in Fortune 500 companies such as Applied Materials, FMC Corp., and Lam Research.
Transitioning to academia, Shail took on administrative roles at two world-class research universities: UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. At UC San Diego, he led development teams across seven colleges and schools, co-led the pre-planning for a $1-1.5 billion fundraising campaign, and successfully concluded the $50 million Invent the Future campaign. At UC Berkeley, Shail worked alongside university leadership to launch an entrepreneurship initiative in the College of Letters & Science, establish UC Berkeley-IIT Kharagpur collaboration, and contributed to the $3 billion Campaign for Berkeley.
Driven by his experiences, Shail set out to influence India’s higher education system. In 2015, he published Building Golden India that made the case for urgent transformation of India’s higher education system. In 2016, he launched Nalanda 2.0, a non-profit organization, to brings book’s vision to life. In 2017, Nobel Laureate Prof. Randy Schekman presented the book to India’s Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi.
Shail also advocated for higher education reforms with key policymakers in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), NITI Aayog, and the National Education Policy (NEP) committee. Many of these ideas were incorporated into the NEP, approved in 2020.
In 2018, Shail launched an ambitious initiative to create a world-class multidisciplinary research university in India, aimed at achieving the excellence, scale, and scope of institutions like Stanford, MIT, and the ancient Nalanda University. Named Ekagrid, the project embodied the ideas from his book and was supported by a distinguished global advisory board, comprising over 25 leaders from academia and industry, affiliated with 11 of the world’s top 25 research universities.
In 2019, the team formulated plans to launch the university with an innovative AI+X strategy. Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical turbulence, made significant progress. Key milestones included negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the Karnataka government to secure approval for the university act and the acquisition of 200 acres of land in Bengaluru. Shail also co-led discussions with the PMO, the education minister, and seven state government officials to advance the initiative. Additionally, he spearheaded efforts to raise US$150 million for the university’s launch, engaging with over 50 philanthropists for donations ranging from $25 million to $150 million. However, despite a relentless collective effort, Ekagrid was ultimately closed in 2024 due to insufficient political and philanthropic support.
Shail currently resides in the Silicon Valley with his wife and two children. A Vipassana and Yoga practitioner, he is also an avid reader and enjoys traveling, and spending time in nature and with his family and friends.