01About
Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, Chairman & Managing Director, IKP Knowledge Park, developed the first Life Science Research Park in India, in Hyderabad. She pioneered a Hardware Product Incubator and Makerspace, IKP EDEN, in Bangalore and works with Indian and global partners to support 1800+ innovation projects and startups. Deepanwita is the recipient of the Golden Jubilee Biotech Park Lifetime Achievement Award 2023. She received the Vocational Excellence Award 2023-24 from Rotary Club, Hyderabad Deccan. She was recognized as one of the top 10 Enablers and Champions of the Incubation Ecosystem in India by DST, GoI in 2022. She received the FICCI FLO Influential Women Award, 2021 for Outstanding Contribution to the Innovation Ecosystem. In 2018 she was awarded the “Top Women Achievers of the Year 2017 in Asia” by AsiaOne Business Magazine and “Women of the Decade in Life Sciences & Innovation” by the Women Economic Forum. After brief stints as an engineering faculty at BITS, Pilani, India and as freelance science writer for children, Deepanwita joined the ICICI Bank in 1994 in the telecom practice of ICICI Advisory Services Division. She worked in telecom regulation and policy and advised the government and the private sector on telecom regulation, market forecasts and market entry strategies. She was deputed to IKP as its CEO in August 2001. She took over the responsibility of chairing IKP from Mr. Narayanan Vaghul in November 2015 and was designated Chairman and CEO. After a very successful career as the CEO of IKP, Deepanwita took over as the Chairman and MD, IKP in November 2024. She is a Director on the Boards of IKP, IKP Trust, IKP Ventures, Research & Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH) and AIC-CCMB, and the President of IKP EDEN. She is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Support Elders Pvt. Ltd, a startup focusing on Elder Care and Age-tech. Deepanwita is a member of the Global Advisory Council of the International Association of Science Parks (IASP) with its global headquarters in Malaga, Spain. She is the Vice President of ABLE, on the Research Council of the CSIR-CCMB, on the Executive Council of AGNIi (Accelerating Growth of New India’s Innovations), Board of Governors of Society for Technology Management (STEM) and on Governing Council of several Indian Incubators. She is a member of several National committees including the S&T Cluster Apex Committee under Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to GoI, DBT Committee on Biotech Parks and National Expert Advisory Committee on Innovation, Incubation & Technology Entrepreneurship of DST.