Personal Information

Bio

G. Nagesh Rao serves as Chief Technologist & Entrepreneur in Residence. His portfolio of work includes advising senior leadership around the SBIR/STTR programs, leading the SBA Growth Accelerator program and Co-Leading Coordination of the Fueling Small Business Innovation Interagency Policy Committee for the White House’s Lab to Market Commercialization Agenda. As well handle all things “techie” and “nerd-related”.

Over the last 15 years, Nagesh has been afforded the privilege to work and/or consult with numerous organizations in the public, private, and not for profit space, which culminated in his helping create programmatic endeavors such as i6 Green, FLoW, Patents for Humanity, VT-Arc Additive Manufacturing Prize Challenge, and SBA Growth Accelerator Competition. Nagesh’s musings (written and oratorical) have been featured and/or quoted via TechCrunch, WAMC-NPR, The Scientist, The National Academies, MIT XPrize Lab, Stanford d-School, The Hill, FedTech Magazine, DC Inno, Technical.ly DC, NextGov, Daily Mirror (Sri Lankan version), Financial Times (Sri Lankan version), and The Courier-Journal.

His credentials include a MBA (Global Strategy and Entrepreneurship) from the University of Maryland-College Park, a MSc in Legal Studies-Intellectual Property Law from Albany Law School, a BSc dual-major in Materials Engineering and Philosophy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Patent Bar License from the USPTO (Registration Number: 69006). Nagesh is a former Mirzayan Fellow of The National Academies and a 2016 USA Eisenhower Fellow where he embarked on travels to Vietnam and Sri Lanka engaging in cutting edge endeavors with senior leaders from the private, public, and ngo sectors in those two countries. Among many accolades that Nagesh has received over the years, prominent ones include the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman & Hind Rattan awards from the NRI Welfare Society, and the Scott McKay Commencement Prize & Alumni Key Awards from his undergraduate alma mater.