Prof. Darwin’s topic of discussion will be “Purpose Driven Life: Against the Odds.” His work and focus of his life on the issues concerning life:
- Neglected Peoples – The Underserved
- Neglected Regions – Rural Villages
- Neglected Resources - India “The Jewel in the Crown”
- Neglected World - The Planet
- Neglected Healthcare - The Sick
- Neglected Relationships - Taming the Dragon
He is here today to share his story and thoughts with us.

Bio:

Solomon Darwin was born an untouchable in Mori, a remote village in South India. He arrived in the United States of America at the age of 17 with barely a 5th grade education. But today he is Prof. Darwin, the Executive Director of the Garwood Center of Corporate Innovation at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches Business Innovation. His life exemplifies what passion for a cause aided by a little bit of good luck can do for the good of the society. His success story stems from his personal experience while growing up in India coupled with his professional experience that he earned in the west through hard work and dedication.

Prof. Darwin’s idea of the smart village concept started with his own village Mori. It has evolved
today into a wide scale ‘Smart Village Movement’ spreading across several states in India. The success is a culmination of scalable business models that support rural village markets by aligning global brands, startups, and local cottage industries to form a better future. He has worked with the Government of India in various central and state levels and with many Silicon Valley startups and global corporations including Google, IBM, Ericsson, PayPal, Cisco, Salesforce, and others to make the Smart Village Movement a reality. Prof. Darwin’s success story is a story that teaches us to learn from history, but to focus on what we can do better for the future.

https://haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/darwin-solomon/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Darwin

Avantas Kumar’s topic of conversation will be “Caste vs Varna/jāti/kula: An insider perspective.”

Bio:

Born and raised in Patna, Bihar, Avatans Kumar is a columnist and linguist by training. Avatans received his graduate degree in Linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He was also an M.Phil scholar at JNU, where he taught elective undergraduate courses in linguistics.

Later, Avatans joined the graduate program in linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign(UIUC). As a research scholar, Avatans taught Hindi as a foreign language at UIUC and received the outstanding teacher award for non-Western languages. Avatans attended Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s journalism program. He also holds an MBA and has worked in IT for several years.

Avatans’s community involvements include teaching Hindi and Dharma to diaspora kids at his local Mandir. As a trustee, Avatans leads the US operations of Indic Academy, incorporated as INDICA, Inc., a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in the US. INDICA seeks to preserve India’s traditional institutions, knowledge, and practices; protect her identity against distortions; and promote Indic thought to local and global consumers, practitioners, and seekers.

Avatans writes frequently on the topic of Indian Knowledge Tradition, language & culture, and current affairs. His articles have appeared in the Times of India, Sunday Guardian, The Print, India Currents, DailyO, and Brownstone Institute, etc. Several of Avatans’s Hindi poems and his translation work (English to Hindi) have been published. His recently curated anthology of short stories - Flight of Deities: An Anthology of Desecretion and Devotion - has just been published by Notion Press.

Avatans received the San Francisco Press Club’s Journalistic Excellence Award in 2021 and 2022.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/author/avatans-kumar/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/avatansk/