There are a million problems in India. From poverty to corruption, no one seems to be able to solve a single one of them, least of all our gifted politicians. So what if computer programmers who solve a million problems a day using their coding skills were to tackle India’s problems? And what if a million of them came together to do it? That is the wonderful idea behind ‘Code For India’, a global community of software engineers who are building tools to tackle everything from education to health & sanitation. And the man behind Code For India is Karl Mehta, serial entrepreneur, investor, engineer and civil servant. Currently a venture partner at Menlo Ventures, Karl has over 20 years of experience in ‘founding, building and funding technologies companies in the US and international markets’.
Before Menlo Ventures, Karl founded PlaySpan Inc, a payments company for which he acted as CEO, and which has been acquired by Visa Inc. in 2011. Karl has also been selected by President Barack Obama during his inaugural term to be a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow for 2012-2013. Karl also serves on the Workforce Investment Board of the State of California and has been named the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ for Northern California in 2010 by Ernst & Young. Now with the launch of Code for India, Karl wants to attempt that no one else has attempted before. “...taking on real problems, hard problems”.