Ashank is an industry veteran well known for his focus on education and entrepreneurship. He founded Mastek and led it to be among the top software companies in India. He was a founding member and past chairman of NASSCOM. He was also the President of Asian Oceanian Computer Industry Organization (AOCIO) founded for the development of IT in over 20 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. He has been a member on the governing boards of IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Jodhpur. He also serves on the advisory boards of SJM School of Management, IIT Bombay. He is the Vice-Chairman of Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) and charter member of TiE.

The first program that Ashank Desai wrote in Mastek was a FORTRAN program to invert a large 200X500 matrix on a memory constrained, 64kb computer to solve a structural design civil engineering problem.

Professional Career: Founder & Ex-Chairman of Mastek

Education: MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, MTech from IIT Bombay

Awards/Recognition: Fellow of Computer Society of India, Distinguished Alumnus by IIT Bombay