Founder, MediaNama

Nikhil Pahwa is an entrepreneur, investor, journalist and activist. He is the Founder MediaNama, a leading publication chronicling the evolution of digital policy in India. Nikhil is an Asia21 Fellow, a TED Fellow and was named one of India Today Magazine’s “Indians of Tomorrow”. He has been profiled in Forbes, Wired and GQ. He is on the advisory board of the CyberBRICS project. MediaNama was awarded as an Ecosystem Builder by Fortune Magazine in 2016. Apart from MediaNama, Nikhil writes TechNik, a monthly column for the Economic Times He has given talks at Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Columbia University, CUNY, NIPFP, ISB, NLS (Bangalore), IIT Kanpur, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore; RightsCon, EU CyberDirect, WEF, WAN-IFRA, MozFest, TED, TEDxMICA & more. He has written in Foreign Policy, TED Ideas, Rest of World, Wired, Quartz, Times of India, Economic Times, Mint, Hindustan Times, Huffington Post, Scroll.in, The Hindu, The Wire, Outlook Magazine, Pragati, The Quint, FirstPost & more. He has written a research paper on India’s Tech Emancipation from China, and on Artificial Intelligence in the Newsroom. He has been on the jury of multiple local and global awards related to technology. His work has been featured in multiple books and research papers, and regularly gets cited in global and Indian publications on technology issues that matter. Nikhil led the SaveTheInternet.in Campaign for Net Neutrality in 2015, which led to which led to the shut-down of Facebook’s Free Basics. He also co-founded the Internet Freedom Foundation, which focuses on advocacy for digital rights in India. Nikhil has deposed before India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technically, on issues including Net Neutrality, Regulating Social Media, and Paid News, apart from participating in several technology policy and telecom consultations at the Ministry of Electronics and IT, the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Commerce and the telecom regulator TRAI. He was also an independent member on the Delhi Government’s committee for rolling out WiFi in Delhi. He was among the set of expert witnesses summoned by the Delhi Government’s committee on Peace and Harmony on Facebook’s alleged role in the Delhi Riots. This was the first ever government committee meeting to be livestreamed in India. Nikhil is at [email protected] and on all key social media platforms.