16 Tech Community Corporation announced today the appointment of three new members to its board of directors. Aman Brar, CEO of Jobvite; Ramesh Durvasula, Ph.D., vice president and information officer for research at Eli Lilly and Company; and David Roberts, chief innovation officer with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), bring extensive tech, life sciences and public sector expertise to the board.
Located on the northwest edge of downtown Indianapolis, the 16 Tech Innovation District is designed to ignite collaboration among innovators and entrepreneurs in life sciences, tech, advanced manufacturing and engineering in an urban live-work-play-learn environment.
The 16 Tech Community Corporation Board of Directors guides the physical and programmatic development of the 16 Tech Innovation District. Board members provide expertise across the many industry sectors and community partners needed to accomplish 16 Tech’s mission, including life sciences, healthcare, technology and advanced manufacturing.
“Collectively, Aman, Ramesh and David bring valuable expertise in launching, scaling and spinning out companies, integrating data science and life science, and advancing cross-industry collaboration throughout Indiana,” said Bob Coy, president and CEO of 16 Tech Community Corporation. “We’re honored they are joining our board at an important time as we prepare to launch programs and services and welcome our first tenants this summer.”
Brar has an extensive background in leading technology companies through periods of high growth and has also held key strategic planning and finance roles at Fortune 500 companies. Brar is currently the CEO of Jobvite, a category leader in recruiting software. He previously launched Canvas, the world’s first text-based interviewing platform, which was acquired by Jobvite only 16 months after launch.
Prior to Canvas, Brar was president of Apparatus, a leading cloud computing managed service provider, and led the company through an acquisition by publicly traded and global technology firm, Virtusa.
Durvasula is Lilly’s vice president and information officer for research and is responsible for the IT and informatics capabilities that accelerate the discovery and preclinical efforts of Lilly Research Labs. He has focused his career on the intersection of life science and data science at global pharmaceutical companies. For the past three years, Durvasula has advanced Lilly’s mission to unite science with technology to accelerate R&D pipelines and deliver innovative therapeutics. He joins the board in the position previously held by Divakar Ramakrishnan.
Roberts serves as the chief innovation officer of the State of Indiana at the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) and oversees the State’s innovation and entrepreneurship efforts. He previously served as president of the Battery Innovation Center, a public-private partnership working with diverse organizations to develop next-generation energy storage technologies.
