Rajesh Rao is the founder and CEO of Dhruva Interactive, India’s oldest & most respected Games Company. Rajesh is recognized worldwide as a pioneer of gaming in India. In his bestselling book on globalization “The World is Flat”, Tom Friedman describes Rajesh as one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs he met in India and used Rajesh and Dhruva as a metaphor to explain ‘triple convergence’ – how a young entrepreneur and his startup from India plugged into the global games industry by leveraging the new forces of globalization that are ‘flattening’ the world.
Founded in 1997, Dhruva Interactive develops and publishes games. Dhruva’s Product Division publishes and develops PC/Causal/XNA/XBLA games. Dhruva’s Services Division offers outsourced production services and is among the Top 5 providers of such services in the world. Dhruva is the first company from India to be selected by major game publishers such as Microsoft Game Studios, Electronic Arts, Codemasters and Atari for providing game development services. In March 2007, Dhruva celebrated its 10th anniversary, a milestone for game development in India.
Rajesh is also active in promoting and growing the game industry in India. He is on the advisory committees of leading trade bodies such as NASSCOM and FICCI for driving the games agenda. He is part of National Institute of Design’s advisory group for Toy and Game Design. He is a founding member of iGita, Indian Games Industry and Trade Association. He is frequently invited to speak at international events and conferences. In May 2006, Rajesh was invited speaker at Stanford University, as part of a lecture series organized by the US – Asia Technology Center.
