Varun Deshpande

www.climateinnovation.earth ICI is a new field-building organisation accelerating sustainable abundance for the global majority through transformative, new-era climate innovations, with an initial focus on India. These new-era climate innovations span critical enabling technologies - including new energy (geothermal and nuclear), alternative fuels (hydrogen), critical elements processing, long-duration energy storage, industrial heat, and carbon capture and removal - as well as their applications within hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement, chemicals, aviation, maritime shipping, cooling, etc. ICI works across science, industry, and policy to advance these innovations from research & development, to demonstration and deployment across the Global South - where emissions trajectories and vulnerabilities are concentrated and building prosperity is imperative. 2025–26 goals are India-focused: national policy engagement and ecosystem-building for geothermal energy, green & geologic hydrogen, and critical minerals processing, and scientific–industrial capacity in carbon capture and removal.

• Broad brief spanning leadership, supervisory, strategic, and direct work on fundraising, refinancing, and restructuring/consolidation for a growing chain of 7 Asian Cancer Institute hospitals (growing from 50 to 1000 beds). Supervised a ₹450 crore (~USD 60M) fundraising process with 36 private equity and strategic investors, and supported group-wide refinancing of existing debt and restructuring of expansion units, including evaluating new financing and strategic partners. • Highly varied scope of work across internal leadership with board, clinical staff, and finance teams, and coordinating with external parties including financial and strategic investors, banks, legal, labour, and government/municipality.

• Led the development of specialised oncology Electronic Medical Records (EMR) for use in tertiary care hospitals (Asian Cancer Institute) and day-care clinics. • Built partnerships for pilots in care coordination (nutrition, post-surgery care, etc), augmented reality visualisation, diagnostic radiology, and cell-based therapeutics, and with government partners to conduct advance check-up camps in remote parts of Maharashtra state to strengthen public health.

Our work is driven by the crucial long-term question: how can we feed 10 billion people by 2050 - a sixth of whom will be Indian - through systems that do not negatively impact climate, biodiversity, and scarce natural resources? GFI India's team is laser-focused on using markets and food innovation, to build a more healthy, humane, sustainable food system - by helping us transition away from industrial animal agriculture, and toward plant-based and cultivated meat alternatives. In India, we are focused on some key initiatives in the short term: - Engaging the Central and State Governments to invest in, and create incentives for, plant-based and cultivated meat (PBCM) research and commercialization. - Working directly with research institutes and universities, to create research proposals and write white-papers/technical publications. Indian institutes have the potential to push the state of the art forward globally, and creating a body of research is central to advancing the PBCM policy agenda. - Working with corporate partners, to educate them on PBCM's potential as a business opportunity, and a means to transition to more sustainable practices. - Supporting entrepreneurs on communications, regulatory issues, business plans, venture capital support, and other aspects necessary to mobilize markets and food innovation.

Selected for the Patient Safety Fellowship, among graduate students and professionals from interdisciplinary healthcare-related fields, to learn methods for continually improving healthcare safety, efficiency, and quality. We studied Perfecting Patient Care (PPC), the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative’s process improvement methodology, based on lean manufacturing principles. During weekly four-hour sessions, we were exposed to core literature and key PPC principles and tools, and interacted with local healthcare leaders, who are actively engaged in applying quality improvement tools to advance patient care. My team of Fellows was placed at Asbury Heights Long Term Care Facility. At the end of the Fellowship, we presented a plan to improve meal intake monitoring, in order to prevent weight-loss among, and improve the general health of, residents at Asbury Heights. This plan incorporated our analysis of operations, clinical staff movements, residents' feedback, and the Perfecting Patient Care methodology.

Selected (as the only undergraduate amongst grad students and medical professionals) for the Salk Fellowship, focused on teaching a systems approach to analyzing problems in healthcare. Our team worked with healthcare providers and subject matter experts in crisis management, disruptive innovation, predictive modeling, and advocacy, to examine the challenge of building a care continuum for HIV/AIDS patients in southwestern Pennsylvania - in particular, those vulnerable populations who may be homeless or exhibit substance abuse, mental health problems, and/or other co-morbidities. We studied and presented various initiatives to increase care access using technology, focusing on care co-ordination and behavioural health frameworks.

Selected (as the only undergraduate student) into JHF's prestigious fellowship for graduate students and medical professionals, as a result of deep engagement with the healthcare space, in Pittsburgh and otherwise. The Fellowship encompassed lecture series, seminars and a group project. I worked with a group of Fellows, to develop a prototype care coordination application for total hip replacement surgery candidates, to guide them through the complex tasks demanded of them before and after surgery. We used simple checklists, process mapping, & improved communication with care providers. I applied my experience studying care coordination, behavioral health, and readmissions prevention, to present a business case and secure strategic partnership with St Clair Hospital to develop this prototype. At the end of the Fellowship, our team's project won a pitch competition for $5000, judged by a panel of prominent healthcare executives from providers, and insurers.

I studied the basics of Biomedical Engineering & Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), but left my degree unfinished. A couple of key things I learned during my time at CMU: - Technology's potential to solve big problems, when applied correctly. CMU's status at the vanguard of transformative research and innovation allowed me to learn first-hand from authorities in areas as disparate as autonomous vehicles, ambient diagnostics, interaction design, natural language processing, etc. My time here has left me better equipped to advise and invest in startups and non-profits focused on tackling the world's most pressing challenges. - How to learn, and the value of rigour. The world is changing at a more rapid pace than ever before; expertise is, more than ever, a function of methodology, rather than memory or dogma. CMU threw me together with brilliant friends, mentors, and collaborators, who ingrained in me a deep appreciation for these values.