Dr Ashok Khosla: It’s possible to do good, and to do good business

In this first episode of Grassroots Nation we meet Dr Ashok Khosla, an environmental visionary, a pioneer of sustainable development and the founder and Chairman of Development Alternatives. Dr. Khosla began thinking about the environment and our collective future well before climate change became something we hear, discuss and worry about on a daily basis. An experimental physicist by training, his early memories were marked by partition, and as a young man Dr. Khosla went on to study science, first at Cambridge University and then at Harvard University. At Harvard, Dr. Khosla worked with Roger Revelle, one of the pioneers who studied global warming and helped design and teach the first undergraduate course on the environment. He’s built global institutions that have been at the forefront of environmental work, he’s shaped and designed India’s early environmental frameworks that set the country on course for sustainable development. A man with a deep love for the job, a wry sense of humor and an absolute technophile and self-confessed gadget geek, Dr Ashok Khosla is in conversation with his longtime colleague and friend, the CEO of Development Alternatives, Shrashtant Patara. To know more about Development Alternatives visit https://www.devalt.org/. Shrashtant Patara is the CEO of Development Alternatives and Executive VP, Development Alternatives Group. An architect by training, Patara has been with the Development Alternatives Group since 1988. You can read more about his work here. Grassroot Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and has been produced by Vaaka Media. For more information, including additional resources please go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org. Audio used: Integral India: Four Days in 1947 by Indian Diplomacy (CC BY 3.0)1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Part 1) by MDJarv / 1992 Rio Earth Summit Adverts by ricjl (CC BY 3.0) / IBM Computer commercial 1986 by jlehmann