Dr. Abhay Jere is currently the Vice-chairman, All India Council for Technical Education, New Delhi and also holds additional charge of ‘Chief Innovation Officer, Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell (MIC). Before joining AICTE as Vice Chairman, Dr. Jere served in Ministry of Education as its’ first Chief Innovation Officer. Previously, Dr. Jere also worked as Chief Scientist- Life Sciences and R&D Head for Persistent Systems Ltd.

He is the brain and driving force behind annual initiative ‘Smart India Hackathon’ which has now evolved as ‘World’s Biggest Hackathon and largest Open Innovation Model’. His efforts have established Hackathon culture in India. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has personally applauded these initiatives and now, Dr. Jere executes even organizes international hackathons for India like Singapore-India Hackathon, Africa-India Hackathon, etc.

Dr. Jere is instrumental in conceptualizing first-of-its’ kind ‘Atal Innovation Ranking framework (ARIIA)’ for ranking all education institutions in India on their innovation achievements.

To guide education institutions for establishing innovation ecosystem, Dr. Jere conceptualized ‘Institution’s Innovation Councils (IIC)’.  Currently, IIC has been established in more than 7100+ institutions involving 50+ lakh students and faculty and professionals. IIC has now emerged as biggest network of Innovation councils in the world.

Dr. Jere designed ‘National Innovation and Startup Policy for Faculty and Students’ to help enable students and faculty of higher education institutions to work on their innovation, startup and enterprise.

Dr. Jere has conceptualized training program to convert 25,000 college faculty & school teachers from across India into ‘Innovation Ambassadors’.

Dr. Jere is committed to popularize need of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst Indians, hence he routinely writes columns in renowned English and vernacular newspaper and magazines.

Recently, to systematically foster the culture of innovation at school level, Dr. Jere has designed ‘School Innovation Council’ program to promote creativity within student population. Currently, SIC has been established in 2800+ schools across the country.

Dr. Jere is also a very active scientist in field of biology and bioinformatics having worked in the US, Japan, Europe. He has worked in cutting edge areas such vaccines, personalized medicine and personalized genomic.

Dr. Jere completed his Ph.D from National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), Pune.

Dr. Jere received multiple awards like Digital Thought Leadership Award by World Assessment Council, Boston USA, Distinguished Alumni Award by ICT, Mumbai and Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Award.