Ajay Agrawal
Ajay Agrawal is a renowned academic, entrepreneur, economist, mentor, and researcher. Agrawal is the Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, where he has served since 2003. At Rotman, he conducts research on the economics of artificial intelligence, science policy, entrepreneurial finance, and geography of innovation. He is the Founder and Academic Director of Creative Destruction Lab, where he oversees operations across multiple sites in Canada, Europea and the U.S. In addition to founding CDL, he is also the Co-Founder of Next Canada, a nonprofit organization that delivers The Next 36, Next AI, and Next Founders, all designed to support the commercialization of science via entrepreneurship. Agrawal is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Toronto. He is the co-author of the bestselling book "Prediction Machines," which seeks to explain the role of AI in business and government.
Ajay Agrawal Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Co-Founder and Academic Director
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Research Associate
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Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Professor of Entrepreneurship
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Assistant Professor
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Lecturer
Academic History
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Ph.D., Strategy and Business Economics
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B.Sc.
CONSULTING
Agrawal serves as advisor and member of the International advisory Committee for the National Institute for Information and Communications Technology.
He served as advisor to the U.S. government as a member of a National Academies committee on Science and Innovation Leadership for the 21st Century.
He also serves on the Advisory Board of Carnegie Mellon University's Block Center for Technology and Society.
RECOGNITION
2022 Order of Canada
President's Impact Award, University of Toronto
7x Professor of the Year, Rotman School of Management
Distinguished Scholarly Contribution Award, Rotman School of Management
Martin-Lang Award for Excellence in Teaching
Power 50, The Globe and Mail
CAREER
Professor Agrawal co-founded Kindred, a company that makes artificial intelligence for robots.
Kindred was 29th on MIT Technology Review’s 2017 list of the 50 smartest companies in the world. He also is a co-founder of Sanctuary AI.
He is co-founder and co-chair of 2 annual conferences on machine intelligence: “Machine Learning and the Market for Intelligence”, and “The NBER Economics of Artificial Intelligence conference.”