Vishnu Swaminathan is Director of “Housing for All” in the Full Economic Citizenship (FEC) initiative of Ashoka – Innovators for the Public.

Ashoka is a nonprofit organization supporting the field of social entrepreneurship. It aims to identify and support leading social entrepreneurs through a social venture capital approach with the goal of elevating the citizen sector to a competitive level equal to the business sector. The organization operates in over 70 countries and supports the work of over 2,000 social entrepreneurs, elected as Ashoka Fellows.

He holds a MBA from University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Toowoomba, Australia.

Vishnu Swaminathan is responsible for developing and expanding Ashoka’s programs in India and surrounding countries in the region. He joined Ashoka with more than 14 years of experience as entrepreneur and innovator. He started two IT-based companies in Singapore in the areas of financial transactions and animation technology. He moved to India to head a leadership school based in Pune, and worked on large government projects with an aim to donate the surplus for funding citizen sector organizations.

He also completed an assignment with the National Innovation Foundation, a government-sponsored organization working on grassroots innovation in India.