CIA’s new tech chief went to Delhi school

BENGALURU: Technology professional

Nand Mulchandani

, who has been picked as CIA’s first CTO, went to Bluebells School International in Delhi and later studied in some of the world’s top institutes. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Math from Cornell, a degree of Master of Science in Management from Stanford, and a degree of Master in Public Administration from

Harvard

, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Prior to joining the CIA, Mulchandani served as the CTO and acting director of the Department of Defence’s artificial intelligence centre. He has been a serial entrepreneur and was CEO of several successful startups, including Oblix (acquired by Oracle), Determina (acquired by VMware), OpenDNS (acquired by Cisco) and

ScaleXtreme

(acquired by Citrix). He was also entrepreneur-in-residence advising companies on product and growth strategies in venture capital firm Accel Partners.

In his LinkedIn post, Mulchandani said technology is eating the world, and “there is no question around the impact it is having on human intelligence gathering (HUMINT), which is surprisingly at the core of almost all the other types of intelligence that is collected and processed”.

“This impact is so significant to the CIA’s mission that director

Burns

made the focus on technology one of his top priorities. Creating this new role and having it report directly to him is a clear signal that he’s serious about driving this change. I couldn’t be a luckier person to get this job,” he said.