Deepika Devadas

Biography

Deepika is the Chief of Staff to Karlee Silver (Co-CEO). In this role she provides strategic advice and support on the organization’s program-related initiatives like the EWEC Innovation Marketplace, Impact Fund, Transition to Scale and new Grand Challenges across its Development, Humanitarian and Indigenous innovation areas of focus, and engages with GCC’s strategic partners to help facilitate demand and scaling for innovative solutions.

Deepika continues to support the Every Woman Every Child Innovation Marketplace, a joint initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, Norad and USAID, a portfolio she previously managed, by leveraging her health and impact investment expertise to support health-focused start-ups and innovations, that serve low and middle income countries, to achieve their investment, growth and impact milestones during and beyond the transition to scale stages.

Deepika comes from a background in health sciences and technologies, through her ten years of experience across various scientific disciplines, including infection biology, cancer and bioengineering. She is often called upon as a recognized thought leader in the sector of scaling impactful health innovation in low and middle income countries.

Deepika was a postdoctoral scientist with the University of Toronto, at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. She received her PhD from the Hannover Medical School, Germany and her Masters in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Nottingham, UK. Her breadth of international experience also includes her native country, India, where she completed her BSc in Microbiology from the University of Mumbai. Deepika has a certificate in Strategic Management from the Copenhagen Business School and is a candidate for the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation.