Recipient of Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar 2019
(For Identification and Nurturing of Young Talent in Sports)
About US
Vision and Mission
GoSports Foundation is a non-profit venture working towards the development of some of India’s top talents in Olympic and Paralympic disciplines, through our athlete scholarships and knowledge building programmes. We are joined by former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid and All England Badminton Champion Pullela Gopichand on our Board of Advisors as well as the former physiotherapist of the Indian Cricket Team John Gloster as our Head of Sports Science.
Vision: We have directed our projects and initiatives towards Enabling Sports Excellence.
Mission: Our mission is to use sports excellence as a vehicle for social change and a tool to improve the lives of individuals, communities and the state of our nation.
Team
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Rahul Dravid
Celebrated as the most technically gifted batsman of his time, Rahul Dravid has more than 12,000 runs in Tests and 10,000 runs in ODI cricket. He was awarded the ICC Player of the Year and Test Player of the Year in 2004. He encourages GoSports Foundation to foster diversity and inclusion through its athlete support initiatives, while mentoring athletes to cope with the rigours of competing at the highest level.
Pullela Gopichand
Former All England Champion and current Chief National Badminton Coach Pullela Gopichand has been responsible for the emergence of Indian badminton players as a force to reckon with. His work has been recognized by the Government of India through the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, the Padma Bhushan award and the Dronacharya award. He has guided the conceptualization of GoSports Foundation’s education and athlete development initiatives.
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Nandan Kamath
Managing Trustee
Nandan runs a boutique sports and intellectual property law practice in Bangalore advising the country's top athletes, governing bodies, teams and brands. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the University of Oxford (on a Rhodes scholarship) and the National Law School of India. He was an avid cricketer at the junior level, representing the India Under-16's and captaining the Karnataka state team. Previously, Nandan has worked in California, Hong Kong and India.
Abishek Laxminarayan
Trustee
Abishek was a world ranked junior tennis player and a US varsity tennis athlete. He graduated, with honors, with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Computer Science from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. He is the co-founder of Indavest Ventures LLC, an early stage Venture Management company, with a presence in India and the US, that plays an active management role in each of its portfolio companies. Abishek is also founder and Managing Director of Surya Infotainment Products, a Bangalore-based information aggregation company with a retail presence.
Thomas Ollapally
Trustee
Mr. Ollapally graduated from one of the early batches of the PGDM Programme of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is currently the Managing Director of a reputed Bangalore based property development company.
With over 35 years of professional experience, he brings a wealth of knowledge and management expertise to the table. An avid sportsperson himself, he believes that nurturing the right talent at the right time will help foster a sporting culture in India.
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Deepthi Bopaiah
CEO
Deepthi Bopaiah is the CEO of GoSports Foundation, a National award winning non-profit organisation launched in 2008 to support elite and emerging athletes across Olympic and Paralympic disciplines.
Growing up, Deepthi was always involved in sport, and played Tennis and Basketball for Karnataka University and the state of Karnataka. A Banker turned Sports Administrator, Deepthi has driven the growth of the Foundation over the years, and it witnessed its most proud moment under her leadership in 2019, being bestowed with the prestigious ‘Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar - National Sports Encouragement Award’, for identifying and nurturing budding young talent. Deepthi has worked with more than 200 Indian athletes, across Olympic and Paralympic disciplines, whilst being a part of the journeys of around 50 Olympians and Paralympians, not to mention 10 Paralympic medallists as well. Based on her incredible work in the field of Athlete Education, she is part of the National Committee for the creation of a National Sports Education Board, while she has also been selected to pursue the prestigious Chevening Gurukul Fellowship for Leadership and Excellence at the University of Oxford in 2021, which is awarded to personalities who display strong traits of leadership.
Twitter ID: https://twitter.com/DeepthiBopaiah?s=20
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John Gloster
Head of Sports Science
Head of Sports Science at the GoSports Foundation, John is an Australian sports physiotherapist of 24 years’ experience, working with both elite athletes and the general sporting population. He has worked extensively with international cricket for the last 17 years, most notably as physiotherapist to the Indian cricket team for 3.5 years as well as Surrey County Cricket in England (1998-2001), Bangladesh National Team from 2001-2004, and Rajasthan Royals (IPL Franchise Team) for 8 years. John is often seen on numerous TV shows in India for expert comments on sporting, health, lifestyle and injury related issues both in the sporting as well as the general population.
He currently sits actively on 3 advisory boards for school and health related projects in Mumbai and across India. John is also board advisor and Chief Quality Officer of KOOH Sports.
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Unmish Parthasarathi
Head of Strategy
Unmish works at the intersection of content, commerce & culture - facilitating the digital transformation of media, sport & entertainment concerns, creating new markets of digital demand, and mentoring startups in SportsTech & VideoTech.
Educated at Cambridge, LBS and St. Stephen’s, Unmish lives in Singapore, his 5th home after spells in London, New York, Johannesburg & Delhi where he was born.
Unmish has conducted business in over 30-countries on three Continents for blue-chips such as IMG Media (Endeavour), BBC Technology, ESPN STAR Sports, Fox, News Corp, Scripps Interactive Networks and most recently Jungle Ventures and the International Cricket Council (ICC). Unmish is extremely active on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/unmish/) and in “listening” mode on Twitter ( @unmish1).”
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Debashish Das
Physiotherapist
Dr Debashish Das is an accredited and registered physiotherapist with both the Indian and Australian Physiotherapy Associations. He is an associate member of Sports Medicine Australia and Sports Physiotherapy Australia. He has developed a niche in the field of Golf and Olympic sports injury prevention and management. He enjoys developing exercise programs and encourages an active patient centric approach to complement a manual therapy-based treatment methodology.
Shrikant Iyengar
Physiotherapist
Shrikant Iyengar is a qualified physiotherapist who completed his Bachelors from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences Bangalore. In March 2007, he was appointed the physiotherapist for the National Hockey team of India and held that position for 7 years until 2013. He later pursued a Masters in Sports Physiotherapy from the University of Curtin, Perth in 2014 and was offered the position of Head Physiotherapist; H.O.D Athlete Rehabilitation for Hockey India, which he held from June 2015 up until December 2016.
Ryan Fernando
Nutritionist
Ryan Fernando is an award-winning celebrity sports nutritionist, a graduate from IIM Ahmedabad, a Commonwealth Scholar with 2 Masters Degree, Food Bio Technology from University of Strathclyde and Clinical Biochemistry from University of Goa, has nurtured a host of top level Athletes in the country. Ryan’s clients include 2 Guiness world record Holders in feats of Human Endurance, Wrestler Sushil Kumar, Indian International Cricketers like Shikhar Dhawan, Yuvraj Singh, top level golfers, squash players and a long list of athletes in other sports.
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Sumathi Kamath
Head, Accounts
Sumathi Kamath is a graduate from Mangalore University with a first-class degree in Accounting and Finance. She did three years of CA articleship and audit assistance under one of the famous chartered accountancy firms in Bangalore; ‘Amarnath Kamath & Associates’ and worked for seven years with the firm in accounting & financial reporting post completion of her degree. She has also worked Geberit India as a Senior Executive Finance and her traits include being flexible & focused. Sumathi further likes to maintain a calm and professional demeanour at all times.
Vandana Nayak
Head, HR & Admin
Vandana Nayak holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management and has a total of 14 years of professional experience, working on various Human Resources fields . She is working with Copyright Integrity Advisory (India) Pvt. Ltd (CII) as a manager in HR & Administration and worked for 6 years with Acropetal Technologies Limited as a HR Executive. Vandana is multilingual, knowing the languages English, Hindi, Kannada and Konkani. She is a keen follower of Badminton and her interests include reading and meditation.
Monica Koshy
Head, Donor Relations
Monica Koshy, a former Entrepreneur and ex-Infoscion, joined GoSports Foundation in Feb 2019. With deep belief in the power of sports to transform lives, she loves to play Squash and is a Zumba Instructor herself. Her sporting days in school and college are some of her best memories. She has B.com Honours from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University and a Masters in Computer Management from BVIMR Pune University.
Arun K S
Lead, Programme and Technology
Arun is a Sports engineer with an MSc. from Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He started his career as an IT associate, but his passion for sports made him switch to sports engineering. He is also a certified fitness instructor and worked as a trainer for Reebok Running Squad. He loves running and holds a 5 km personal best of 0:18:39.
Anand Balakrishnan
Programme Lead
Anand is an ardent sports fan and holds a Masters degree in Communications Management from Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune and also holds a Certificate in Sports Analytics from Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences. He is a die hard Liverpool Football Club fan and to experience the famous Anfield night atmosphere during a UCL clash is one of his personal wish.
Shripoorna L Purohit
Senior Manager - Partnerships & Communications
Shripoorna is a former badminton player and was a trainee at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy. Having finished his schooling by delving into the world of Sciences, he transitioned into the world of Arts by pursuing a Bachelors of Arts majoring in Communication and Media, English Literature and Psychology. Whilst studying, he also worked at a newspaper and became one of the youngest journalists to have been accredited by the BCCI and cover an International Cricket match in India, and was also the youngest to cover the 2017-18 season of the Indian Super League. His interest in sports, business & management, and relationships has driven him to carve out a career in Sports Management.
Abhishek Kamath
Manager - Accounts
Abhishek has completed his Bachelors in Business Management from Acharya Tulsi National College of Commerce, Shimoga. He is currently pursuing his Chartered Accountancy (CA) and has completed his Articleship Training from A Narasimha Murthy & Co, Chartered Accountants, Shimoga. Abhishek is presently associated with SKFINPRO, Financial Consultants, Bangalore and working in Finance Team at GoSports Foundation. His hobbies include playing cricket, Baminton and listening to music.
Karan Pavanje
Senior Athlete Manager
Karan is a mechanical engineering graduate from SDMCET, Dharwad. He worked as Project & Maintenance Engineer in BMM ISPAT LTD for 3 years. Love and passion for sports encouraged him to pursue MBA in Sports Management from Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences, Pune. He has been an athlete himself who plays multiple sports and considers himself a decent player of volleyball and cricket. He is a keen follower of cricket and a Royal Challengers Bangalore fan. Apart from sports, he is also a movie and travel buff.
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Satinder Singh Rekhi
Satinder Singh Rekhi is Chief executive officer of R Systems, a software product engineering listed public company in India. Having graduated from the prestigious IIT – Kharagpur (India) with a bachelor’s degree in technology, he also possesses an MBA degree from the California State University (USA), and has attended several leadership programs from the University of Berkeley and Harvard Business School. Mr. Singh is a champion in teaching and spreading Happiness and wellbeing and strongly believes in a simple motto – Happy People Are More Successful. In fact, Mr. Rekhi is known for partnering with premier educational institutions, such as California State University, Sacramento and IIT-Kharagpur, by partnering with them in preaching the Science of Happiness. His initiative, Rekhi Foundation, aims to work towards helping women and young girls, especially from less privileged backgrounds in pursuing their dreams. He is also working to promote sports like badminton to deliver international players who can bring medals.
Rohan Bopanna
With multiple ATP tour titles to his credit and a career-high World doubles ranking of No. 8, Rohan Bopanna is a much-respected name on the tennis circuit. After having pursued a successful partnership with Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and reaching the US Open doubles final in 2010, Rohan made his Olympic debut in London with partner Mahesh Bhupathi. Rohan is actively involved with multiple causes and has been a longstanding supporter of GoSports Foundation in his quest to support young Indian athletes with journeys similar to his own.
Rahul Bose
Called the ‘Indian art house icon’, by TIME magazine, Rahul Bose won the Best Actor award at the Singapore Film Festival for ‘Split Wide Open’ and the runner-up prize of the John Schlesinger award for Best Debut Director for his film ‘Everybody Says I’m Fine!' at the Palm Springs Festival. His two NGOs, ‘The Foundation’ and 'HEAL', seek to reduce regional inequities in India through education and child sexual abuse respectively. A former international rugby player, Rahul represented India from 1998 to 2009.
Vikram Sathaye
Vikram Sathaye has the distinction of being the first English standup comedian in India and has performed in more than 1300 corporate events across the world till now. In 2003, Vikram got an offer to be part of Extraaa Innings on Sony Six as a cricket humourist, and the rest is history. Vikram’s TV stints include Presenter on Set Max during the World Cup in 2003 and Champions Trophy 2004, India’s tour of South Africa on ESPN Star Sports in 2006 and the ICC World Cup 2011 on IBN LokMat.
Gaurav Natekar
A former India No. 1 in tennis, Arjuna Awardee and a Davis cup veteran, Gaurav was a double gold medalist at the Hiroshima Asian Games in 1994 and at the 3 South Asian Federation Games held between 1993 and 1997. Originally from Pune, he completed his graduation from Madras Christian College and is now working tirelessly to ensure that India’s latent talent for tennis is successfully nurtured in his role as CEO of Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy.
Kunal Agarwal
Born and brought up in Pune, Kunal is a huge sports enthusiast, a football fanatic and an Arsenal fan. He did his MBA from Clark University, Massachusetts, USA, is currently on the Board of Directors of Bhoruka Logistics Ltd. and Koolex Cold Chain Ltd. He is passionate about raising the bar for football clubs in India and has launched two professional football clubs himself.