Rakesh Dubbudu is the founder of ‘FACTLY’, an initiative aimed at making government data meaningful for the common citizen. Factly won the first ever Innovation for Good award in 2015 and is also featured as a use case in the Open Data Impact Map of the World Bank Group.

Rakesh is also a well-known transparency campaigner in India and has been working on Right to Information (RTI) related issues for the last decade. Rakesh played a significant role in the launch of the ‘Open Data Policy’ by the Government of Telangana. He is a regular columnist in the leading Telugu and English dailies on issues related to transparency, accountability & data based governance

Rakesh was selected in 2014 for the South Central Asia Region Legislative Fellows Program (an exchange program for Young leaders from 5 South Central Asian countries sponsored by the U.S. Department of State). He was also one of the few speakers from India at the ‘International Open Data Conference 2016 (IODC 2016)’ in Spain on ‘From supply based to demand based strategies in Open Data’. He is a speaker at various events like TEDx GITAM University, TEDx Alexander Road, Ignite and Pecha Kucha Nights Hyderabad etc. He also received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from NIT Warangal, his alma mater, the youngest person to win such an award.