Atul Saxena

Biography:

Atul has been a hard core hands-on person with a natural instinct and flair to visualize the market or societal needs of times to come and can therefore foresee the changes and evolvement of the business landscape that is yet to happen. His Bachelor’s degree from NDRI, Karnal, India provided him with an integrated education base and insights into agri-business starting from process engineering & equipments manufacturing to project management. His early stint with Parle Agro can itself boast of a major achievement as he was instrumental in giving shape to large scale Maaza Mango manufacturing projects from concept to commissioning. Subsequently, before he founded Growdiesel, he had an impressive and busy tenure with United Nations, during which he handled cross-border technology collaborations, large-scale project implementations, new venture and program launches. Atul spent over two decades as an International Project consultant with a client list of leading blue chip business houses. Atul has always been fascinated by imagination and can endeavor relentlessly to pursue a new found direction or idea. At Growdiesel he feels fortunate to practice his passion of innovation and pursue it as business too. He has been intensely involved in biofuel technology development since year 2001. In his quest for innovation, he practices the rarer route of ‘learning by doing’. While most of the R&D happens in labs first, he follows a nonconventional route to start with real life projects on a pilot scale. This approach provides a deep insight into real challenges as they would occur when technology is actually implemented in field. Though it might sometimes be a lesser economical way of learning but it saves lot of time and most importantly provides invaluable experience. Atul is currently considered as the most experienced person in Indian Biofuel arena with extensive as well as expansive practical knowledge in this highly specialized field. Atul has served on many technical committees, panels and boards and has been a keynote speaker and invited faculty at several national and international Biofuel forums, events and workshops. He has co-authored India’s first publication on 3^rd generation biofuels – ‘Algae Biofuels’, and it is finding immense acceptance globally.