Raj Chowdhury
Raj Chowdhury is a business executive, angel investor and author, best known for his work in the Blockchain space.
He pioneered the first interbank trade finance and remittance implementation of Blockchain technology between ICICI Bank in India and Emirates NBD in UAE.
He was also the first to implement a blockchain technology payment wallet for banks. He represents India in the International Standards Organization (ISO) committee formed to create global standards for Blockchain platforms. Raj is the founding member of BankChain, the consortium of Indian and Middle Eastern Banks and Financial institutions.
He is part of NITI Aayog committee, formed by the Government of India to study regulatory framework for Cryptocurrencies. He is the author of the book The Dark Secret of the Silicon Valley. He is a keynote speaker in Blockchain conferences globally and a contributor to publications such as Economic Times, Business World, Business Standards in the area of Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies.
Chowdhury was a research associate at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Lab and earned an MS, MBA. He is a member of Asha Silicon Valley chapter, a non-profit committed to the spread of education for children in emerging countries.
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Early life and education
Chowdhury was born and raised in the city of Kolkata. He is the only child of Sukla Chowdhury, a former social worker and Joy Chowdhury, the owner of a construction company in India.
Chowdhury graduated from the School of Engineering at Tufts University.There, he worked at the Human Robot Interaction Lab researching affective control and evolution interactions between effect and cognitive robots for human robot interactions, developing multi-scale agent based cognitive modelling architecture for complex robots.
During his graduate research, he worked at the Microsystems Technology Lab (MTL) at MIT in the field of MEMS, electronic and photonics devices and areas. He was also a researcher at the Advanced Materials Processing Lab (AMPL) which fosters interdisciplinary research at the forefront of materials science.
Chowdhury attended The Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy, the oldest school in the United States dedicated solely to graduate studies in international affairs. He earned his MBA at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.
Career
HashCash Consultants
Chowdhury has taken up the role of Managing Director a Blockchain Technology company registered in US and India. HashCash is the creator of Blockchain based financial applications that handle Retail Remittance, Corporate Payments, Trade finance, and Foreign Exchange trading. The applications are used by Banks, Corporates, Currency exchanges, Domestic Payment Networks and FinTechs in Australia, India, UAE, Germany, Singapore, Russia and other countries. It runs a Bitcoin payment processor and cryptocurrency wallet in the US.
Innovation Head at ICICI Bank
Chowdhury headed the technical innovation team at ICICI Bank in Mumbai, India. This team is the first in the country and among a few globally to carry out cross border trade finance and remittance transaction using Blockchain technology with Emirates NBD. He is a founding member of BankChain, the Blockchain Consortium of Indian and Middle Eastern banks and financial institutions.
Fintech Investor
Chowdhury is an investor at Fintech companies focused in the area of Blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and innovative payment solutions. His current portfolio of startups are working on creating Blockchain Technology solutions for financial institutions and supply chain companies, bitcoins marketplaces and payment processors and cryptocurrency wallets. Chowdhury’s view on bitcoins and cryptocurrencies was stated in Economic Times publication
Writing
Chowdhury authored the book The Dark Secret of the Silicon Valley.