Ram Dhulipala

Ram Kiran Dhulipala works as a Senior Scientist – Digital agriculture and innovation in the Sustainable Livestock Systems (SLS) group at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi. Prior to joining ILRI, Ram was the cluster leader for Digital Agriculture at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India. Ram has cumulative work experience of over 17 years in public and pvt sector. Under his leadership, the digital agriculture cluster at ICRISAT grew to over 20 FTEs and executing bilateral grants from donors like IMD, BMGF, FAO etc. Ram was also one of the co-founders of ICRISAT’s digital agriculture innovation platform called ihub which grew to support and mentor over 20 AgTech startups in Asia and ESA. Prior to joining ICRISAT, he worked in mid to senior executive positions in the pvt sector in the areas of technology management, corporate strategy, corporate finance, and software development.

He holds an under-graduate degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) from JNTU College of Engineering, Hyderabad and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Some of his research interests include the role of innovation brokers in digital agriculture, innovation ecosystems, digital climate smart agriculture, social-economic-politic factors driving digitalization of agriculture and livestock value chains. In the recent past, he has been working extensively in developing innovative digital tools and services that link weather and climate data with agricultural decision making at various levels. He actively engages with the National Meteorological Organization (NMOs) and agricultural extension and advisory organizations to conceptualize and design digital interventions that bridge these two disciplines and support farmers in their decision-making.