Govindraj Ethiraj is a television & print journalist and Founder of Ping Digital Broadcast, a start-up television knowledge, news & talent network for digital audiences. He is also Founder of www.indiaspend.org, India’s first data journalism initiative and a social entrepreneurship venture. He writes for Forbes India and Business Standard and is also a Consulting Editor with television channel Headlines Today. Previously, he was Founder-Editor in Chief of Bloomberg TV India, a 24-hours business news service launched out of Mumbai in 2008 and a partnership between Bloomberg LLP and the UTV Group in India. Prior to setting up Bloomberg TV, he worked with Business Standard newspaper as Editor (New Media) with a specific mandate of integrating the newspaper’s news operations with its digital or web platform. Before that, Govindraj spent five years with television channel CNBC-TV18 where he worked from near start-up point and actively drove most of the channels programming growth and expansion initiatives. Govindraj has been a career business journalist who has reported on and engaged with Indian industry for the last 21 years. He worked in Economic Times, Business World and Business India magazines as well. In the last three stints, he has largely been in entrepreneurial-managerial roles in addition to his role as an Editor .He recently completed a one-year public service tenure with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), India’s programme to issue a billion biometric identities and is writing a book on UIDAI, to be published by Penguin India. He is a Fellow of The Aspen Institute, Colorado. Awards/Recognition British Chevening Scholarships For Young Indian Print Journalists at The University of Westminster - 1998 Selected as one of 25 most influential personalities in media and advertising in Mumbai by Mid-Day on its 25th Anniversary (2004) Nominated for Distinction in Communication at the Teacher's Achievement Awards 2004 BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Indo German Young Leaders Forum Chennai 2005, Munich 2006 Conferred Honorary Lifetime Member of the XLRI Alumni Association (2005) Award For Outstanding Contribution To Media; Indira Award For Marketing Excellence 2006 First class of Fellows to the India Leadership Initiative (ILI), an effort of the Aspen Institute, USA & the Global Markets Initiative of Goldman Sachs 2006 Elite Award for Excellence in Business Journalism, from the Association of Business Communicators of India, 2008. Vocational Excellence Award from Rotary Club of Madras Northwest, 2009.