Nikhil Pahwa is an entrepreneur, investor, journalist and activist. He is the Founder and Editor of MediaNama, a leading publication chronicling the evolution of digital policy in India.

Nikhil is a TED Fellow, an Asia21 Fellow and was named one of India Today Magazine’s “Indians of Tomorrow”. He has been profiled in Forbes, Wired and GQ. He is on the advisory board of the CyberBRICS project. MediaNama was awarded as an Ecosystem Builder by Fortune Magazine in 2016. He gave a TED Talk in 2016, and spoke at the EU’s Cyber Direct forum in 2019. He conducted two TED Discovery sessions on “How to build a movement” at the TED Summit 2019. Nikhil led the SaveTheInternet.in Campaign for Net Neutrality in 2015, which led to which led to the shut-down of Facebook’s Free Basics. He also co-founded the Internet Freedom Foundation, which focuses on advocacy for digital rights in India. Nikhil writes TechNik, a monthly column for the Economic Times.

Nikhil has deposed before India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technically, on issues including Net Neutrality, Regulating Social Media, and Paid News, apart from participating in several technology policy and telecom consultations at the Ministry of Electronics and IT, the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Commerce and the telecom regulator TRAI. He was also an independent member on the Delhi Government’s committee for rolling out WiFi in Delhi. He was among the set of expert witnesses summoned by the Delhi Government’s committee on Peace and Harmony on Facebook’s alleged role in the Delhi Riots. This was the first ever government committee meeting to be livestreamed in India.