Rikesh Shah
Rikesh Shah is the Head of Innovation Procurement Empowerment Centre at Connected Places Catapult. Previously, he was Open Innovation and Open Data Expert at PA Consulting. Prior to that, he was the Head of Commercial Innovation at Transport for London (TfL) and has worked in urban mobility for the last 20 years. He championed the organization’s award-winning market innovation activity to create new value for London by working with start-ups, corporates, academia, accelerators, and venture capitalists. He was responsible for creating TfL’s first Innovation Hub. The Hub sets out the organization’s key problem statements, bringing in the best innovators from across the world, piloting and scaling innovative solutions with the potential to commercialize, as well as establishing the right culture in the company focusing on agility and design thinking to work with market innovators who either have a new mobility product or an innovative idea to help solve existing city challenges through new technologies.
Rikesh was previously responsible for TfL’s world-leading open data program which has 17,000 registered users, 700 apps powered by TfL data used by 42% of Londoners which an independent review stated that it’s worth to London is £130m per annum. Most recently, Rikesh has been recognized in the Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech, being named one of the top five for sustainability. Rikesh also sits on the Smart London Board to deliver the Mayor of London’s vision to make London the smartest city in the world, as well as a Non-Executive Director at the London Transport Museum on the Enterprise Board on the Advisory Boards for Nitrous and Citytech Collaborative in Chicago. He is also a guest lecturer at Oxford University and Royal College of Art, teaching and discussing practical applications in open innovation.