Dr. "Desh" Deshpande is the Chairman of Sparta Group LLC, A123 Systems (AONE), Sycamore Networks (SCMR), Tejas Networks, Sandstone Capital and HiveFire and a founding investor of multiple other companies. Gururaj is a memeber of the MIT Corporation and his generous donations have made possible MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation.
Dr. Deshpande is the co-founder and Trustee of the Deshpande foundation. He and his wife are involved in several non-profit initiatives that include support for MIT, IIT, TiE, Akshaya Patra Foundation, Public Health Foundation of India and the Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox in India.