Vignesh Santhanam
India Lead, Drones and Tomorrow's Airspace
World Economic Forum
Vignesh Santhanam is the India Lead for Aerospace, Drones & the Space Economy at the World Economic Forum’s India Centre. He has played a pivotal role in shaping India’s emerging drone and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem, and was instrumental in designing and launching the flagship ‘Medicine from the Sky’ initiative, scaling it across India’s Himalayan belt.
A software engineer and MBA by qualification, Vignesh brings over 16 years of global industry experience, having led technology implementation programs across Poland, Singapore, the U.S., Morocco, and Bahrain. He was also the founding President of one of India’s leading drone associations.
Vignesh is the lead author of “Skyways to the Future”—India’s first report on AAM operational concepts—and currently anchors national efforts to operationalize AAM sandboxes across the country. He also leads key initiatives on India’s space economy, facilitating high-impact dialogues between India’s space agencies and global players.
