Masood Akhtar's work demands a lot of energy

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

From a Q&A article by Judy Newman in the Wisconsin State Journal:

If you ask for a business card from Masood Akhtar, be prepared to get a handful.

Akhtar wears many hats. He is currently:

• Chief executive officer and founder of BioPulping International, Madison.

• Co-founder and managing director of operations for Central Signal, Madison.

• President and founder of CleanTech Partners, Middleton.

• President and co-founder of the Bioenergy Deployment Consortium, Middleton.

• Chairman of the U.S. Forest Research Advisory Council.

Akhtar also is working on a joint energy project between the U.S. and India and a student exchange program between UW-Madison and several universities in India.

A native of India, Akhtar has lived in the U.S. for about 25 years, mostly in Madison, and is a U.S. citizen, "which I'm proud of," he says. . . .

Q: Most of your endeavors are related to energy. Do they share a common goal?

A: Energy efficiency and renewable energy. We talk about efforts to make our country less dependent on foreign oil - promoting efficiency is the cheapest, easiest, cleanest way to accomplish that.

When I came to the U.S., I was involved in research related to increasing crop yield. But I thought about energy and realized it would become a big issue. I wanted to find out where I could help.

All of my efforts are energy-related except for Central Signal, which develops technologies for railroad signals and constructs them.

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