Jai Bhagat is a long-time pioneer and entrepreneur in paging and cellular communications. He was born and raised in New Delhi, India and the youngest of seven children. With education being a focus in his family, Jai received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India. After coming to the U.S. and getting his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Howard University, he got his start in wireless at the Washington, DC law offices of Jeremiah Courtney working on the licenses for paging companies filing with the FCC.

In New York City in the 1970s, Jai was the director of engineering for the large paging company, Airsignal International. He eventually moved to Jackson, MS as a senior executive to work with John Palmer at Mobile Communications Corp. of America (MCCA), where he played a key role in the development and implementation of several cellular markets, most importantly the high value markets of Los Angeles and Houston. After BellSouth bought MCCA, John Palmer and Jai co-founded MTel/SkyTel Communications, Inc. where he served as Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Because of Jai’s vision and technical expertise SkyTel achieved remarkable success as the first nationwide 2-way paging service. In the late 1990s, SkyTel was bought by MCIWorldcom with the merger valued at approximately $1.9 billion. Later Jai continued his career as Director and Vice Chairman of Axesstel, Inc, a developer of fixed-wireless products.

Among his many roles in the industry, Jai served as Chairman of the License Exempt sector of the Wireless Communications Association International (WCA), as well as Chairman and board member of both the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA, now Wireless Infrastructure Association) and American Mobile Satellite Corporation.

Jai was inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame in 2002. His other industry awards include the PCIA Chairman’s Award for significant contributions to the development of wireless industry, the Radio Club Sarnoff Citation, PCIA’s Technology and Innovation of the Year, and RCR’s Personality of the Year. Adding to his academic achievements, Jai completed the Executive Management program at Stanford University. He was Executive Chairman and co-owner of Hollywood Casting and Film and has served on the board of directors or as advisor to several companies in the wireless and wireless healthcare sectors including eMedOnline, Tagnos, Haystack Technologies, and Owaves. Jai is currently President of TiE SouthCoast San Diego which fosters entrepreneurs through mentoring, funding, networking, and education.