Achal Prabhala

Achal Prabhala is an Indian researcher, activist and writer based in Bangalore, Karnataka. He works on intellectual property rights in relation to medicine and knowledge. Prabhala is a member of the Advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Personal life
Prabhala lives in Bangalore, India. He has studied economics and public policy management at Middlebury College and then at Yale University, where he contributed articles to Yale Daily News, the student newspaper.
Writings and research
Prabhala researches intellectual property in connection to medicines and knowledge. In 2005, he coauthored a report on copyright issues and access to learning in South Africa for ICTSD and UNCTAD and oversaw the Access to learning materials in South Africa project from 2004-05.
In 2007, in an opinion article in the Times of India, Prabhala alleged that the Mashelkar committee, a patent review committee set up by the Indian government, had copied verbatim a part of the submission made by Shamnad Basheer, whose own research had been supported by a consortium of multinational firms. The report was later withdrawn by the committee.
Funded by a Wikimedia foundation grant, Prabhala, along with Priya Sen and Zen Marie, produced the film People are Knowledge. The film explores how alternate methods of citation could be employed on .
He is the author of an essay "Yeoville confidential" published in Johannesburg: Elusive Metropolis and one of the editors of Access to knowledge in Africa.
Prabhala has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation since 2005. He also serves on the board of the Centre for Internet and Society.
Works
*Access to knowledge in Africa (2010) with C. Armstrong, J. De Beer, D. Kawooya and T. Schonwetter.
*The best of Quest (2011) with Laeeq Futehally and Arshia Sattar.
*Civil Lines 6 (2011) with Mukul Kesavan and Kai Friese.

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