Mr Gopinathan started his career with Freescale Semiconductor as a VLSI design engineer in Noida and worked for four years before resigning to prepare for the Indian Administrative Services. During the period he was actively involved in teaching kids in a slum as a volunteer with Association for India's Development Noida chapter. He was also an active participant in the India Against Corruption movement in its initial phases. Joining the Indian Administrative Service in 2012 in the AGMUT Cadre, the officer first came to limelight for his rather unusual letter to the then State Bank of India chairperson requesting an ATM in the remote subdivision of Hnahthial, in Mizoram. His initiatives in the Indian state of Mizoram included efforts to improve state run schools, drive to revive Chite Lui and setting up of badminton academy and grasroots training centres across the state in association with Tata Trusts and Pullela Gopichand. As District Magistrate of Aizawl, a highly disaster prone district, his efforts to develop a comprehensive disaster management framework with Aizawl DDMA app and associated administrative ecosystem was well received. Project Himna - MADAT, an early intervention and awareness program against drugs usage among upper primary and high-school going students started in Aizawl District during Mr Gopinathan's tenure was later adopted and scaled up across Mizoram considering the high incidence of substance abuse in the state. During the 2018 Kerala floods, his volunteering efforts without revealing his identity as an IAS officer was widely reported and appreciated. Then 32-year-old, the IAS officer, Kannan Gopinathan worked at relief camps in flood-hit Kerala and carried relief material on his head for eight days until he was recognised by a senior. Mr Kannan Gopinathan, as a secretary of key departments in Daman, Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, was instrumental in transforming a loss-making government electricity distribution firm into a profit-making one and completion of almost two decade delayed ring road project in Silvassa. His twitter thread while still holding the position of a District Magistrate on the difficulties faced by a young man due to an Aadhaar enrolment error became controversial as the Aadhaar case was being heard in the Supreme Court at the time.
Activism
After his resignation, he has been vocal on the importance of raising questions in a democracy, the threat of perceived victimhood among the majority and on the violation of fundamental rights in Jammu and Kashmir. A vociferous critic of the constitutionality and morality of Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 and the proposed NRC, he became one of the leading figures in the Citizenship Amendment Act protests that erupted across India against the citizenship amendment act. He was detained at multiple places including Mumbai, Agra and Prayagraj, preventing him from taking part in protests and delivering talks. Government asked Mr Gopinathan to report for duty again in April 2020, which he refused by saying that he is ready to volunteer for Covid-19 crisis, but will not be joining IAS again. Later, an FIR was registered against him under various sections of Disaster Management Act, 2005, Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and Indian Penal Code on the basis of Government complaint over his refusal to rejoin duty
