Nija Mentor Network
Mentor
Anil Chhikara-Seeker | Founder CEO, Bluebolt Electric, BlueBolt Startup Factory | Founder Chairman, Startup India Foundation | Sculptor
Anil is Founder CEO of Bolt91, a multi-brand, OmniChannel, EV distribution and sales startup connecting new age EV OEMs to India’s exploding EV market.
Anil is an entrepreneur at heart & believer in the power of dreams. Life has come full circle now – Anil started consulting after exit from his Edtech startup, spent few years mentoring startups and building a successful accelerator program with $100m+ startup portfolio – and now back being an entrepreneur again!
Anil also runs Bluebolt Startup Factory, an enterprise deep tech startups accelerator. Anil founded Startup India Foundation, a non-profit initiative by a group of successful and experienced entrepreneurs to help grow the early-stage startup ecosystem in India. Anil is a well-regarded startup mentor in the Indian startup ecosystem and a TEDx speaker. Anil was the anchor judge for Haywards 5000 Haunslay ki Udaan, India’s First Startup Reality TV Show and the official startup coach for The Vault Show, India’s answer to Shark Tank. Fondly known as Katappa of the Indian startup ecosystem.
In 2001, Anil founded 24×7 Learning, an Edutech startup and led its growth over a decade to become India’s largest e-learning implementation company besides successfully raising multiple rounds of investments including $4m from Network 18. Prior to founding 24×7 Learning, Anil had successfully set up and launched businesses for two large multinational companies in India.
Education:
Besides his engineering from NIT Kurukshetra, he has studied sculpting at New York Academy of Fine Arts and about art markets at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London
Mentor
Founder & Lead Partner – Done and Partners| ex -MD Brand Union|Ray+Keshavan
Arvind Hegde Founded Done & Partners q boutique, upstream branding, design, marketing, go to market strategy effectiveness consulting firm after a long stint in the consulting industry in 2016.
Since 2004, Arvind has worked for more than 185 large branding, design, marketing, and go to market strategy effectiveness marquee assignments across 26 industries in 7 countries. Before founding Done & Partners, between 2004 to 2015, Arvind led Brand Union in India, Ray and Keshavan. Between 1995 to 2004, Arvind worked with CMIE, Crisil and Dun and Bradstreet.
Areas of expertise: Branding, Design, Marketing, go to market strategy effectiveness.
Mentor
Agile Entrepreneur with a passion to develop Mobility Products.
Bharath Anantha is a second-generation entrepreneur having experience of working in diverse fields ranging from scientific research, new product development, contract manufacturing, and operations management.
He is the Managing Director of Harsha Engineering (Bangalore) Pvt Ltd, Bangalore and Managing Partner at Technovos Engineering & Consulting LLP, Bangalore, he is a much sought-after professional in Construction, Industrial and Heavy Equipment. He is trusted advisor to companies like Gainwell Caterpillar, Delkor, Komatsu India, Atlas Copco, Ingersoll Rand, Cargotec, Sandvik, Larsen & Toubro (India) and Bharath Earth Movers Limited, A Government of India subsidiary. He has also credited in setting up a Contract manufacturing services plant for Crushing and Screening Equipments in India.
He is an inventor of personal mobility vehicles (Smart Mobility) and construction equipment that boost productivity and enhance employee experience with successful adoption. Products successfully commercialized and under patenting include the Mini Wheel 4WD excavator, Micro towable excavator, and Hydraulic 3 wheeled hydraulic power barrow. His Mini Wheel Excavator has been selected into the first jury evaluation instituted by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Industrial Innovation Awards setup in 2017. He is also recipient of individual innovator funding under PRISM Scheme by CSIR. The mini wheeled excavator also received recognition and funding under the NID Design Clinic Scheme in 2015 and prototype was successfully completed.
He started Technovos Engineering & Consulting LLP, for providing a diversified manufacturing and turnkey new product development services in 2019. His product the tracked 2.5 ton mini excavator was premiered at the 2022 EXCON International Construction Exhibition in association with Mitsubishi Diesel Engines (MHI-VST)
Education:
He has a Masters in Industrial Engineering with specialization in Lean manufacturing and has multi country work experience.
Mentor
Fund manager, investor, investment banker, start up enthusiast, board member, advisor, agriculturist.
Popularly known as Father of ‘Quant Offshore Hedge Fund Investing’ in India amongst the Hedge Fund Managers in India and abroad, Kapil Khandelwal (KK) has earned recognition to be amongst the few handful Indians approved by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved board members’ list to serve the boards of funds, banks and financial institutions. He is a successful angel investor, venture capitalist and expert in health sciences, education, agri, clean tech and information communications and technology (ICT). His expertise positions him as one of the thought leaders in India, Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets. A business leader with standout success in positioning funds globally and driving investments for growth and profitability. He is driving business results through mentoring leaders and his passion is connecting people and making an impact on the lives of people in this region. During his career, he has carried out over 45 transactions including cross-border.
KK is a recognised industry leader and speaker on investment management, hedge funds, private wealth management, healthcare and life sciences, real assets, angel and venture capital investments, health, education, social entrepreneurship, ICT and business strategy. He has been credited for igniting the Biotech Ignition Grant Policy and providing guidance for the policy which has later become the guidance for the INR 10000 mil India Startup Fund. He was instrumental in starting Bangalore Angels and has invested and exited several start ups in healthcare.
KK has successfully established and exited world’s top performing hedge fund, EquNev-K1t Capital Hedge Fund. He manages India’s first Healthcare Infra Fund, Toro Finserve LLP (www.el-toro.in) which is a closed-ended USD 500 million fund. He also run EquNev Capital (www.equnev.com), an early stage investment fund. Kapil has played an influencing role with the Governments in India and abroad.
These included:
- Regulatory Working Group : Social Stock Exchange: SEBI
- Vice Chairman : Personalised Healthcare and Genomic Committee : FICCI 2012 (http://www.ficci-heal.com/programme/pdf/27/Kapil-Khandelwal.pdf)
- Advisory Board Member – Pfizer India
- Education and Healthcare Mentor – Bangalore Angels
- Advisory Board Member – Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine (IAIM)
- Advisory Board Member – Healthcare Social Infrastructure: Social Infrastructure Fund
- Advisory Board Member – Ignition Grant Fund, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India
- Chairperson for Investment Panel – Bangalore India Bio 2011
- Member – Bombay First Social Infrastructure Group for Healthcare
- Member – Public Private Partnership (PPP) Council in Healthcare
- Member – Health and ICT Ministerial Panel for ehealth for Eastern, Central and Southern Africa
- Core Group Member – Prime Minister of India’s Council on Trade and Industry Task Force for Food and Agro Industries Management Policy (http://www.nic.in/pmcouncils/reports/food/ack.htm)
- Member of various sub-committees at Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) for 1998-2000
He was awarded Paul Harris Fellow (PHF) by Rotary International for contributions to Polio Eradication in India. He organised SMS Campaign mandatory though Planning Commission Health Committee in India the pilot SMS program organised in Karnataka State which realised almost 100% turnout.
KK runs a popular podcast QuoteUnQuote With KK QuoteUnQuote with KK | Kapil Khandelwal (KK)
Bloomberg Profile: https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/21106690
Mentor
Founder-Design Wolf
Jagdish Chawla With over 28 years of endeavor in trend forecasting, brand development, consumer engagement, digital marketing, retail operations, buying & merchandising; have developed the skill, technology and ability to build teams that deliver authentic brand experience and consumer generated content. Key Values that drive me are passion, strategic thinking, innovation and velocity.
Key Areas of Work Include: Growth Marketing, Product Design & Development, Product Life Cycle Management and Digital Marketing.
I started my career in 1991, as a Senior Management Trainee at Raymond when the “Complete Man” campaign was first conceived and since then have been consistently learning & contributing to the world of fashion.
Got bitten by the digital technology bug in the influence of the Srilankan progressive exporters, when we joined hands with TukaTech to create a high tech facility to help Fashion Brands Leap exponentially using the tech tools. At Flipkart, we used out in house proprietary tool – Sprint, to build Private labels and license brand Ducati.
We plan to formally release the Bespoken SAAS tool as our first step into designing the World of Leap Fashion. From our Design Wolf Studio at Bangalore India.
Mentor
Chief Innovation Coach at Institute of Inspiring Innovation
Naveen Lakkur is a serial entrepreneur turned Innovation coach. Naveen loves to inspire enterprises and entrepreneurs to innovate and guide them to grow in the right direction. In his professional career spanning 25+ years in the industry worldwide, he has co-founded several innovative companies. He has also been a catalyst for 250+ ideas to have become commercial realities.
Naveen Lakkur is the Founder & Chief Innovation Coach at the Institute of Inspiring Innovation. He is passionate about sharing his practical knowledge of nurturing ideas and building companies. Through his talks, training programs and workshops, he has inspired over 100,000 professionals and students.
He believes new-age leadership is driven by innovation, intrapreneurship & entrepreneurship. And Naveen is committed to foster them.
Besides his active engagement with the industry, he indulges in writing books with international recognitions and he loves telling business stories.
He conducts training programs and He has authored international award winning books about inspiration, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Mentor
Raj Kapoor-Co-Founder, Unblockers, Singapore Strategic Advisor Floyx, Poland.
Raj is the Founder of India Blockchain Alliance, the largest Indian emerging technology tech think tank and an Advisory Board Member at over 20 blockchain companies including, Floyx, Spherium, XxTripz He is a global, Blockchain Cryptocurrency FinTech Educator, Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP), Blockchain Solution Architect, and friend of disruptive ideas, protem Chairman for Organization of Blockchain Technology Users (OBTU). He is also the Asia Lead, Technology Innovation at Blockspace Technologies Ltd.
Raj has helped organize India’s biggest Blockchain and Cryptocurrency events across major cities. Raj has also spoken at several international seminars and conferences in Boston, LA, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Singapore, Durban, Nicosia and Vienna, Dubai and Singapore
Raj regularly speak in Tech events in India, UK, USA, Africa, Malaysia and Canada and is also a TedX speaker. Besides blockchain, Raj is skilled in AI, Robotics, Cyber Security. IoT, and Cloud Computing. He has spoken in over 140 international and national events.
Raj is also a regular contributor to several publications including Economic Times, Fortune, Moneycontrol, Mint, NDTV Profit, Daily Tribune, Business Standard and more. Raj also appears regularly on multiple television channels where he speaks on different aspects of the blockchain industry.
Raj was also selected this year as a blockchain influencer by Asian Market Cap.
Strategic Block chain Advisor for: Realto, USA, Asgard DAO, UAE, Spherium Finance, UK, Afoma,
Canada, Lumbung,- Indonesia, Organic- Ledger, India, Centiiv- Nigeria, EquiDEI- UAE, White Pigeon- USA, Nexxon NFT- Germany, Meta Bank- USA, SEA- UK, Persafe- UK, Taxcryp Tech- India, SEA Nexus.
India Partner with: Intercoin -USA, Guap Coin -USA, INATBA -Europe, Nemiro -USA, Disney Dragonchain Inc, Three Fold- Europe, Edge 196, Findexable, Finnovation, Fintech Diversity Radar etc.
Mentor
Rajagopal -Founder, CEO at KITES Senior Care, the geriatric care specialist
Raj is an experienced business leader and a healthcare entrepreneur who chartered a career in this sector out of his passion to be a part of this growing eco-system and contribute to it meaningfully.
He is the Co-Founder & CEO of KITES Senior Care, a single specialty brand in geriatric care founded in Bangalore, South India in 2016. KITES Senior Care operates specialty care centers and provides geriatric care at home & at senior living facilities. With 70+ beds under its management in three centers in Bengaluru, KITES Senior Care, has cared for over 3,500 elders since its inception both at their care facilities and at the residence of the elderly.
Raj commenced his healthcare journey as the CEO of Motherhood, a specialty in maternity care. He orchestrated a successful PE fund raise & a strategic acquisition which helped scale the brand from a single unit operations to multi-city multi-unit operations and its foray into treatment of infertility.
Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, he served as the Chief Executive of HCG Milann, leader in the space of reproductive medicine offering infertility treatment solutions & related research initiatives where he worked closely with the Board in formulating the growth strategies of the company and was responsible for its successful execution.
In the past, he has had the privilege of having worked with an eclectic mix of successful organisations Eastern Spices, AOL Time Warner, Cairn Energy India & HPCL where he had the opportunity to learn and contribute meaningfully at various levels.
His success stories include building/scaling brands, taking companies through Strategic M&A deals/PE fund raising, setting up of businesses (start-up/bootstrap) including scaling them. He strongly believes in effective teams to deliver organizational goals and hence strives to invest, build and grow high performing teams. Raj’s strengths as a leader are in (a) Customer centric approach (b) People/Process/Value based Governance and (c) Sound Strategy with Execution
Raj is a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, New Delhi, an alumnus of ISB, Hyderabad (AMP) and holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Madras University. He also serves on the boards’ of a super specialty hospital and a healthcare focused strategic advisory firm. He is extremely passionate about mentoring start-ups & sharing knowledge with budding entrepreneurs.
Mentor
Ravi Shankar is a technologist with a proven track record of over 25 years with leadership roles in ASIC design & verification, VLSI design methodologies, EDA and software development. Ravi has conceptualized and engineered several IPs and methodologies in software architecture, system design, chip design and verification space. Ravi has co-founded two start-ups in 20 years’ time – where he has participated in various roles of engineering, business development, customer relationship and product initiatives.
As a business leader, he led his teams to win the confidence of several global customers in the VLSI domain and continues to enjoy an excellent recommendation from them. In engineering lead capacities, he has successfully led the verification of several complex chips based on innovative techniques and methodologies.
Ravi has published several technical papers in various forums in the space of verification. At Whizchip, where he served as the CEO, Ravi’s vision propelled the company’s IP, technology and methodology group. Heading the innovation group at WhizChip, he was instrumental in creation of path-breaking products, IPs, methodologies and tools.
During his stint at Synopsys, he was one of the early proponents of HVL based verification in India and APAC region and has helped several semiconductor design houses adopt it. Later, as an engineering manager at Ample Communications, Ravi has delivered complex multi-site engineering assignments leading to successful chips.
Ravi has a passion for teaching and working with new-college graduates and has mentored many talented engineering graduates through to a successful career. The proof of Ravi’s leadership and people-centric approach is that several engineers have been working with Ravi for over a decade now. As a co-founder and CEO of Proxelera, Ravi is working in overall company direction, business initiatives and fosters the business and technical growth of the organization.
Mentor
SACHIN B. SABNIS -Managing Director at BELGAUM FERRO CAST (INDIA) PRIVATE LIMITED
Sachin is a first generation entrepreneur. He started “SAI Founders & Engineers” in year 1995 at Udyambag a small foundry which was successful.In year 2001 he started“M/S SAI Metals” in 2001 in Machhe. He started BELGAUM FERROCAST INDIA PVT. LTD., (BFPL) in the year 2006 which has a automated foundry and machineshop equipped with latest machines.He is the Managing Director of the Company, he has travelled across the globe for Business Development.In year 2019 he has been nominated by Ministry of Human Resource Development to the Board of Governors of National Institute of Foundry and Forge Technology (NIFFT), Ranchi for period of 4 years.
In year 2021 he has been nominated by Ministry of Micro,Small and Medium Enterprises to the Interview selection panel for direct hiring of posts for technical institutes like IDEMI,PPDC,IGTR’s.
In year 2021 September he is elected as State President of Laghu Udyog Bharati-Karnataka
Social Services:
- Belgaum Foundry Cluster ,Advisory council member.
- Managing Committee Member of Belgaum Chamber of Commerce and Industries.
- Board member of CII,Belgavi.
- Vice Chairman, Belgaum Manufacturers Co—operative Industrial Estate Ltd(BEMCIEL).
- Rotary Club of Belgaum,Member.
- Convenor of Intellectual forum “Prabhuddha Bharat”
Actively participated in public social media forums like #SAVEIXG and #BELAGAVIVOTES100% which is highly appreciated by one and all.
- Entreprenuer of the year award by TIE,Hubli for year 2017-18
- Enterprenuer of the year award by KLS IMER,Belagavi for year 2018
Mentor
Saroj Patro- Funder, P2 Advisors
30 years of Business Leadership experience across industries in the areas of Valuation, M&A, Mentoring and Organization Building. Besides, has invested in number of startups as Angel Investor .
Saroj Patro is a Physics graduate, Chartered Accountant and executive program from IIM(A) and IBBI certified Valuer.
His post qualification experience includes various challenging roles in organizations like Nalco, ICI, Orica, Tata Power and Bumi Resources among others.
He has been experienced 15 years in Key Management Roles across organizations and countries. He has been instrumental in simplifying the structures in a complex environment.
Last few years, he has been advising/providing consultation to various large mining groups, management consultants and private equities. He has been mentoring number of startups across segments in association with many incubation centers.
He has been panelist speaker and advised to McKinsey, Janus, CITI Group/A T Kearney, Bain Consultant, Bumi Resources Mineral, Thriveni/Samara Capital, KKR, Elliott Management and various other large firms on variety of subjects. Have been consultant and panelist speaker with GLG, VC Circle, Terrapin and many other management institutes.
He keeps abreast with continuous reading of current affairs, economics and valuation.
Mentor
Seema Harsha-COO and Co-founder of Indiassetz.
She is an inspirational leader who drives results from everyone around her with her competitive fire and proactive attitude. Her ability to identify, leverage and develop talent is a key asset in building any organization. She also encourages and helps those around her to think outside-the-box, which is especially critical for a startup. Respected as a credible voice in decision making, finding strategic partners, and establishing governance policies, Seema earns a seat at the table wherever she serves.
She is responsible for driving company strategy and overall business operations, thereby delivering the best experience to both customers and employees. Seema, also heads the structured transaction division within the company. This division handles big-ticket transactions and complex cases including joint ventures. Seema is instrumental in identifying, hiring and training the right talent to grow the organization as a whole. She is also able to leverage her large network of clients over her banking tenure to generate customers for Indiassetz.
Prior to Indiassetz, Seema has extensive experience across verticals in the banking sector. She began her banking journey at Centurion Bank of Punjab as an Intern. Within a short period in the job, she was not only the branch head but also an integral part in the merger of Centurion Bank and Bank Muscat and later the merger with HDFC Bank. Seema then progressed to Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) where she got tremendous exposure in handling SMEs to large corporates. She was in charge of premium acquisitions & employee banking where she dealt with retail HNI clients small and medium enterprises to MNCs.
The pinnacle of her banking career was she was able to grow a 5 crore business to a whopping 500 crores within a short span of six months. Following this incredible growth story, she was appointed as the zonal CEO for the South at DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance where she was mandated to setup a business from scratch. At the peak of her banking career, Seema quit to start Indiassetz along with her ex-colleague Shivam Sinha.
Seema is passionate about mentoring women who want to enter the corporate world, advocating financial independence and leadership.
Education: MBA degree from Bangalore University, executive management program from Indian Institute of Management (IIM)
Mentor
Varadarajan Krishna-Co-founder – 100 Open Startups
Varadarajan Krishna (Varad) is an Executive turned Serial Techpreneur and Angel Investor with a track record in a career spanning over 25 years and has been through 5 exits including two IPOs. He has part of start-up community that had developed products and IP ranging from Embedded Software, BPM, Telecom and Cleantech.
Varad is currently engaged in building open innovation communities worldwide through Induct. He is one of the cofounders of 100 Open Start Ups Global Movement
The world’s largest, structured and most efficient open innovation program. He is involved in various startups initiatives in India and worldwide as a mentor and Jury as way to give back to the global entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Education:
- Varad holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering and a Post Graduate in Systems Management.
- Technology Entrepreneurship and Startup Boards and the Advanced Entrepreneurship Program of Venture labs, Stanford University.(Distinction)
- He also completed Leading Innovation -India Program of the Harvard University.(Distinction)
Mentor
Vijayasimha Ajarananda- Inventor, Translational Engineering and Feature Engineering
Vijayasimha has spent over 30 years in product development, production engineering, manufacturing and market entry strategy in areas as high precision analytical instruments, tribology and measurement systems, semiconductor manufacturing, fermentation technology, bulk drugs manufacturing, factory automation and robotics, aerospace engineering and medical technology.
Architect of over 21 products launched some of them still born ones his activities have been predominantly with early stage businesses and in the rejigging of stagnant or failed businesses across the US, Germany, Japan, Russian Federation, Singapore and India.
He currently runs 2 start-ups in medical devices and serves on the advisory board of a few companies and the Lemelson Foundation, a philanthropic foundation furthering the cause of inventing and innovations.
He has been an active member of the FICCI Healthservices Committee, the FICCI Start Up Committee and the FICCI Task Force on Healthcare Innovations, a resource person for the BIRAC programs and with Waste Impact, an NGO building inclusive ecosystem for grass root inventions leveraging science and technology for the sustainable management of waste.
Education: Graduated from BITS Pilani-1979.
Mentor
Dr Sanjay Sharma-Podiatric Surgeon, Health & Med Tech Enthusiast, Entrepreneur.
Dr Sanjay Sharma has over 18 years of experience in providing health care. He has also been awarded the Fellowship in Podiatry by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow (FFPM – RCPS, Glasgow) and the Indian Podiatry Association (FDFM). He is a member of the American Podiatric Medical Association and an Adjunct Faculty at the Manipal University of Higher Education (MAHE).
Sanjay is the Founder of APTA FootSecure, Co-founder of Yostra Labs Pvt. Ltd. Sanjay has also invested in futuristic healthcare companies like PeopleHealth and Mediknit. He has contributed to several patents in Telemedicine, MedTech, Diabetic Foot and Wound Care domains. He is passionate about Ayurveda and dreams of the National System of Medicine, integrating the best of Modern Medicine, Ayurveda, Yoga, Siddha, Unani Homeopathy and other complementary systems.
He is the Vice President of the Telemedicine Society of India, Karnataka Chapter and Secretary of the Indian Podiatry Association, Karnataka Chapter. In addition, Sanjay is a Startup Mentor at NSRCEL-IIMB, Stanford Seed, Artilabs and Gincelerator.
The Times Group and the Government of Karnataka felicitated Dr Sanjay as a “Rising Star” in the Times Healthcare Achievers Awards In December 2019. FootSecure was also awarded the “Best Podiatry Clinic Chain” by the India Today Group. In addition, he was part of the Neurosynaptic Team, winning the Technology Pioneer Award from World Economic Forum.
Dr Sharma is one of the few Podiatric Surgeons practising in India, and his main work is in Diabetic Foot Care and Wound Management. He is trained extensively in Foot Orthosis and offloading custom footwear. He has also trained more than 700 doctors in Diabetic Wound Management. He has been a speaker in various national and international conferences and off-late webinars and authored several research papers and articles published in peer-reviewed journals. He is an avid traveller, trekker and theatre artist
Education:
- Masters in General Surgery and pursued his further studies in Podiatric Surgery in the US.
- Alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore and the University of California, Berkely.
- He has completed MDP programs in Health Management / Hospital Administration / Health Economics from IIM Ahmedabad, AIIMS – New Delhi and World Bank respectively.
- He has his certifications in Foot & Ankle Surgery from AOFAS, and AI in Health Care from PHFI, Bangalore.
- He has also completed his PhD in Ayurveda from the University of Pune.
Mentor
Dr Pradeep V Desai-CEO of Thalesat Innovations Private Limited (TIPL). Entrepreneur.
TIPL develops MedTech, HealthTech, and Digital Therapeutics TIPL uses advanced digital technologies, AI and deep understanding of Human Physiology to come up with effective and affordable solutions for healthcare.
Dr. Pradeep is an experienced entrepreneur in the MedTech, HealthTech and Digital Therapeutics space.
He has over 30+ years of experience in the Information and Digital Technology Industry. He worked for multinational companies- General Electric (GE), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Philips Research, and Wipro Technologies at Senior Leadership level, Managing and Developing Research and Innovations.
He consults and advises companies on- MedTech, HealthTech, Digital Therapeutics, AI, Innovation and Business.He has a strong network in the Industry, Research Organization, and Academia.
He is the:
- Fellow, Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
- Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- -Life member, Computer Society of India (CSI) and Vice-Chairman of Computer Society of India, Bengaluru Chapter.
- -Life Member, Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE)
Education:
- -Post-Doctoral in Symbolic Data Analysis and Neural Nets, Paris Dauphine University, Paris, France.
- -Ph.D. Computer Science and Engineering
- -MBA – Computer Applications Newport University, USA.
- -Masters in Electronics and Bachelor in Electronics and Communication.
Mentor
Ravi Chandran-Advisory Board Member | M & A Advisory | Business Coach | Investor | Non-Executive Director
Ravi is an IT industry veteran who has been an integral part of Bangalore’s transformation as ‘the’ IT city of India, from the ‘90s. He has served the industry for over 3 decades, working with a few transnational corporations and a start-up, before venturing out on his own.
He now runs Aptus Enterprises, where he & his team consult on topics like Business & IT Strategy, Offshore Transitions, Information Security, Enterprise Architecture & Program Management, offer strategic advisory services for start-ups and work on Mergers & Acquisitions.
As an ‘intrapreneur’ during his career with select MNC’s, Ravi has successfully handled leadership roles with P & L responsibilities, managed multi-million $ enterprise class IT projects, transitioned large IT projects to India and set up new practices & divisions.
Ravi has been part of the start-up ecosystem from its nascence when he cofounded a start-up in 2000, when the word start-up or VC’s were unheard of. He is now an early stage investor, board member & advisor to start-ups, member of reputed angel investor networks & Investment Committee member at an investment fund.
He currently advises select startups in India & the US on business strategy, idea & product validation, go-to-market etc. and also actively contributes in nurturing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India, in any way he can.
As part of continuous learning, he has earned professional certifications in areas like Project Management (PMP), Enterprise Architecture (TOGAF), Information Security (ISO 27001), IT Services Management (ITIL) & Quality (ISO), among others.
Education:
- Executive Management Program-IIMB
- Bachelors in Technology, Engineering & Technology-Awarded as best outgoing student Gold Medal.
Mentor
CA Bhargava Srinivas-Chartered Accountant, International taxation, Independent Director, Indirect Tax, Passionate speaker
From his first employment in June till date, Bhargava has immersed myself in the area of Accounting, Auditing, Direct and Indirect taxation. My entire work experience is uniformly built around the core areas of learning and applying the laws of the land (tax laws).
His work usually involves offering advisory to clientele of his employers based on tax and accounting laws applicable, offering tax solutions which suits the nature of business, Transaction coining, legal drafting, Business agreement drafting, communication and liaison.
Education:
- BBA, Finance, General
- The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India Chartered Accountant
Diploma in Multilingual Computer Programming
Mentor
Ananda Ramachandra-Director | Engineering Leader |Technology Leadership|Entrepreneur
Anand is a proactive, Performance-driven, Entrepreneur a deep passion for technology and Business. Well balanced in business focused program management, digital transformation, and enterprise applications. A dynamic and innovative technology professional experienced in designing, implementing & supporting large scale Enterprise IT projects. Cross-functional communicator, Versatile, innovative, and loyal management professional able to see the “big picture” while staying on top of all the details.
Recognized for consistent success in developing the processes and procedures to streamline operations. Significant experience in leading, developing and executing large and complex IT services engagements across application, infrastructure and Digital transformation, building great teams, setting up Global delivery canters and developing new Products & Services.
Thought leadership in emerging business & technology trends in Life Science, Pharma & Healthcare domains. Specialties: Technology • Business Development • Client Relationship Management • Delivery Management • People Management • Product Implementation & Consulting • Strategy & Planning • CXO-Level Communication • Software Development Life Cycle • Agile/Scrum Advanced Data Analytics & Data Science • ERP/SCM/PLM • Open-Source Technologies • Python • Health Data Informatics, OHDSI • Aras Innovator • Odoo • AWS/Azure.
Education:
- MS, Manufacturing Management, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani
- Center of Social Initiative & Management
- Mechanical Engineering, BMS college of EngineeringAnand
Mentor
Amit Tiwari- Transforming Businesses and Inspiring Growth
He has 25+ years of experience in various industry sectors (Energy Management, Renewables, Product and Management System Certifications, eCommerce) and has led teams within India and South East Asia under various capacities and in different organisations.
He has also been a Business Growth Consultant and his expertise lies in Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Operations and People Management. Presently he is the Chief Operating Officer for Learning Edge India the holding company for Little Elly Chain of Preschools, Elly Child Care and LETTER – Teacher Training Research.
Education:
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering from NITK Suratkal.
- MDBA, Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies.
Mentor
N Ravi Shankar-CEO, Aim High Consulting, Columnist, Author, Speaker, Start-up Mentor, Angel Investor
In a career spanning 23 years, Ravi has steered several leading Indian brands to success. Some of the clients that Aim High Consulting has had long and successful stints with include – 18 Unicorns, and 500 Companies across 200 diverse Categories – with names like Flipkart, Ola, Swiggy, Byju’s, GupShup, Open, 3M, Helion Ventures, Lok Capital, EduSports, LivSpace, BlackBuck, Mswipe, Azure Power amongst many other new-age and technology-enabled businesses.
Ravi has a deep passion for teaching and writing. He is a guest lecturer at leading Management
and Communication institutions. He is also active on the public speaking circuit, especially in
the areas of communication, entrepreneurship, new-age businesses, and PR for start-ups in
India.
He is a Mentor on globally renowned ‘Stanford University’s Seed program for Asia’. He also serves as a Jury / Advisor on State and National Start-up initiatives, and Investment programs. Ravi keenly mentors a few start-ups in his personal capacity, and is an active Angel Investor, with over 100 such investments, in his portfolio.
Apart from being a successful entrepreneur in his own right, Ravi has been a popular Columnist and Author in Kannada. In the last two decades, he has over 1,000 published articles to his credit with leading dailies such as Vijaya Karnataka, Vijayavani, Udayavani, Times of India (Kannada) and UshaKirana. Ravi has authored several books, while also currently writing ‘Olanota’, the Sunday lead-column for Vijaya Karnataka.
Ravi has delivered lectures at leading Literary Festivals in Karnataka, including ‘Kannada Sahitya Sammelana’ and ‘Nudisiri’. Some of his articles are prescribed as part of ‘Text Books’, at various leading Universities.
Education:
- MBA- SDM Institute of Management Development, Mysore
- PG Diplomas in Journalism
Mentor
Dr. Sreeram Darbha-Ex-Professor & Dean – School of Management at CMR University
Dr Sreeram Darbha is a Unique and Rare combination of; Practical Industry Leadership Experience, Premium Academic Qualifications and Versatile Personal Talents.
About 30 years of strategic as well as hands on HR Leadership experience spread across various reputed Indian and MNC; Service (Hospitality), IT (BFSI & Product), ITES, Telecom, Pharmaceutical Mfg., Consulting, Financial Services and Educational Institutions. More recently before transitioning into academics had been the Head-HR of BSE and a Sr. Vice President-HR with a Financial Services company in Mumbai. Lately, had been a Professor at the SVYASA Yoga University and later as a Professor and Dean of School of Management at CMR University-Bengaluru.
Build a compelling ‘Employer Branding and ‘Employee Bonding’ image for the institution through value based positive work culture and most preferred academic institution status by way of imparting and institutionalizing Student centric, Outcome based, Industry relevant practical learning experience. He is a Popular speaker at various professional and academic fora on the same.
Launched a unique noble venture; www.gotogita.com, World’s first interactive practical application of the Bhagawadgita to provide spiritual counselling service through Ancient Wisdom to Modern Management perspectives for Holistic Work-Life Balance and Integrated Wellbeing going forward.
Education:
- A (English Litt.- ANU-A.P)
- A (PM&IR-TISS-Mumbai)
- FPM (Academy of HRD- Ahmadabad)
- D. (ANU-A.P)
Mentor
Anand Rao- Head Strategy | NATE Advisory
A Career spanning 20+ years with Big4 Consulting & Fortune 500 consumer electronics R&D firms handling leadership & transformation roles.
7+ years entrepreneurial journey designing digital platforms for a greener planet by democratizing scientific innovation methodology & tools ( AL , NLP , ML ).
Anand’s Innovative products and solutions are:
- Green & sustainable innovation driven by Artificial Intelligence for core engineering industry
- He has trained students & faculty on using laptops and e-learning at Joida, Haliyal : Officially the most under developed backward district of Karnataka, India.
- Digital transformation of workplaces to create future leaders and make firms put white spaces between self and competitors across US, India & China.
- Future of Workplace roadmap for Startup and established firms – Automotive, Manufacturing, Medical Training & Environmental Sciences.
- Government – Industry Consultant: Liaised directly with Central & Karnataka Government verticals for adoption of digital tools across departments.
Mentor
Tomoyuki YAMATO- Wow-biz Lab – Discover, Design & Initiate
Yamato is an aspirational individual focusing on “INNOVATION” in emerging countries, i.e. India, by leveraging advanced technologies/ experiences in developed countries, i.e. Japan.
As a cross-border business professional origin in Japan, he has been focusing on India and emerging markets for more than a decade after hands-on business development/ performance improvement experiences in Japan, Americas, EU, China, ASEAN, CIS, etc. After relocated to Bengaluru, India with family in 2016, he is performing as resident professional mostly in two areas, local business accelerator as well as social innovator.
• As a local business accelerator, he is offering unique & original programs for foreign MNCs and local start-ups, i.e. “Innovation in India!” by leveraging India as innovation hub/ R&D field, “virtual Expat” as pre-entry service for potential market entrants, “virtual CIO” to improve performance of existing players, etc.
• As social innovator, he is expanding his field to public fields, i.e. railway coordinator of JETRO/ METI (Japan), leading working group among MAFF (Japan) and Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare/ Ministry of Food Processing, government of India, promoting technical education/ vocational training by representing RIPO/ Ministry of Education, Republic of Belarus, etc. Regular speaker of industrial and academic seminars in wider topics
He headed India & ASEAN expansion of Japanese consultancies of Mitsubishi Corporation and NTT DATA group before starting WORLD1. He had performed in global consultancies, i.e. Bain & Company and Roland Berger, as well as Japanese industrial majors, i.e. Fuji Xerox and Sony, before receiving above assignments.
Education:
- B.A in Law-Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement Administration-Keio University.
Mentor
Shrisha Ananthnarayana- Marketing & Brand specialist
Shrisha has over two and half decades of experience in communications and marketing. He aims to provide result-oriented marketing and branding solutions, help companies generate breakthrough new ideas, commercialise innovation and transformation which are highly localised.He firmly believes in timeline based strategic and targeted approach backed by extensive research
His approach stems from the belief in providing tailor made marketing and branding solutions to the diverse clientele.
During the course of his career, Shrisha has handled businesses from diverse verticals, Cement to White goods, IT to Healthcare, Education to NGO, from manufacturing to services, with exposure to local and international markets.
He Provides innovative and creative marketing ideas to businesses that require direction and growth for new market penetrations, help small business professionals to effectively communicate value in their products and services so that they can have more time to focus on developing more profits.
With an entrepreneurial vision, creativity and flair for innovation strategies Shrisha has effectively used digital marketing, branding, loyalty and consulting activities to achieve set objectives for various clients in different countries for medium and small enterprises including start-ups.
Education:
- MBA, Marketing-University of Wales
- Bsc- National College-Bangalore University
Mentor
Suresh Parambath-Senior Consultant- Brand & Marketing
Apart from his involvement with brands and businesses, he did also mentor start-ups as a collaborator with the House of Genius, IIMB.
His 35 years of experience includes building brands in many market segments – FMCG, IMFL, IT, Startups, Fashion, Automotive, E-Commerce, Newspapers, Holiday Timeshare, Real Estate, Heavy Engineering, Finance and more.
Suresh has always believed there should be at least one person thinking holistically about a brand or business. He now wear that mantle as a Brand consultant, and work upon brand architecture, competition, markets and trends, tone of voice, verbal and visual grammar, consumer insights, etc., However, these objects are achieved without losing sight of corporate vision and goals, and most importantly, ensuring that the brand or business projects an unwavering image to its consumers, as well as stakeholders, employees, investors and policy makers.
The advisory practice has given him the opportunity of contributing to the carving of the destiny of large, medium and small organisations, helping them with everything from Brand Architecture, Business Philosophy, Best CSR Practices, External & Internal Brand/Marketing Communications and Mentorship.
Education:
English Language & Literature/Mass Communication/Media Studies
Mentor
Uday Birje-Co-Founder & Director, ThinkStreet Technologies
Uday Birje has over 30 years’ experience in IT, Telecom & Network industry. He began his career in HCL-Hewlett Packard & later moved to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the World’s 2nd largest Computer Company, in 1992 in Bengaluru. Uday launched & set up DEC’s.
Networking Products division for India & South Asia. During his tenure at DEC, he architected & executed of some of the largest Networks in India that included the VSNL’s Internet Gateway Network, Konkan Railway Network etc . In 1998 he was appointed as the Managing Director for India & South Asia for Cabletron Systems the No:2 US based Networking major.
He is a mentor & jury of India Innovation Challenge an initiative of Texas Instruments, Government of India & IIM Bangalore since 2017. He has been involved with the PAN IIT Global Conference and the PAN IIM World Management Conference to evaluate “India’s Top Startups”. He was part of “Smart 50” initiative of IIM Calcutta & “Bengalthon”.
Uday is a “Mentor for Change” under the Atal Innovation Mission of NITIAayog, Government of India ,IIM Bangalore, IIM Lucknow, BMS College of Engineering, Sahyadri College of Engineering, Presidency College, New Horizon College of Engineering, Tumkur University & many other top Institutions in India.
Education:
- Executive Education with specialization in Authentic Leadership & Corporate Governance-Harward Business School
- Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering-BMS College.
Mentor
Ravi Andrews- Founder, CEO MAKMOR
Highly Visionary Leader with clear focus to deliver results with courage and solidarity in his work while using short and long-term Strategic planning. A professional with decade of diverse experience (worked for fortune 500 companies like Cargill, Bosch, Tyco International, Honeywell, Airbus & Defence Space) in Operations, Finance, Public Affairs, Government Relations, Planning and Marketing Services, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Global Procurement, Production Planning, International Business. Ravi’s key strength is robust Business acumen and an ability to deal with complex issues in a simple manner. He has an extensive diverse industry experience for setting up Global Business Footprint in a sustainable manner.
Ravi is an enthusiastic, self-motivated and determined individual with excellent communication, strategic thinking, and leadership and presentation skills. Ravi is an active in academy world and strongly believes in sharing his practical knowledge among students & Industry experts. Believing in constant innovation and value addition, he recommends adopting an entrepreneur’s mindset to be successful.
Industry we serve: Agriculture, Aerospace & Defence, Automotive, Real Estate, Retail & Ecommerce, Media & Entertainment Water & Waste Management
Education:
- Executive General Management Programme-IIMB
- Bachelor Degree, Economics.Politics.Science & History-Delhi University.
Mentor
Vijetha Shastry
Expertise across Retail, Hospitality, Travel, Co-Working, and Industry bodies ( NASSCOM CoE, TiE Bangalore ) in the areas of Sales, Operations, Global Expansion Open Innovation, and Co-Creation.
Associate Director at Dexter Capital ( IB and M & A) & Dexter Angels ( early stage investments ); My Last assignment was as Executive Director with TiE Bangalore.
Have worked in leadership roles with Taj Hotels, Metro Cash and Carry, Reliance Retail, Arvind Brands, NASSCOM, TiE Bangalore
Industries: D2C, Retail, IoT, Education, Travel, and Hospitality.
Good in areas around Sales, BD, Marketing, Positioning, and Operations.
Mentor
C M Raveesh Machayya- Co-founder and Managing Director, Digital Book Stores
Machayya comes with over 35 years of experience in the publishing sector. He also founded the world’s first technology based digital book store where students could purchase parts of a book instead of a whole book. He exited his start-up Digital Book Stores Pvt. Ltd after two rounds of funding. He firmly believes that either you build technology to run your enterprise or just perish.
Machayya has also continued his interests in the legacy that his family carries namely agriculture. He understands agriculture and understands what keeps a farmer poor: the market that is not under his control and the technology that he does not understand. He is now building the technology that will be linking every Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in India enabling a seamless marketing of their produce without any middlemen everywhere in India. That is, a FPO from Nagaland should be able to sell their produce in Mysore without any middlemen or without the intervention of the mandies. NABARD has shown preliminary interest in the project and are keen to examine it.
All the technology being built and developed is centered at Virajpet, a small rural town in Kodagu district with a population of just 15,000. The idea behind rural centered technology development is to try and reduce migration of people to the cities in search of well-paying jobs. Their land gets looked after while the technology gets built and, they earn more or less the same amount that they will be earning in the city. Core competencies-Edutech and Egritech.
Education:
- BSc -St. Joseph’s college
- MSc in Zoology-University of Mysore
Mentor
Jagadeesh C Sunkad
Jagadeeesh has 25 years of experience in Agri Business field encompassing Innovation management, Contract farming, Technology transfer, Research and Training, arranging joint ventures & Collaborations he has strived to touch the quality of life of farmers and other stakeholders, by nurturing innovations into tools for everyday use in the field of agriculture, preceded by 12 years in the field of market research for customer satisfactions studies, Industrial product research and social research.
Jagadeesh’s life’s purpose is to build scalable businesses by careful nurturing of innovation, that impacts small farmers at a grassroot level through ‘Technology Commercialization’
He has been a key resource and mentor for the RKVY- RAAFTAR program at Indian Agriculture Research Institute, PUSA, Delhi, Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre, IIT Kanpur, National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics, Bangalore. ICRISAT, Hyderabad.
Education:
- PGDM “Entrepreneurs & Family Business management from IIM Bangalore.
- Advanced Agri-Business Management certificate from Cornell University, USA.
- Cornell-in-India Agribusiness Management Program.
- Bachelor of Sciences – Electronics.
Mentor
H.V.Gayitri-Lead Organizer- Reimagine Waste| Founder Trustee-Waste Impact Trust
27 years of experience in fashion marketing & merchandising. Connecting markets in more than 30 countries with leading exporters in India. Also, taught in premier institutions for 10 years, such as NIFT Gandhinagar & NID Ahmedabad, NIFT Bangalore and ALT Training College, Bangalore.
Pushed beyond the comfort zone of a job and jumped into the development sector. After about 12 years of learnings from setting up livelihood projects -with Self Help Groups, and with Gram panchayats in safe drinking water sector- founded Waste Impact, a Trust, in 2014.
Today, WIT facilitates the development of open-sourced technologies to benefit entrepreneurs of disadvantaged communities through creating platforms such as Hackathons. Waste Impact Trust runs series of Hackathons called ‘REimagiNEWaste’ in collaboration with renowned institutions such as Indian Institute of Science, and IIMB and Ramaiah Institute of Technology Bangalore.
She has conducted 5 hackathons with various themes on the waste eco system. The USP of these hackathons is that the communities which are managing waste such as Waste Pickers, Manual Scavengers take part in it. The sustainable solutions emanating from REimagiNEWaste are developed and incubated to become sustainable, social, inclusive enterprises. We have now about 4/5 solutions being incubated.
Mentor
Prashanth Kumar –Dreamer | Powerful Start-ups | High Performing teams
With over 20 years of experience, he is recognized as a visionary leader who firmly believes that, “Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude”. He’s open to setup Offshore Captive centres, Provide CHRO on Call services, Lead the HR & General. Management and build teams. He has been consulting and providing Advisory services for several Organizations on strategic interventions, General & Operations management, Business enablement, process improvement, OKR etc.
He has Incubated and setup processes for Start-ups and have been associated with several Academic Institutions (Universities and private) in providing an in-house ‘Finishing School’ concept. He had done ssignments – BOT for a European based IT company, supporting couple of VCs to setup processes.
With a reputation as a ‘Go Getter’, he possesses a long successful record credited with unprecedented results in People Success, Leadership & Organization Development, HR Management, Training and Development, Compensation & benefits etc.
He garnered significant expertise in performance management, change management, structuring and implementing HR policies and systems, manpower planning, and employee retention as he moved up the career ladder.
By assembling a consortium of skilled professionals and managing them, he provided various high-profile corporations with a wide array of proficiency and aptitude for the success of its business, by setting up offshore captive centres for captive EMC , Sonus Networks & Overture Networks.
Prashanth is,
- Life member NHRD
- Certified Thomas International profiling practioner
- Trained on Internal Auditing and internal implementation of ISO, 6 Sigma CMMi processes.
Education:
- Bachelor of Science National College, Bangalore University.
- PGDHR Institute of Labour Studies.
Mentor
Uppoor Kiran Kumar
Over 20+ years experience across Block chain, New media, Entertainment, Internet & Retail Formats (Digital & FMCG)
Creating brands from scratch right up to building scale – with optimal use of resources and budgets
Expertise in Product Positioning, Packaging & Lifecycle Management – product idea conceptualization, market research and market roll out.
Formulating and executing marketing / media plans, reviewing marketing mix to ensure maximum brand visibility and capturing optimum market share across 360° customer engagement.
Startup mentor for early stage ventures in telecom, ecommerce, SAAS & education. Co-founded 3 companies. Startup advisor & Business consulting to enable value unlocking via investor ready pitches, Business realignment and fund raising. Blockchain Solutions across sectors ( NFTs. Cryptocurrencies, ICO ,STO ).
A proponent of decentralization
Specialties: 360 degree Marketing plan, Brand Positioning, Media Planning and Market Research.
Mentor
- Co-founded Six Companies in various fields starting Embedded Systems, IT Services, Social Media, Travel Portal, Alternate Energy and Holistic Therapy.
Experience of designing and developing complex enterprise applications and solutions. Varied domain expertise starting with Banking, Healthcare, Aviation, Info Security and Blockchain.
Advising and architecting Blockchain Applications to start-ups.
Part of advisory board for technology in three companies.
Consulted for Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), General Electric (GE) on various mission critical, large multi-vendor, high-profile projects for more than a Decade. Six Sigma Green Belt Certified by GE – Patni.
Provides consultation for Product Innovation, Application Security, IT Security Policies, Communication Strategy, and Implementation.
Designed internal controls in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley for GE commercial finance. Key participant in many CMM and ISO audits.
Involved in at least two dozen projects of GE’s digitization efforts when GE acquired “Storage USA” the projects involved many Oracle and SQL databases in multi locations and on Windows and Linux environments.
Education:
- Masters in Finance and Management, HARVARD UNIVERSITY [Cambridge, MA,
- Bachelor of Engineering, Electronics & Communication [Karnataka, India]
Mentor
Anand Kumar Padmanaban is a Certified Manager(CM) from ICPM and is a senior professional with over 26 years of experience in high technology and related professional services businesses. Anand is currently involved in a few start-ups as a director of the board where his primary focus is on driving growth and performance improvement through business value maximization and developing sustained innovation capability.
Anand stays on the edge of healthcare technology, innovation and digital health tools by developing strong, long-term relationships with strategic business partners, vendors and healthcare innovators. This cutting-edge perspective allows Anand a unique view of the bigger picture and potential solutions to the problems faced by his customers.
Anand has helped established and emerging corporations grow through new ventures and revenue streams in national and global markets including i-calq (US), p1di(US), Healthsoft (India) and hr.com(India).
His expertise is in the areas of new ventures, business model and value innovation, the effective use of technology/IT, business transformation and project management. He has been responsible for establishing and growing information technology and knowledge management practices in various fortune 500 companies, such as Pharmacia and Monsanto.
Anand has managed international technology transfer and collaboration agreements with companies in Europe and the US. Anand holds a Bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering, a Master’s in industrial engineering and a Post graduate diploma in business administration. He has extensive international experience having worked in Asia, Europe and the US.
Anand is a trustee with the NGOs People’s Education Society and WasteImpact and volunteers by running innovation challenges in partnership with the Indian institute of science, IITM, IIMB and the Rural Employability Advancement Programs (REAP) and coaching programs. Anand has authored 2 books and writes for national and international newspapers on topics of interest and has been profiled by magazines like Dataquest,
Voice & Data and the Huffington post.
Mentor
Koushik Shankar- Founder-healthcare startup, Visiting Faculty member at PES University.
Koushik has 26+ years of experience in Healthcare and Consumer Electronics. An architect with broad technical and customer management experience (26+ years) in various products like DVD players, stand-alone DVD recorders, HDD combi DVD recorders, portable music players, Blu-ray Disc recorders/players, digital TV and Requirements Consulting. Technical contact for major product OEMs in Japan and Denmark. 5 filed patents, 2 patents on Blu-ray Disc, 1 patent on SVCD, 1 patent on enhanced subtitles and 1 patent on video summarization.
Founder of a health-tech startup focusing on analytics and deep learning. Visiting faculty at Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at PES Univ teaching practical applications of deep learning. Highly hands-on.
Fairly high EQ and capability to bring about technical alignment within teams. Various paper publications on frame accurate editing, requirements engineering, estimation for embedded systems and Blu-ray Disc editing and conditional access mechanisms.
He has been a part,
- IEEE Technical Program Committee for IEEE ICCE at Las Vegas, USA, ICCE Berlin, GCCE and IEEE ISCE 2009 at Kyoto, Japan.
- Session chair at IEEE ICCE Berlin 2016 for 2 tracks, and Session chair at IEEE ICCE Las Vegas for 2016, 2017 and 2018.
- Various IEEE paper presentations in IEEE conferences (mainly Las Vegas, Berlin, Madrid and Portugal)
- Co-founder and Secretary of IEEE CE Bangalore chapter. Co-founder of IEEE RAS (Robotics and Automation) Bangalore chapter.
- Core startup mentor group at IIM-Bangalore.
Education:
- Masters of Engineering Electricals & Electronics-IISc.
- Msc, Physics-IIT, Bombay.
- Bachelors of Science- SIES College, Mumbai.
Mentor
Murali Venkatesh- Digital Innovation, Transformation Advisor (ESG, Carbon Capture, OSDU, AI/ML,Web 3.0.
Murali’s passion is in Emerging Technologies client advisory, practice development, vendor partnerships.
Twenty-Six years of working experience: Strategic management consulting, and product companies (Oracle, SAP) to enable technology solution offerings, define future products and offerings, build successful client’s relationships, design go to market strategies, and manage high performing teams.
Eighteen years of leadership experience for “Big 5” Strategic Management Consulting Companies (Accenture, PwC/IBM, Capgemini, Wipro/SAIC).
Build Emerging Technology products and solutions offering using: AI/ML/DL: TensorFlow 2.0, R, Python, NLTK, Spacy, H20, SPSS, SAP Leonardo, Azure Machine Learning Studio, Oracle Intelligent Bots, ChatBots (Kore). Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT): Blockchain, Hyperledger (Fabric, Iroha, and Indy), Ethereum, Hashgraph, Swirlds, Hedera, Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP), Decentralized Applications (dApps). Open Source: Spark, Hadoop, MongoDB.
Nineteen years of work experience in ERP (Oracle, SAP) enterprise solution offerings. SAP’s Leonardo, Simple Finance, HANA, PRA, JVA, UOM, IS-Oil) and Oracle’s ERP Cloud, Fusion, SCM Hub, IoT Hub, Blockchain Hub, NetSuite, BlueKai, Data Science.
Education:
- Executive Program-Blockchain Strategy- Said Business School
- MBA, International Business-National University
- Diploma Computer Education, DEC
- BS Computer Science
Mentor
Chandrasheka Arcot– With an experience of 25+ years Chandrashekar is Building team(s) to develop solutions and products using Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, IoT, Simulation Technologies, etc.
As a co-founder at Axiom from 2002, Chandrashekar has worn several hats with a primary focus area of driving customer focused technology initiatives. This includes developing new capabilities and technologies or pushing boundaries on the known technologies.
Right from the early days, he has been fortunate to build highly responsive team(s) focused on bringing our deep technology experience in the automotive and aerospace to other verticals such as CPG /FMCG, Consumer Products, Healthcare, etc. The focus was on delivering solutions faster, cheaper and efficient using
- Simulation Models and methods. Measurement / Instrumentation Innovations
- Custom Software modules
- Work Process automation and of course a lot of Fundamental Research to drive down costs, bring products to market faster, cheaper and more efficient.
Focus Areas: Innovation and Incubation, IP development, Early Stage R&D, New Technology Feasibility, User Experience, Partner Eco-System Development, Startup Technology Glide Path support.
Technology Areas: Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, IOT Applications,Embedded Systems Development, Wired, and Wireless Communication, Mechanical Design & Engineering, Virtual Simulation Engineering, Math Model Development.
Education:
- B.E Mechanical Engineering -MSR Institute of Technology
- M Tech-Heat Power Engineering- National Institute of Technology
Mentor
Debasis Chakraborty-
Passionate about Early Stage Investing, Coaching and building World-class Start-ups. Have a keen eye in identifying the hidden gems and foster them into High Velocity Trajectory.
Working with multiple startup ecosystems globally and working towards building cross country Innovation Bridges.
Over the past decade have worked with hundreds of startups in identifying their ‘Key Value Proposition’ and taking them to scale.
At Mainstage Hub, he works with 40+ Global startups.
Education:
- EGMP-IIMB
- PGD in GMT- NIFT
- PGDCA, Brilliant’s Computer Centre
- Honours in Physics, Calcutta University.
Mentor
Ajay is an Entrepreneur, Business Mentor and Management Consultant. Ajay has more than 25 years of experience and expertise in sales, marketing, business development; Operations, P&L centre management, supply chain management and project team management for industrial products, IT Services and IT solutions in complex businesses scenario in various domains with specific emphasis being on customised IT Services and Solutions for defence establishments. He also has experience with Data Privacy and Data Protection Consulting practices. He has also been a member of a team which pioneered Multi-Dimensional Multi-level Learning Solutions for schools. Ajay is a proactive leader with a passion to deliver and has natural ability to identify and capitalize upon opportunities.
He possesses in depth and highly specialized knowledge of products/services and concept sales to retail and SME market in India and other SAARC markets across various verticals through direct and channel partner modes of sales and marketing. He has wide exposure to IT Solutions market in India, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Entrepreneurs and start-ups who have worked with him vouch for the blend of motivation, leadership, creative and analytical abilities to develop ideas that produce results he has.
He holds professional qualifications in Engineering and a Master’s degree in Marketing Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, an institute of repute rated within the TOP 10 business schools in India. He is a Certified SAP (Order Fulfilment) Consultant.
Ajay is widely known for his business acumen and his knowledge in Services Marketing, Sales Management, Management of Technology and International Marketing. He has written various articles for reputed magazines in India on Product Sales, Project Management and IT Services Business.
He is a Visiting Faculty at National Industrial Security Academy, Hyderabad which is a premier training institute run by Central Industrial Security Force, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. He is on the Mentor’s Panel at GINSERV,Bengaluru, an Incubation Centre funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.
Ajay has been a mentor for various start-ups from the idea stage through the growth of start-ups till maturity. He has worked closely with various Defence Labs and Establishments in India and abroad on various projects in multiple domains and across varied technological platforms.
Under his guidance and active participation various aspiring entrepreneurs have built, nurtured and achieved desired results for their ideas to be turned into successful businesses.
Ajay is actively involved in various initiatives to build the spirit of entrepreneurship and to bring synergy into efforts of various entrepreneurs in varied verticals/domains.
Mentor
Dr. V.J. Byra Reddy holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Mangalore University and a post-graduate degree in Economics from Bangalore University. His areas of teaching expertise include managerial economics, advanced microeconomics, international business, research methods, and public policy. Dr. Reddy possesses 27 years of total work experience comprising 23 years in higher education in the areas of academic administration and teaching and 4 years in industry in entry- and middle-level management positions. In addition to being a talented teacher and respected scholar, Dr. Reddy is one of the pioneers in quality assurance for higher education.
In his most recent full-time academic assignment, Dr Reddy served as professor and Dean of Academics, Quality, and Accreditations at Amity University in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Prior to joining Amity, he held various faculty, administrative, and quality assurance positions at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES)-Dehradun, Indus Business Academy (IBA)-Bangalore, and the Acharya Institute of Management and Sciences (AIMS)-Bangalore.
Presently, he is founder and Principal of Vanguard Business Education Services, [VBES] LLC Pennsylvania, USA
Dr. Reddy has been a visiting professor at National Institute for Social Development, Sri Lanka during 2013. He has also been a visiting professor at Cag University, Adana, Turkey During December 2019 – January 2020, where he taught Ph.D Students Research Methodology. Among his other visiting assignments; he has taught advanced microeconomics to masters students of economics at the National College, Basavangudi, Bangalore during 2011 – 2013 and has taught economics of event management to students of University of Technology, Meghayala in 2014.
Over the years, Dr. Reddy has delivered Management Development Programs and Executive Development Programs to a variety of organizations and higher education institutions. In addition, he has published more than thirty scholarly papers in national and international journals and edited books. His significant international experience includes participation in various academic conferences and events and invited teaching positions and accreditation site-visits in Asia, the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, and Africa.
Mentor
40 years of National and International work experience
Practical, pragmatic & proven track record of turning around the companies with a profitable revenue growth
Held Top Management, Director / MD positions in different sectors
Manufacturing light & medium equipment systems & products
Retail business services, Multi Product trading services
Contracting & Construction services, architecture, engineering design project management consultancy EPC & EPCM services
Widely travelled internationally to set up & grow business, acquire customers and also for technical collaborations
Has worked in multi cultural environments, understand the business approach mechanism to succeed with international clients.
Hands on, hard core business management knowledge, skills & expertise and hence his business advisory & coaching services are professional, reliable & realistic
Handled businesses during the bad times & good times focusing on BD, Operations, HR & Finances with good old school experience of falling, rising up & re strategizing to accelerate the organisation growth
Based on his vast, varied and diverse experience across sectors, he would be best suited in advising, working together and helping grow your business bigger & better
He would be able to provide most suitable solutions for the business performance improvements & if required in financing/funding options
He is a Certified & Qualified Independent Director ID Databank, IICA
Mentor
Raviprakash Shankaranarayana- Founder & CEO at Adhithya Innovations, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.
Raviprakash is a Dynamic leader & Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with expertise in various business excellence frameworks like Lean, Six Sigma, TOC along with successful implementation of same across Manufacturing, Automotive, IT Services, Semiconductors & BFSI industry verticals.
Expertise in driving & leading transformation programs and projects leveraging Project management methodologies like Agile & Waterfall following a structured approach to achieve business objectives & enhance value for the organization & customers. He has trained 1200 Executives in Six Sigma & mentored 3000+ executives on Six Sigma.
He is a strong stakeholder management skills gained over a course of time while working closely with global C Level stakeholders (CEO, COO, and CFO).
His Core competencies
- Supplier Quality
- Corporate Quality
- Process Excellence
- Program & Project Management
- Business Transformation & Benchmarking.
Education:
- MTech in Tool Engineering-First Rank & BE in Mechanical Engineering.
- Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt from Indian Statistical Institute.
- ISO 9001 QMS Lead Auditor from DNV GL.
- Global Career Counsellor from University of California, Los Angeles.
Mentor
Srini Bhavani–Founder & CEO, Simply-Logic Technologies & Focus You Strength Academy.
Helping people for more than ten years now, from all walks of life (Athletes, Students, Corporate Executives, Retirees), of all ages, male and female, to maintain a healthy, strong and fit lifestyle.
His program, “Fitness for Life, through Strength & Common-Sense Nutrition”, enhances overall health and fitness significantly, across all demographics and is one of the most effective training programs for people of all ages, sex and backgrounds.
With many people young and old getting affected by Pre-Diabetes and Diabetes, and with these numbers ever increasing in our country and all over the world, He conducts Seminars and Talks to get everyone aware of what Diabetes is all about. He showcases how simple lifestyle changes can get everyone to prevent this Disease and for those already affected, how to control this Disease and to prevent its Deadly Symptoms from happening.
Education:
- Msc Dietitics and Food Management, Indira Gandhi National open University
- MS Manufacturing Management, The University of Tolendo
- MBA-IT, Annamalai University
- Bsc, Mathematics, Loyola College
Mentor
Tarun Kishore-Helping startups and businesses to create their unique story in hyper competitive and cluttered markets
Tarun is consumer marketing professional with 18+ years of experience and proven record across different brands and product categories. He has a good mix of brand management, integrated marketing, and Media stints across different business life cycles and product categories. Currently working as a consultant with various businesses and early-stage start-ups.
Passionate about building sustainable, relevant, and profitable businesses and brands. Creating and implementing ROI driven marketing hypotheses and models drives him.
His core strengths lie in scaling brand and performance marketing across both offline and online platforms. He has deep interest in developing and executing content strategy through consumer insights, data led marketing measurement models and CRM strategy.
Having worked with and managed teams across different geographies, he has rich experience in working and scaling start-ups in a hyper competitive environment.
Currently spending time learning about Web3 and Blockchain, believes that it is going to be a game changer not only for businesses but for the overall ecosystem.
He is an avid runner and sports enthusiast with keen interest in art and music.
Education:
- BE, Mechanical, Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University.
- Business Administration- Marketing-PGDM- Institute for Technology & Management.
Mentor
Rajeev Hundekar-Entrepreneur , Business Coach , Gears & Powertrain Expert
A rich and satisfying journey of over 30 yrs of Entrepreneurship and industrial experience riding the natural sinusoidal performance curve of businesses with passion, grit and grace thereby contributing in creation of organizations as reliable supply/value chain to OE customers and also a good number of technicians, exemplary engineers & managers in gear industry.
A startup estd. in 2019 supported by UNIDO-REEEP (United Nations Industrial Development Organization – Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Partnership) to commercialize a couple of patented technologies & products delivering an immense socio-economic impact in terms of solving a couple of major problems, the globe at large and India in specific is faced with : Polluting Emissions from In-use(on road) vehicles, Fuel Consumption/Import Bills, Dilemma of implementation of Scrapping Policy of Old Vehicles, and Pre-mature deaths due to Air pollution.The seminal and founding genesis of the company has its roots to my stint in Germany where he designed and developed a New Gearing concept and also an Ultra-High Speed gearbox & its application for enhancement of performance of engines/vehicles solving the problems of fuel efficiency & polluting emissions.
He established a green field startup Mesh Trans Gears Pvt.Ltd in 1989 and by 1994 it became a preferred tier-1 supplier to all major Automotive OEMs in the country.
Education:
- MPEFB, Entrepreneurship, Aerospace Management-IIMB
- AeMBA, Aerospace Management- TBS Edcucation
- Innovative Product Development & Design Methods-IISC
- B.E- Mechanical- Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara college of Dharwad
Mentor
Neeraja Ganesh-Consultant
Neeraja is a consultant with “Aspire For Her”, where she mentors women aspiring to grow in their careers. She also conducts various training programs on leadership and behaviours. She switched her career to work in the space of gender diversity after a successful career in the Information Technology industry managing large teams, delivery of IT projects, Operational excellence and customer delight for large banking captives for 25 years.
Prior to Aspire For her, she served as the Director – Relationships at National Education Society of Karnataka. Her focus in that role was to work closely with the industry veterans to build the industry academia connect to ensure the curriculum of the institutions was relevant to the current and future industry needs. She has also headed the JobsForHer Foundation, which was setup to bridge the gender gaps in India, for a period of 18 months. In that role, she built a unique brand, numerous partnerships and a large community of women who experienced a variety of learning interventions through workshops, conferences, trainings and hands on projects.
She has been invited by various prestigious forums like Lean in, IEEE, PMI, TIE across the globe to deliver talks on a variety of topics. “Networking for Results” and “How to tell your Story” are two of her signature programmes. She is currently writing her first book titled “You Have Arrived: no glass ceilings, no broken rungs, no glass cliffs” which she believes will be a large influence on the readers especially to young girls and women in terms of navigating their life and career successfully. She has won multiple awards, most recent being the JobsForHer HerRising award in the “Women in Impact” category. She has also been featured as one of the 40 women who have traversed their life journeys from ordinary to extraordinary in the book Magical 40 @ 40.
Education:
- Advanced Diploma in Systems Management-NIIT.
- Sc-Career for Youth Bangalore.
Mentor
Avi Keswani- Director and Co-Founder CREO Valley Group of School including LISAA School of Design
Avi Keswani, under the umbrella of CREO Valley, she took charge of setting up LISAA School of Design Bangalore (Design Institute from France), CREO Valley School of Film and Television (Courses Certified by QAI, UK) and CREO Valley Productions & CREO Valley School of Creativity Design & Management.
After living in the United States for over 13 years Mrs. Avi Keswani took a plunge and decided to move back to India. With a vision to set international training standards in the country in the field of art, education, and to contribute to the society through the means of art and cinema.
Avi Keswani’s Awards:
- Avi Keswani was accorded with Nirbhaya Award in 2014 for the outstanding Service in the field of Art and Design. (Achievements Section)
- Avi Keswani is recipient of award at International Film Festival at Prayag Allahabad for Best Feature Film “A Daughters Dream” (Achievements)
- Avi Keswani was awarded “Bharat Gaurav Samman” for her work in the field of Education. (Achievements).
- Ms. Avi Keswani has also been invited as Motivational speaker cum Mentor at Reputed Institutions like IIM Bangalore, FICCI, She is proactive social worker in the field of girl child education and has spear headed several programs in the field of poverty alleviation through education.
Education:
- MBA from San Jose, California
- E in Computer Science from REC Bhopal
Mentor
Navneet Kalia- Inventor of alphaTUB
Navneet is Founder, CEO & Inventor of alphaTUB, a social engagement platform & tool for early literacy and languages development. Navneet is passionate about bringing positive change in Early Child Care and Education by fostering large scale parent-school & societal engagement.
The patented alphaTUB, is proudly a Product of India. Winner of various global awards, 2018 Design Excellence Award, 2018 ICT Startup Awards in India, Winner of the 2017 Edison Award for Innovation in New York, Red Herring Award in Manila and Los Angeles, Jury Finalist for CII Industrial Innovation Awards for 2016 and 2017 in India. alphaTUB is a Govt. of India recognized startup and its IP portfolio backed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Navneet has extensively lived in China, Vietnam & India. Prior to alphaTUB, he Founded iSMART Education in Vietnam & setup TCS in Vietnam and China. Navneet is well versed in early languages acquisition, early child education, patenting, research, academics, and technology with multiple related patents to his credit. He loves Hindi, Punjabi, English, Vietnamese & Chinese languages. Navneet is an active member of the CII National IP Committee in India & nominee by the Ministry of External Affairs to India Japan Business Leaders Forum.
Education:
- MBA from GNDU
Mentor
Madhusudhan Guni
A dynamic and result-oriented CTO and ITO Enterprise Deal Architect with over 18 years of sales and sales-support experience in designing innovative complex business solutions. Skilled in networking, enterprise hosting, cloud computing, information management and virtualization.
Competencies :
Leadership | Business Development | Multi Cloud Architect | Enterprise Architect | Sales/Pre-Sales | CTO | IT Strategy | Project Management | TOGAF | Business Analysis I Cloud Eco-Systems such as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
Mentor
Nandakumar-Founder, CTO -Gnarus Solutions
Nandakumar has over 26+ years of IT work-ex and a few years of work-ex in Electronics manufacturing.
Gnarus Solutions is a start-up with seasoned industry experts. Primarily catering to different businesses varying from water, digital services, content-data services & Business consulting-advisory.
Gnarus is a Case Study in IIM Text Book, for their “disruptive” platform offering waterSenz – digital water manager; Gnarus was the ONLY Tech Company from India to be part of German(Berlin) roadshow across 4 countries.
waterSenz was a “finalist” in Karnataka’s Elevate 100 startup contest and was a nominee in the category of “outstanding innovation using automation” at ISA-Bengaluru (International Society of Automation).
After repatriating to Bengaluru, he was Heading Technology at Wipro’s IoT & EcoEnergy Businesses. In his role, while creating Intellectual Property for Wipro, Nandakumar was also instrumental in building Global Partnerships with the likes of Microsoft, GE, IBM, etc.
He is also,
- -Chairman of Jury for Cleanwater domain with Smart India Hackathon-a Ministry of HRD initiative
- -Founding member of Cloud Computing Innovation Council of India – CCICI
- -Associated with NGOs like AIFT, AVOPA.
Above all, Nandakumar is yet to receive a Knighthood from British Empire to be addressed as ‘Sir’!!; until then he goes by ‘NK’ .
Education:
- Business Management, Executive Business Management Programme-Indo German Chamber of Commerce
- Masters in Computer applications-University of Madras
- Bsc-National College, Bangalore
Mentor
Praveen Gogia-Executive Director, India COO – Global Wholesale IT Group Transformation Office and Digital Company
Praveen has a professional career experience of over 30 years, working with Indian Global corporations (such as TCS, Zensar Europe), as well as Multinational Consulting and Technology organizations (such as Accenture). For the last 12 years, Praveen has been with Nomura India as an Executive Director, India COO for; i) Global Wholesale IT Division ii) Group Transformation Office and iii) Digital Company / FinTech Division. In addition, Praveen leads the Vendor Management Office for Nomura India and the Global Technology Business Management Shared Services function, which serves Global Wholesale IT Division as well as the Group Transformation Office.
Praveen has a diverse functional experience and expertise across IT Business Management, IT Finance, Financial Planning and Strategy, Cost Management and
Analytics, Business Operations excellence, Organisation Strategy (including Digital Business Strategy), Vendor Governance, Strategic Sourcing (Onshore, Offshore, Insourcing and Outsourcing), Client Relationship Management, Sales, Business development, Solution Architecture, Deal shaping etc. From an industry perspective, Praveen has a diverse industry experience across multiple industry verticals and businesses, albeit has a predominant exposure to Consulting, Banking and Financial Services organisations, in several leadership positions.
Praveen’s strengths include, Idea generation, Strategic Thinking, Operationalizing a strategy, Leadership / Talent development, Operational excellence, Financial Planning and Strategy, Cost Management and Analytics, Data analytics and Insight hunting for better decision making by the Business Executives, along with strong Program Management skills. He brings a strong ability to collaboratively ideate and execute new initiatives across a large organization. Examples: Digital Transformation, Cost Optimization programs, Business Process/Delivery Excellence programs etc.
Education:
- A Professional Certified Coach (PCC from ICF USA) and a Certified Corporate Director (Independent Director)
- PG Diploma in Cyber Law and Cyber Forensics-NLSIU Bangalore.
- PG Diploma in Digital Business-Columbia Business School & MIT Sloan
- AMP graduate- IIM Bangalore
- MBA-Newport University
- Electronics and Industrial Electronics engineer-University of Poona
Mentor
Kedar nath Choudhury-Group CFO at Stellapps Technologies
Kedar has been the financial and operational architect of success at high growth Start-up, Multinational organization while setting up shops in India, Multilocational global finance functions, running venture business and create Business value for VC firm.
Kedar in his illustrious career spanning over 25 years has served various Start up business backed by Large PE funds, Indian Industrial Houses, Multinational Corporations in IT/Telecom Service, Finance and Manufacturing Industry and has got diverse work experience in the area of Finance.
Currently he is the Group CFO in Stellapps Technologies which is backed by ABB , Qualcomm, Blume , Omnivore, Celesta, Nutreco, Bill Gates Foundation .Prior to that he was CFO In Klay Schools (Founding Years Learning) backed by Kaizen Private Equity , Peepul Capital AND CFO in Milk Mantra Dairy backed by Eight Roads ,Aavishkaar , Neev Fund .
He was Director in Board of AXISCADES Engineering Technologies Ltd (Listed in BSE/NSE) and he is an Audit committee, NRC and other committee member. He was Director-Finance in Aricent Technologies Holdings Limited and in the Board of Aricent Communication Private Limited. Prior to this he was leading Finance of a large IT Development center of Flextronics. He has served in TATA SSL Limited, Mumbai as head of Costing and Management Accounting group. Kedar has extensive work experience across the various industries with deeper knowledge on Fund raise , Listing compliance ,Controlling , M&A, Global Finance operations, Start up scaling up , FP&A, tax etc .
After graduating in B.Sc Physics Honors, He has become the member of the Institute of Chartered Accounts of India and Institute of Cost & Works Accountants of India.
Education:
- CWA-Institute of Cost and Work. Accountants of India.
- B.Sc Physics Honors.
Mentor
Javed Akkhtar-CEO- RewardPort, Founder-Travel Port Holidays / tripXOXO
Javed is a Strategic Marketing Specialist with a strong background in lifestyle services .Innovative and very strong in taking ideas to execution, Brand Building and niche product marketing.
Javed has been with tripXOXO by TravelPort Holidays for 21 years, which is Asia’s largest discovery and bookings platform for activities, experiences & things to do.
His Honours & Awards
- Excellence in Online Travel Booking Sites – B to C.
- 8th Star Retailer Awards, 2013
- Best Loyalty Program In Retail for Delhi Duty Free Program at The eRetail Summit.
- 5th Loyalty Awards – Young Innovative Loyalty firm of the year.
- Indian e Retail Awards 2012 Franchise India.
- Best in Travel Category’ & Excellence in Franchising & Business Development – Franchising Award 2008.
Education:
- Bachelors in Science- SIES Colleg
Mentor
Raj Narayan
A media and entertainment industry veteran who turned digital native when the world shifted two decades ago from the real to the virtual world. Hands-on experience in creating, managing and expanding marketing assets and teams from a digital-first point of view.
Raj Managed one of India’s top web portals on a content and monetization perspective while also working with brands to cut the clutter and be heard. As a Leadership Coach, he has helped startups align their leadership teams. Designed and ran workshops that helped create self-awareness and led to better communication skills and problem solving. He now works in the eCommerce space to help enhance ROI through the three spheres comprising communication community creation and commerce.
Raj is also part of a healthcare startup that deals with geriatric care and seeks to create a cadre of caregivers, who aren’t trained as nurses but more as companions.
Mentor
Rajesh Dubey-Founder/Director -Upside Cloud Technologies – IT Product & Services Company
Rajesh Having 25+ years of association with IT, computer software & applications and training. His focus has always been to build quality software-products, mobile apps and IT-services for his clients and end-users. Successfully established and managed IT/software development centers onsite/offshore in USA and India, with end-to-end software development life-cycle (SDLC) including consultation, system analysis, and implementation, testing, performance-tuning and training. Participated in ISO-Certification, Board Meetings, Business Planning, Budgeting, International-Business Management. Certified Sybase DBA 12.5.
Trainer – AA Certified Trainer for Automation Anywhere (RPA) 11.x, Azure Cloud, AWS Cloud, Sybase ASE,
Positions held: AVP-IT, VP-Practice, Director, Sr. Consultant, and Database Performance Consultant/expert. Has worked in various Sectors ie, IT/Software, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Real estate, e-Commerce.
Currently working towards: System consulting, Software Development, IT infra setup, Cloud Setup, Mobile apps, Digital Marketing, SEO/SMM, RPA, Cloud, IoT, Business consulting, Startup mentoring, Process consultant.
Education:
- MBA, from London School of Commerce (LSC), affiliated to Cardiff Metropolitan University (formerly University of Wales Institute), UK
- PG diploma in Computer Sc and Applications – PGDCA
- Graduation in science B.Sc
Mentor
Nellooli P Rajasekharan, CEO – Guru Management Consultants
Rajasekharan with 45 years of international director-level experience with fifteen years in financial services, ten years in oil and gas, ten years in Not- for profits and ten years as an international consultant. He has lived and worked in many countries and know several languages. Currently working as a consultant on several projects related to strategy, Governance, Organization Development, Change Management, Performance Management, and Leadership Development. Trainer and executive coach for corporates and a teacher and mentor for entrepreneurs. He is also a member of Mensa International.
His Publishings:
- Published a book on Competency Modeling: Competency Web – The Corporate DNA and several papers on: Governance, Strategic Staffing, OneStaff, Performance management etc.
- Published 6 Novels and over 40 short stories and 4 albums of my musical creations. Other interests: reading, Cricket, Chess, social media and traveling.
Education:
- Masters Degree-Human Resource Management- Loyola College of Social Science.
Mentor
Ninan Eapen Chundamannil-Venture Capital Startup Advisor/Consultant
Entrepreneur & investor exploring opportunities with ventures around technology. In a corporate career & experience of almost two and a half decades, have been in Consumer and Enterprise Sales, Marketing, Business Planning & Business Development experience in FMCG, Telecom, Media & Computer Technology platforms for large corporates in India and the APAC markets.
Has handled Strategic alliance programs – technical enabling, running marketing programs, design wins & developing ISVs – as well as been responsible for Enterprise account management – commissioned solution sales to key enterprise accounts involving complex sales through ecosystem & channel partners.
In earlier stints, Ninan had handled new sector analysis, new business development & setup, new product development portfolios & sales team management in Telecom, Media/Internet & FMCG verticals – as well as been an Executive Assistant to the CEO of a large corporate.
Education:
- MBA,Marketing & Finance-IIMB.
- B.com-St. Peter’s College.
Mentor
Vandana Suri-Founder- Taxshe
Vandana Suri IS an ex-investment banker turned cabbie. Founder of Taxshe, focusing on safe mobility solutions for women and kids.
Taxshe trains women from marginalised communities in professional driving skills, and these women in turn drive kids to schools and tuitions, women to offices and late night airport drives. Taxshe also runs Taxshe Break free where women train women to drive their own cars at their own pace,
Vandana is a World Bank Awardee for the impact she has created, she is also a Tedx speaker. A Woman of Steel, an absolute go getter, who wont take no for an answer.
Education:
- Intermediate, Commerce-ICAI
- B.com Commerce-RA Podar College of commerce
- Foundation, Commerce-ICAI
Mentor
Kaushik Banerjee- Ex Silicon Valley, Ex Wall Street, Innovator.
Kaushik has wide experience spanning across the globe from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. He held several global senior leadership positions at Oracle, Goldman Sachs, and Accenture. He has built organisations and businesses across continents.
He offers expertise to new/early stage & high growth businesses on Digital & Business strategies, Innovation & Disruption.
He is an entrepreneur and also works with the startup ecosystem, advising Venture Capitalists, Startup founders and Incubators.
Education:
- Pursued Venture Capital Certification program from VC University and University of Berkeley.
- He also has Design Thinking Innovation certification from MIT, USA.
- Professional Risk Manager from PRMIA institute
- Master degree in Computer Science from JNU, New Delhi,
- MBA from Leicester University UK.
- Physics graduate from St. Xavier’s college, Kolkata.
Mentor
- Domain agnostic Startup Mentor, Corporate Business Advisor
- 25 years in the corporate senior management roles
- BD, Marketing, Corporate Strategy, M&A, PR & Branding Pro
- Experience in IT, Healthcare, Education, Tourism, Aviation
- Well Networked Doer with acknowledged credentials
- Management Speaker, Social Influencer, Thought Leader, Talk-show Host
- Author, Columnist, Editor, Social Commentator, Voice Over, Startup/Hackathon Jury
Managing Director : Talendeate beyond Border P Ltd.
www.talendeate.in
Former Co-Founder & Managing Director : MTMC Medi-Info P Ltd.
Startup Mentor, National Pool Mentor for STPI, GoI in NGIS scheme, Business Advisor on the Board of established companies, Author (3rd book Road Signs -an Anthology of Essays, Foreword written by Mrs Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw), Editor, Columnist (YourStory), Management Speaker, mostly addressing students in various colleges and universities across India, including IIMs, Voice Over, PR, Branding & Communication Specialist, Social Commentator, Book Critic, Talk-show Host.
Over 25 years Corporate Experience in Sr. Management roles working for several private companies engaged in different businesses (IT, Aviation, Infrastructure, Water, Healthcare, Education, and Media & Entertainment). Extensively networked, invested in strong contacts and excellent relationship management.
Believing that humanity is the best religion, he’s a popular and respected go-to gentleman, in all eventualities by many people in any need and support as a social worker.
- CHARTER MEMBER of ROTARY E-CLUB of RI DISTRICT 3262
- Director Technology & Innovation India in Global Opportunity Commercialization Pty (GOC), Melbourne
- National Pool Mentor in NextGen Innovation Scheme (NGIS) by STPI, Gov of India
- Former National Director PRCI, Vice Chairman YCC and Editor Chanakya, L&D’s Ekakshara Journals, The Health Neuron Journal
- Thinking Beyond Border- Live Talk Show Host
- Nodal Person Bangalore MoParivar, Odisha Gov
- Trustee Santwana Seva Trust
- Core Member MTSN & CoAST civil societies for the support of migrants during pandemic
Mentor
Prerna Tandon-Senior Vice President – State Street Corporation
over 20 years of experience in the corporate sector in India with organizations such as Price Waterhouse, USAID, GE Capital, Infosys, ANZ Bank and State Street Corporation. She has held several senior level positions and has been part of start up teams (especially in the outsourcing/offshoring industry) and has been responsible for profitably growing the businesses that she has been part of.
Prerna has specifically been responsible for setting up, in addition to Knowledge Services practice at Infosys BPO, HR Outsourcing Services, one of the first separate HR Outsourcing units in India with global innovative services. Under her leadership the technology bundled SaaS offering was one of the first to be offered extensively to global clients. Prerna has keen appreciation of technology and how it can be applied in operations environment.
Prerna has championed Womens Networking groups in GE, Infosys, ANZ and State Street Corporation.
Prerna has been profiled in several publications including Business Today and Business India. She has been writing articles for some leading newspapers like Economic Times, Times of India in mid part of her career and leading industry magazines such as Global Services, Human Resource Executive Online, Payroll UK. Additionally, she has anchored some SHRM monthly forums.
She is member of think tanks like Aspen Institute, Bangalore International Center among others. Prerna is also a member of Lead Angels, an angel investor network. She is also a mentor for startups at NUMA, a French incubator. She runs Leora Trust (girl child empowerment through education), founding member of WOW (Women Orbiting Women – women entrepreneurship in rural areas) and Art Mantram in Bangalore. She is on the board of Cansupport.
Education:
- B.A(Eco Hons) & MBA Business Administration and Management General
Mentor
Karthik Mallipatna-Consultant
Accomplished Executive with Domestic and International experience of over 25 years in driving business strategy, establishing systems and operational efficiencies, driving efficient Client services organizations, managing P & L, setting up green field projects and entrepreneurial experience over last several years. Expertise in driving strategy and growth in retail and industrial sectors.
Expertise in building, developing and growing high performing and motivated teams.
He Provides services such as Business Consultancy Services in Francophone West Africa,Power Plant Management Solutions, Captive Powergen Solutions, Electromechanical Maintenance Solutions & HR Solutions.
Education:
- Bachelor of Technology, Mechanical Engineering
Mentor
Siddhartha P-Researcher at Business School
Siddhartha is a sales professional with over 2 decades of experience, few of years in a Unicorn, 5 yrs in e media. He also has 17 years of experience IT industry. He has been a sales leader for last 13 years.
Siddhartha works for NGO towards tribal welfare in Karnataka.
Education:
- Currently pursuing doctorate in marketing from Geneva Business School.
- PGs in Sales & marketing from AICTE & IIMC.
Mentor
Venkat Shyam BV-C.E.O – Signet Enterprises
Venkat is a Fourth Generation Automobile Engineer – all by Passion, Education, Training & Profession, Alumnus of IIM –Bangalore, With Entrepreneurship as key area of interests.
C.E.O – Signet Enterprises – Super distributors for Henkel Industrial, Kluber Lubricants, Wuerth India & 3M India ltd , Service Director – Auto Service – Multi brand, premium 2-Wheeler Service centre & Mentor & Jury member – Manthan’2022 – a FKCCI initiative.
He divides time Between Profession – Automobile & adjacent business, New product / Service Development, Training & Consulting in areas of Entrepreneurship, Business Growth, Writing of Auto Blogs for Auto Magazine, Mentoring Young Businesses, travelling – Riding, Driving & Photography.
He is a former Faculty, Evaluator & mentor for MPWE programs At NSRCEL, IIMB and is currently on Board of Various MSME’s & Non-Profit Organisations like FKCCI & KTWOTA
Education:
- MPEFB Entrepreneurship & Family Business- IIMB
Mentor
Aakarsh Naidu- Entrepreneur, Start-up Enabler, Metaverse, Web3
Founder of the UK based venture Startupreneur which was successfully acquired. He now leads one of Web3 fastest growing ventures – Signa X, focusing on building metaverse infrastructure for the next billion users. He has been in charge of one of India’s Top Startup Incubators – NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore and briefly led the Startup Programs for Facebook in India and South Asia before starting his venture.
Aakarsh is a Keynote Speaker on Startups, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation and has addressed over 50,000 participants globally. He has presented on platforms like London Tech Week, Global Entrepreneurship Summit, Asia Pacific Week, NITI Aayog (AIM), TiE Bangalore, Headstart, Nasscom, IIT-KGP, IIT-M, IIMB, XIMB, IEEE, Startup Asia Berlin, British Council, Total Group and Bosch.
Aakarsh has been on the advisory/jury panel of the Global Startup Awards, Small Enterprise Business Awards, Startup Karnataka’s Elevate 100 and also participated in the unveiling of the Startup India Action Plan in Delhi. He is a mentor at The Founder Institute, World Resources Institute (WRI), IB Hubs, and Catalyst for Women Entrepreneurs (CWE) and WE Hub, Govt. of Telangana.
He has been covered in various national and international media outlets like Financial Times, International Finance, Business Standard, ANI, Business Because, Les Echos France, The Good Life France, Small Enterprise Magazine, Bangalore Mirror, Times of India, Hindu Business Line, Silicon India, Business Graduates Association and Berlin Senate’s Newsletter.
He has more recently written, sung and performed The Startup Song and also features in the Startupreneur Podcast Series on Spotify and Apple.
Education:
- Deputy Headboy and Gold Medalist in academics at the Hyderabad Public School.
- Msc- The Landon School of Economics and Political Science
- BBA-Christ University.
Mentor
Darshan M- Serial Entrepreneur, Mentor, Innovation Consultant, Futurist & Author
With over 22 years’ experience in Indian Sub-continent he comes with key insights into the world’s most exciting markets. As a recognised leader in his domain he is regularly invited to speaking and consulting assignments.
Darshan is an IP specialist, and can build intellectual properties across service, and product industries. He specialise in brand marketing and an expert across, sports, media and entertainment. He is Passionate about NFTs.
Darshan M is credited with many firsts including creating the world’s first midnight marathon BANGALORE MIDNIGHT MARATHON, India’s first Community Television Channel – CHANNEL COORG, the IPL of Motorsport ‘i1 Super Series’ etc.
Darshan has been selected as one of the top 20 future business leaders of India by the prestigious business magazine BUSINESS TODAY.
Mentor
Dhanya Sugathan- CEO at Artizenery, Director at Navigator Sourcing Services India.
A Fashion Designer from NIFT; she started her career in 1998 – working for a domestic brand where she designed and launched a brand of Indian clothes. Followed by merchandising and R&D at Ambattur Clothing Limited, Chennai. In 2002, she moved to Bangalore and joined Tesco (a UK based Supermarket chain) for sourcing of garments from India, Bangladesh and Srilanka.
In Oct 2006; she co-founded ‘Navigator Sourcing Services India Pvt. Ltd’. Navigator is an apparel, home furnishings and accessories sourcing company head quartered in Bangalore. Currently sourcing from India, Bangladesh and Srilanka and supplying products to retailers and brands across the globe.
In 2021 she founded ‘Artizenery Private Limited’ a B2B design studio and exporter of sustainable, hand crafted artisan clothing, home textiles and lifestyle products.
Dhanya’s vision is for Artizenery is to create a niche for craft in the fashion industry and increase opportunities for India artisans to work with the global international space . To hone her business skills Dhanya completed Management program for Family Businesses and Entrepreneurs from IIM Bangalore and is also alumni of 10k program for women in business by Goldman Sachs at IIM Bangalore.
Specialization: Marketing& Business Development, Design , R&D, Management.
Education:
- Reimagining Business-Indian School of Business
- Program for WomeN Entrepreneurs-IIM
- Mpefb-IIM
- Fashion Design, Fashion/ Apparel Design- NIFT
Mentor
Sunny Badalera – Technology Consultant
Sunny is a Technology Consultant since 1997 with experience in roles ranging from Customer Service Engineer, Business Analyst, and Project Management, working for top Canadian companies. Expertise in large projects and technical integration, transitioning from legacy, and hybrid to pure cloud solutions.
Expertise in Project Management, Business Problem Analysis, Business Analysis,Infrastructure Support, Cloud Architecture, Application Support, Vendor Management, ITIL, Agile Jira & Confluence, Trello KanBan.
Experienced IT Solutions Architect – Project Management – Office 365 and Teams Deployment and Training, Business solution moving from on-premise to Cloud – Azure, AWS and Google.
Mentor
Geeta Gupta
Geeta is a highly effective CFO with 20+ years of experience, skilled in leadership and finance with standout experience across both sides of the Table.
At IIITD-IC, she has helped 25+ startups in their Business planning in terms of finance, raising funding, valuations and compliances. At Arganshe, led the unit as a Business Leader bringing profitability in both online and offline sales segment in 6 months
Geeta is a CA professional with over 20 years of successful career with diverse roles distinguished by commended performance in steering Finance & Accounts Function across industries such as Infrastructure, Hospitality, Construction, Retail, Telecom, Retail, Steel, Paper, Cement, Glass, Banks, Chewing, Food, Auto & Service, Not for profit organizations She is obsessed to connect Finance , Business and Innovation to get breakthrough results with association like IIITD Innovation & Incubation Center and Action Aid India.
Education:
- CA, ICAI
- PGDBM, IMT Ghaziabad
- B.com, BR Ambedkar university.
Mentor
Anjali Sharma- Founder, chhotabaccha , CALICO TRIBE ,FRENCHCURVE
Anjali is an entrepreneur and has a three decade demonstrated work history in garment trade. Her first venture FRENCH CURVE rose to be a leading artisanal label in the country. Her second venture CHHOTABACCHA is about functioning with home makers and women, decentralizing work and redefining Profit with stakeholders.CALICO TRIBE CLOTHING LLP is her third Garment related venture and focuses on the purpose, meaning and balancing the ecosystem with responsible work ethics.
She is a Covid Warrier 2020, Top 100 Women Transforming India 2019, Enterprising Women Entrepreneur awardee, E WOMEN USA 2019, Industry Disruptor 2019, DO School Berlin,Cherie Blair Foundation Mentee 2018.
Education:
Diploma in Fashion Design, Apparel Design- NIFT.
Mentor
Prashanth Kochuveetil Cheria -Associate Professor and the Regional Industry Coordinator of NIFT Bengaluru.
He is associated with NIFT Bengaluru from 2009 .In the past one decade he has held various academic coordinator positions at the campus like Cluster Initiative Coordinator, Project Unit Coordinator, and Course Coordinator.
Prashanth is intrigued by the range of human invention, the variety of ways of life and thought. Growing up in a multi-cultural and multi lingual region has given him an immersive experience of assimilation of religions, literatures, and customs fromaround the world. He firmly believes in “teacher as farmer” creating the conditions of optimal growth by providing nutrients and judicious pruning and weeding.
As a keen generational observer, he has conceptualized and executed retail spacedesigned around the consumer experience and brand identity for marquee retailers in India like Future Group, Aditya Birla Nuvo and Deccan Chronicle holdings limited.
Design Strategist who creates the space/product around a brand/person keeping in mind the trends & ergonomics with extensive experience in recruitment, training & development of workforce with ability to work in multi-cultural environment.
Education:
- Bachelor’s Degree, Interior Design-SSC Interior Design
- PG, Fashion Management, Retail Marketing & Merchandising Management
- Phil. Management- Christ University.
Nija Venture Impacts is a Distributed Economy ( Nija Model ) Venture, creating wealth and shared value with all stakeholders.
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