The highly sought-after INK Conference is journeying to Goa in September this year. Following its inception in 2010, it has become one of India's premier networking and conference experiences.
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The INK Conference attracts a number of the world’s visionaries – CEOs, entrepreneurs, artists, technologists, and scientists, amongst others– who find themselves participating in a 3-day immersive experience, specially tailored to foster cross-disciplinary interaction.
Over 70 remarkable speakers will share their stories and perspectives in a crisp 3-18 minute talk, spread across a number of themed sessions. The 500+ attendees who join us are equally remarkable individuals and active influencers in their respective fields. Curated interactions, experience zones, musical performances and themed gala dinners make the conference an unforgettable experience each year.
Join us for INK2016, September 16-18, 2016 at the Grand Hyatt in Goa.
The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI), is a Government of India initiative that aims to catalyze India’s developmental process; creating an enabling environment through partnerships, think tanks and information sharing through cooperative federalism.
Amitabh is a member of the Indian Administrative Service and is the author of “Branding India – An Incredible Story” and has been a key driver of the famous “Make in India”, “Startup India”, “Incredible India” and “God’s Own Country” campaigns that aim to position India as a leading manufacturing and tourism hub. These initiatives have garnered significant interest and acclaim internationally and have produced developments in infrastructure, boosted manufacturing and lead to key public-private partnerships in the country
Ananth Menon is a guitarist and singer from Bangalore, India. Ananth has been active in the blues and rock scene for the last 16 years and is one of Bangalore’s most recognisable voices today.
It was the release of Eric Clapton’s Grammy winning Unplugged album that changed Ananth’s life – from Clapton, he quickly discovered the hallowed world of delta blues and from then on there was no looking back. Ananth started his journey into music as a bass player for Bangalore’s oldest surviving blues band, the Chronic Blues Circus. He went on to play the guitar in one of Bangalore’s most infamous rock bands, the Galeej Gurus. Ananth also played in a short-lived, but critically acclaimed rock band Parachute XVI, releasing a four song track.
Ananth’s latest project is By2 Blues in collaboration with Vasudev Prabhu. After performing as a duo for four years, they were joined by Joe Anthony on the cajon. The addition of the cajon supercharged the duo’s already energetic sound, and the trio are working towards their first official music and video releases, launching at the end of this year.
Anil Menon is global president of Cisco Smart+Connected Communities; helping cities become more efficient and sustainable. It provides solutions for urban services and data sharing challenges in communities, cities and even entire nations worldwide through digital transformation of infrastructure, data, and services.
Anil orchestrates vision, strategy, partnerships, and investments. He drives solutions development—for street lighting, parking, and traffic management; water and waste management; citizen engagement, safety and security and more—and provides executive-level sponsorship for the Cisco Country Transformation Acceleration initiative in France, India, Indonesia, Israel, Russia, South Korea, and the UAE
Anubhav currently serves as the Chief Design Officer, Business Head Vikhroli and Head of CSR and Sustainability at Godrej Properties Limited. It is one of India’ s fastest growing developers with over 120 million square feet under development in 12 cities across 50 projects in India.
In this capacity Anubhav heads Design Strategy across the portfolio for the company alongside his PNL role overseeing the development for Godrej’s own land holdings at Vikhroli, in Mumbai
Bala is based in Mumbai and responsible for creating and building the NEA India platform. She serves on the board of several NEA portfolio companies such as Financial Software and Services, GOQii Inc, Nova Medical, IndiaWorld Technologies, Panacea Medical, etc.
Prior to this, she was Senior Director of Investments at ICICI Venture where she used her operational experience to identify opportunities for investment and to play a key role in shaping the future of investee companies. During her tenure at ICICI Venture, she was a Director on the Boards of several companies including Future Retail, Nagarjuna Construction, TechProcess Solutions, Info Edge amongst others, and continues to serve on the board of Future Retail and Info Edge as Independent Director.
Bala’s private equity experience has seen the full cycle from nurturing young companies to executing multiple exits, including IPO’s, buy-backs, strategic sales, and capital market divestments.
Abhijit is CEO and Co-Founder of Ezetap, which was started in 2011 to help merchants leapfrog India’s cash economy by using mobile solutions built on next generation web technology. The Ezetap platform allows merchants to become a banking service point and accept any type of electronic payment through a mobile handset or tablet. Abhijit has over 20 years of experience in building and launching mobile and software products, and Ezetap is the third mobile product he has launched in India. Previous experience includes leadership positions at ngpay (acquired by Flipkart) and Siebel Systems. Abhijit has a BS in Engineering from Cornell University and MBA from Harvard Business School.
Adam Sadowsky is Creative Director and founder of Syyn Labs, an award-winning art & engineering production company that specializes in unexpected and jaw-dropping kinetic installations for ads, viral videos, commercial spaces, events, and whenever the mood strikes. Clients include Google, Red Bull, Target, Allstate, Sears, ESPN, Ford, Chevy, and Willy Wonka.
Trained as a filmmaker, but with an engineering background, Adam is responsible for designing the machine and co-directing the music video for OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass”, designing and directing the “Athlete Machine” video for Red Bull, and bungee jumping a car off a 35 meter tower for a live commercial for Chevy that ran during the 2012 Superbowl
Dr. Meadows is the Director of i2i – the Innovation & Insights Center at SP Jain School of Global Management, a Forbes Top-20 International Business School. She holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and was a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Certified Management Accountant (CMA).
Dr. Meadows has over 20 years’ experience in Asia, Europe, and North America as an entrepreneur, dot-com builder & innovation lab co-founder, and Accenture IT & business strategy consultant. She has designed and delivered executive education programmes individually and in conjunction with top business schools like INSEAD, AIM, NUS, and SMU
Christopher Kirchhoff was appointed by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to lead the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Office, Defense Innovation Unit X (DIUx), as one of four partners overseeing the Defense Department’s nation-wide investment portfolio harnessing emerging commercial technology for national security innovation. Christopher along with his team will steer nearly $100M of R&D co-investment funds and run offices in Boston and Silicon Valley scouting for technology that can be integrated into military systems. Chris previously worked as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He investigated and documented the space shuttle Columbia’s accident report and co-authored the historical U.S. Government paper titled Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience, that was coined “The Iraq Pentagon Papers” by the New York Times.
Crystal Rose is an entrepreneur and technologist based in Los Angeles, California. She has founded a digital interactive agency and co-founded two technology startups. Crystal is currently co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Sensay, an interactive platform that lets you message strangers around the world about anything. Crystal is also founder and Director of the LA Startup Week, a 5-day series of events celebrating entrepreneurs and startups in Los Angeles. Crystal was previously involved in the Code for America Brigade in Los Angeles (Code for LA) supporting open government and civic hacking for the Mayor’s Office.
Dale Fox is CEO of Tribogenics where he leads a team that is revolutionizing X-ray technology across a $20B market space encompassing major industries such as recycling, mining, military, medical imaging, and security. Tribogenics has developed a technology that eliminates the need for high voltage, allowing miniature, low-cost X-ray sources to drive products and solutions. Tribogenics technology is venture-backed by prominent investors, including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.
Dali Schonfelder is 15 years old and attends the Green School in Bali, Indonesia. She loves design and fashion and started her own fashion label when she was just 13. Her label is called Nalu. Nalu is not your ordinary label – it provides school uniforms to children who require them to remain in school, with the profits generated from sales. Dali also enjoys travelling to remote parts of the world and immersing herself in new cultures.
Finn Schonfelder is 12 years old and also attends the Green School in Bali, Indonesia. He co-founded Nalu in 2014 with his older sister Dali. Nalu is a fashion label with a twist because they are in the business of giving. Finn’s mission with Nalu is to provide school uniforms to children so they can stay in school.
David Rowan is editor-in-chief of WIRED’s UK edition. He’s taken 120 flights in the past year to investigate the companies and entrepreneurs changing our world, recently spending time with the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Xiaomi, Nest, Twitter and countless other disruptive startups from Tel Aviv to Shenzhen. His recent keynote talks have included events for banks, governments and Fortune 100 companies, and recent stage interviews have ranged from will.i.am to James Murdoch and David Cameron. David has been a columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Guardian. At WIRED he has extended the brand into conferences, apps, and a consulting business. He is co-founder of FlowJourneys.com, taking amazing people for weekend adventures in the world’s most extraordinary locations. And he is still searching for the future.
Gaurav Hinduja co-founded Capital Float, an online lending platform, in 2013. Under his direction, the company has grown to become the largest digital lender in India. As the Managing Director of Capital Float, he continues to drive leadership in the Fintech space through numerous strategic partnerships with industry leaders in the e-commerce, travel, hospitality and trade segments.
Gaurav has played a key part in Capital Float’s evolution of becoming the leading digital marketplace for SME lending. He was the COO of Gokuldas Exports and possesses immense experience in operations and complex supply chain management. Gaurav holds an MBA from Stanford University and graduated from Christ University in Bangalore with a distinction in commerce.
Before co-founding Ethcore, Gavin was the CTO and co-founder of the Ethereum Project. He is the co-designer of the Ethereum Protocol, the lead programmer on the C++ Ethereum software client, and was the project chief of the IDE, Solidity programming language, and the Swarm and Whisper protocols. He has pushed the state-of-the-art in video analysis tools and programming languages, as well as co-founding several technology start-ups. Gavin has given seminars and presented to numerous audiences around the world from keynotes at regional technology conferences to musings on the future of legal systems. He coined the terms ‘web three’ and ‘alegality’.
Heather Blair is 17 years old and a recent graduate of The Green School in Bali, Indonesia. She lives between Canada, California, Bali and the Caribbean. Having studied musical theatre, acting and improv since she was five, Heather has taken these skills and put them towards speaking about sexual assault.
She prides herself on being a human rights activist, actress, screenwriter and feminist. Her objectives going forward include completing a short film and attending University in New York. She is plant based, enjoys football, film, fashion, photography and Krav Maga.
Jill Sobule is a Denver-born, critically acclaimed, singer-writer with over 11 albums and over two decades of recording and performing. 1995’s Jill Sobule proved a major popular breakthrough and included the hit singles “Supermodel” (featured in Clueless) and the original, “I Kissed A Girl”.
Considered a pioneer in the crowdsourcing revolution, Jill remains a prolific, and diverse, writer and performer today. Jill has recently collaborated on a re-imagining of the 1970 Broadway play “Yentl” as well as on the original musical, “Times Square”. In addition, Sobule is a vocal political force, contributing songs, essays, and poetry to NPR, The Huffington Post, and more, while regularly performing at TED conferences, house concerts, and charity events across the country, including a recent series of concerts for inmates imprisoned across the country. Her latest project is “My Song Is My Weapon” – an online platform for artists and musicians to showcase their more socially conscious and political work.
Kalyan Varma is a wildlife photographer and filmmaker specializing in environmental issues in India. He is a freelancer with many of the world’s leading magazines and channels like National Geographic and BBC.
He has co-founded India Nature Watch, the largest online community of wildlife photographers, and also shares his knowledge of photography and wildlife with people in various platforms.
Kalyan is a BBC earth explorer, and freelances with BBC Natural History unit and National Geographic Channel. His work has appeared in many publications worldwide, including National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, GEO, Smithsonian, Lonely Planet and other magazines.
WEBSITE: Kalyan Varma Photography
BBC DOCUMENTARIES: Mountain of the Monsoons, Million Snake Bites
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTARIES: Secrets of Wild India
Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara has excavated some of the largest dinosaurs ever, including the infamous Dreadnoughtus, which weighs 65 tons and is one of the largest known land animals! Kenneth’s discovery of Dreadnoughtus in September 2014 made international headlines, and is the most complete skeleton of any super-huge dinosaur. When he’s not digging-up fossils from far corners of the planet, Kenneth works on integrating new technology such as 3D printing, robotics to the study of paleontology.
Kenneth is founding dean of the School of Earth and Environment and Professor of Paleontology at Rowan University. He also serves as founding director of the Rowan Fossil Park. In total, Kenneth has co-authored descriptions of three new species of dinosaurs – the Dreadnoughtus schrani, a gigantic titanosaur from Patagonia; Paralititan stromeri, a 95 million year old, 40-ton plant-eating dinosaur from Egypt; and Suzhousaurus megatherioides, a 110 million year old feathered, plant-eating dinosaur from China
Kumar, often referred to as the “Guru of Indian cuisine” in Sydney’s dining circles, is recognised for popularizing authentic Indian food in Australia through his restaurants named after his sons, Abhi’s and Aki’s.
In 1994, Les Luxford, a food critic from The Sydney Morning Herald stumbled upon Abhi’s, and published a highly positive review with the headline, ‘The Search is Over’. Abhi’s became an overnight success and in Kumar’s own words, ‘there were queues down the street’. Kumar’s restaurants serve desi food with a modern interpretation, making good use of fresh seafood and other local produce available in Australia.
Kumar is a popular media personality and has appeared in MasterChef Australia as a guest chef to cook a South Indian dish – Eral Vendakkai Kuzhambu (Prawn Okra Curry)
Kunal Shah graduated with a degree in Philosophy from Mumbai and briefly studied towards an MBA before dropping out to become an entrepreneur.
Kunal’s first startup was Paisaback, which provided cash back promotions for organised retailers. He then founded FreeCharge in 2010 alongside Sandeep Tandon, after observing the potential of online recharges in an emerging market. In April 2015, FreeCharge was acquired by Snapdeal for an estimated amount of $400 million. Kunal remains on the board as Chairman of FreeCharge
Dr. Luis Dias is a physician, musician, and founder of Child’s Play India Foundation, a charity which works to bring classical music to underprivileged children in India. Child’s Play india Foundation is inspired by El Sistema, a Venezuelan initiative that promotes the collective practice of music and music education as a means of social change and empowerment. The creation of Child’s Play India Foundation was triggered by the stupendous performances of two orchestras, both made up of underprivileged youth from separate corners of the globe, at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2007.
Luis has been in the medical profession for two decades, spanning the UK and India. He has performed in many orchestras, ensembles and chamber groups, including the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra in London and the Bombay Chamber Orchestra.
Untold story
Luis’ house was once a Mint. However, thorough searches by him have not yielded any hidden cache of coins (yet).
Website: www.childsplayindia.org
Madan Padaki is co-founder and CEO, RubanBridge, a last-mile services platform for Rural India; Co-founder & Director of Sylvant Advisors, an education advisory & investments entity and Co-founder & Trustee of Head Held High Foundation, a social organisation for eradicating rural poverty where he leads the Global Action on Poverty (GAP) Initiative. He is also co-founder & former CEO of MeritTrac Services, one of India’s largest Skills assessment company; acquired by Manipal Global Education. In 2011, Madan was conferred The Young Education Leader Award by the EDGE Forum – a forum of leading educationists and educational institutions in India.
Madan also serves as a Senior Advisor to Tata Trusts, is on the Governing Council of TiE Bangalore and is a Founding Partner of Social Venture Partners, Bangalore.
Meenakshi, is a 75 year old Kalaripayattu professional. Kalaripayattu, is one of the oldest forms of martial arts, originating from Kerala, India.
Meenakshi feels Kalaripayattu strenghthens not only your body, but your mind as well, and is extremely useful for women in situations of danger. She feels blessed to have a family who are supportive of her practice
Narayana came up with the idea of edible cutlery, which he supplies through Bakeys Food. He holds bachelor of science degree in Chemistry from Osmania University and an MBA from IIFM-Bhopal.
Narayana is the founder and Managing Director of Bakeys Foods Private Limited – he develops innovative solutions to environmental problems, manages operations and is building a team that shares his goals and vision for the company.
He went into the edible cutlery business to create a sustainable business that is great for the environment and is eager to disprove the convention that environmentally-friendly products are non-profitable.
Ravi Venkatesan is Chairman of the Board at Bank of Baroda. He is also the founder Chairman of Social Venture Partners India, a partner at Unitus Seed Fund and a fund advisor at Kalaari Capital. Ravi serves on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation, Infosys Ltd and several advisory Boards. He authored Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere which was published by the Harvard Business Review.
Prior to this, as Chairman of Microsoft India between 2004 and 2011, Ravi helped build India into Microsoft’s second-largest presence in the world. He was instrumental in creating Microsoft India’s Project Shiksha, a computer literacy program which has so far trained over 40 million school children in India
Ricky’s Grammy award winning album Winds of Samsara is based on the ideals of peace set by Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. He was also a featured musician on a Grammy Winning album and 2 Grammy Nominated albums at the 2015 Grammy Awards.
Ricky composed and produced the album Shanti Samsara which was launched by Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and French President, Francois Hollande in the presence of World Leaders at the United Nations COP21 Paris Summit. He went on to perform music from this album at the United Nations General Assembly, NY, in addition to other venues worldwide.
His repertoire of work consists of 15 studio albums released internationally, over 3,000 commercials and 3 feature films. Ricky scored music for the opening ceremony of the Cricket World Cup 2011, held in Dhaka-Bangladesh. Apart from his music Ricky is a conservationist, animal rights activist and an Ambassador for Save the Children (UK).
Ritesh is the founder & CEO of OYO, India’s largest branded network of hotels. 22-year-old Ritesh started travelling across India when he was 17 and realized that the lack of predictable and affordable hotels was plaguing the Indian hospitality sector.
He started his entrepreneurial journey with Oravel Stays, a platform for listing budget accommodations. In 2013, Oravel transformed to OYO – a managed marketplace for standardized hotels, now present across 200 cities with over 70,000 rooms.
Ritesh is the first Asian-resident Thiel Fellow and has also been listed as a Forbes ’30 under 30′ achiever, in the consumer technology category
Rohini Nilekani is the Founder-Chairperson of Arghyam, a Foundation she set up with a private endowment to work on water and sanitation issues in India. She is also founder of Pratham Books, a charitable trust which seeks to put “a book in every child’s hand”.
An ex-journalist, author and philanthropist, Rohini has been deeply involved with development issues and sits on the Boards of several non-profits, such as ATREE (the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment) and Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services. Rohini is author of the novel ‘Stillborn’ and also a non-fictional account of dialogues she moderated between social and corporate leaders called, ‘Uncommon Ground’.
Samim is an international cyclist and the first Indian to qualify and compete in Race Across America – a 5000 kilometer race that spans across 12 days.
He believes all Indians need to bike more, to help with the growing amounts of pollution in the country. Some of Samim’s other adventures include riding his bike 600 kilometers from Ooty to Bangalore and back in 27 hours.
Samim previously worked as an engineer in Mumbai and a perfumer, but quit his jobs to pursue his love for cycling.
Sanjeev graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and then proceeded to set up Info Edge (India), which is the parent company of the job portal Naukri.com.
In 1997, Sanjeev founded Naukri.com on a server in the United States and later Quadrangle, an offline executive search business. Naukri is the one of the most frequented and largest job portals in India.
Sanjeev is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship at conferences and at business schools. He is a Board Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs in Delhi and also a member of the Global Board of Trustees of The Indus Entrepreneurs. He was awarded the “Ernst and Young – Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 2008 for Business Transformation.
Sekou is an elementary schoolteacher turned actor, musician, national poetry slam champion, entrepreneur, and now award-winning Poetic Voice. aAny given day may now find him presenting an original talk for international marketing executives, giving a keynote speech at a leadership conference, or performing pieces for Barack Obama in Oprah’s backyard.
Sekou’s work has been featured on media outlets such as ABC World News, MSNBC, HBO, Good Morning America, Showtime, MTV and BET, and he has performed privately for prominent individuals such as Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Larry King, Hillary Clinton, Norman Lear, Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, and Coretta Scott King and family. He does more than inspire us with his story; he inspires us with our story
Shradha Sharma is founder and CEO of YourStory, India’s biggest and most popular media platform for stories of entrepreneurs and change-makers. Shradha lives her life in stories and believes that every story is unique and every story matters.
She started YourStory in 2008, when the word ‘startup’ wasn’t conventional. Most people thought YourStory was a hobby or a blog and not a serious business idea. Shradha proved them wrong – YourStory is now India’s biggest media tech platform, having published over 37,000 stories of entrepreneurs and change-makers, not only in English, but also in 12 Indian languages.
Shradha has won several awards as an entrepreneur and continues to inspire and motivate people with every story she narrates
Goan singer Sonia Shirsat is rated as one of the best Fadistas in India of all time. She has been singing professionally for the last 10 years, and has performed in Goa, Luxembourg, Macau, Kuwait, France, Hawaii -and all over the world, really. Sonia has sung and performed in 13 languages and in 2010, released her debut album, Saudades de Fado; recorded in Lisbon
Subodh Kerkar was born in a small picturesque village of Keri on the northern border of Goa in 1959, just 2 years before the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese rule.
He spent his childhood, walking on the beaches with his artist father, Chandrakant Kerkar. These walks consolidated his relationship with his father and with the ocean.
Subodh qualified as a doctor, ran a hospital for 7 years before giving it up to pursue his passion, Visual Arts.
Subodh Kerar’s installations are heavily washed by the ocean, both literally and metaphorically. He creates his ephemeral installations using thousands of mussel shells, coconut shells, recycled tyres, boats, bamboos, fishermen and sand.
The ocean is both inside and outside his works, his master and his muse.
Dr. Subodh creates large works on the seashore, which are often infused with politics and history.
Dr. Subodh is the Founding Director of the Museum of Goa (MOG) and has exhibited widely in India and abroad in galleries and in museums.
Sunil Rao joined Lightspeed India Partners Advisors LLP (LSIP) in 2016 as a Partner (Business Services) and is focused on providing a broad range of business development, recruiting and value-add services to the Lightspeed India portfolio companies.
Prior to LSIP, Sunil worked at Google India, where he led Strategic Partner Development, Developer Relations and Outreach Programs for Emerging Markets in India. He was instrumental in rolling out several highly successful mentorship programs, including “Launchpad” for early stage startups and “Google Accelerator” for mid-stage startups. Sunil also set up the Google Sandhill program in India, parntering with leading venture capital firms to work closely with high-potental startups and provide early access to technology, business connects and global insights.
In 2006, Sunil was part of the early team that established Symbian in India and later headed to Nokia Developer ecosystem. For these efforts Sunil was awareded the NASSCOM Product Ecosystem Enabler of the Year in 2009
Sunitha Krishnan, Founder and Director of Prajwala, or “an eternal flame”, is an eminent anti-trafficking activist internationally known for her fight against girl child trafficking for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. A mental health professional, she has done extensive research and is essentially a field practitioner. Prajwala runs 17 schools throughout Andhra Pradesh, India, for 6,000 children and has rescued more than 4,200 women from prostitution, 2,100 of whom Krishnan personally liberated.
Sunitha has sparked India’s anti-trafficking movement by coordinating government, corporations and NGOs. She forged NGO-corporate partnerships with various companies to find jobs for rehabilitated women. Krishnan works closely with the Indian government to define anti-trafficking policy, and her recommendations for rehabilitating sex victims have been passed into state legislations
Swetha is a singer, dancer and whistler who secured first place at the World Whistling Competitions, held in Tokyo, Japan. In 2014, Swetha entered the Asia Book of Records, India Book of Records and the Tamilnadu Book of Records, for whistling 197 songs in 18 hours, starting at 4.52am and ending at 10.52pm
The Muthoot Pappachan Group (MPG) is one of the leading family promoted corporate houses in South India with a total business turnover of Rs. 20,000 crores and a loyal business base of over one million. The multifarious economic activities of the MPG include Retail Banking & Financial Services, Power Generation, Hospitality, Real Estate and Health Care. Thomas John Muthoot was awarded the “Business Man of the Year” title by the Chamber of Commerce in 2009
