Advait is the co-founder & Managing Partner at Supari Studios. In late 2012, at the age of 26, Advait quit his job as an investment analyst at a VC firm to join hands with his younger brother Akshat to pursue opportunities in the emerging digital content space and set up Supari Studios. With a strong focus on online video, Supari has developed a body of work that ranges from interactive video content to immersive virtual reality experiences. Advait is currently focussed on growing the company’s capabilities across three primary functions – original content, branded online video and new media technology.
Ankit is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Leap Skills. He is the driving force behind the innovation and technology based approach at Leap. As an impact oriented skill-development organisation, Leap mentors’ train and provide employment opportunities to students, unemployed youth and existing workforce through technology and classroom training. Over the last 4 years, Leap has trained over 6000 learners across 11 states in India through various programs and workshops.
An alumnus of The Doon School and College of Business Studies, Delhi University. He brings with him significant start-up experience at organisations like Zomato, Happily Unmarried and has worked as a part of the Risk Advisory practice at Ernst & Young India. He is also the youth representative for Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Program, a youth focused recognition program for students from across the world. He has represented India at several award councils both domestically and internationally.
Devi Murthy returned to India to work on her family business of sheet metal fabrications after graduation from Drexel University in 2008. She led product development and the business development teams selling to the likes of Ashok Leyland, with over 200 products under her belt over a stint of 4 years. The desire to build a company that impacts the bottom of the pyramid by creating value was sparked during an entrepreneurship program at IIM Bangalore.
She noticed a huge need for affordable precision farm machinery during trips across Karnataka. Insights derived from multiple conversations with farmers and understanding their concerns in mechanization motivated her to use her metal working background and create working solutions relevant to small and marginal farmers and her brainchild Kamal Kisan was born in 2013.
Dia Mehta Bhupal originally from Mumbai, now works and practices in Hyderabad, India. Educated at The Parsons School of Design in New York, she holds a BFA in Photography. Prior to enrolling at Parsons, Dia completed her foundation studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. During her time at both Parsons and St. Martins, Dia has focused extensively on photography, with a particular emphasis on redefining everyday images as commonly interpreted by society. Dia creates fine art photography, primarily working with the constructed image.
Dr. Kalyan Veeramachaneni is a Principal Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Information and Decision System (LIDS) at MIT. He directs a research group called Data to AI in the new MIT Institute for Data Systems and Society(IDSS). Kalyan believes that artifical intelligence and machine learning can have a powerful impact in a variety of societal arenas, from education and public health to transportation and e-commerce. His group aims to solve the foundational issues currently preventing these techniques from reaching their full potential, and their recent work focuses on making human interactions with data seamless and efficient.
Kalyan has published over 60 papers, 3 of which have won best paper awards at international conferences. His work on AI-driven solutions for data science and cybersecurity has been covered by major media outlets, including the Washington Post, CBS News, Wired, Forbes and Newsweek.
Kalyan has also co-founded two startups: Feature Labs and PatternEx. Feature Labs helps organizations transform their raw, noisy data into intelligent representations using data science automation tools. PatternX is a cybersecurity company, focused on developing the first active learning-based solution for identifying new and constantly evolving security threats. He received his Masters in Computer Engineering and Ph.D in Electrical Engineering in 2009, both from Syracuse University. He joined MIT in 2009.
Farid is the Co-Founder of ShareChat, India’s homegrown social network, and also the leading local language platform of India. He has a Bachelor’s degree from the IIT, Kanpur (2014).
ShareChat was born out of an experiement to solve the question of the “Where does the content variety in Whatsapp groups come from?”. The growing demand for digital vernacular content made this demand-supply equation very apparent to him and his team, and kickstarted their journey for serving the social needs of the next billion internet users in India.
Gadhadar has been passionate about space since childhood. He pursued this interest by attending summer schools about Space and also received an Honors Diploma in Space Sciences. In these courses, he learned Quantum Physics to explain stability and evolution of stars. This coupled with a burning desire to build stuff led him to Nanotechnology. The poster child of Nanotechnology for Space Applications being Carbon Nanotubes.
He founded NoPo Nanotechnoligues to pursue this passion. NoPo is developing technology for space by solving problems on the ground such as water filtration and transportation using Carbon Nanotubes. He led his team to win the 4th International Space Power Competition of SGAC in 2015 for a concept on Carbon Nanotube based Space Power. He attended Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program in 2016 as the sole Indian participant. NoPo is ranked among Bangalore’s Top 3 Technology Startups by EO CARES and India’s Top 5 Innovative companies’ in 2017 by Lockheed Martin-DST- Tata Trusts.
Gary is the co-founder of TOTO Express, an organization that seeks to redefine the way artisans monetize their work by digitizing the entire value chain. TOTO Express builds tools to allow artisans to take full control of how their art gets used, determine how they get paid, and simplify the movement of goods. But prior to TOTO Express, Gary has built a variety of ventures from food businesses in the US and China, to tearing apart old buses in India to create mobile classrooms. There were many failures along the way, but Gary has lived to tell the tale.
Originally from Silicon Valley in California, Gary is a recent MBA graduate from Stanford University where he was awarded their Social Innovation Fellowship. His current orgranization has also been honored by various organizations such as Echoing Green and Halcyon Fellowship.
Judith is a Ph.D student and Research Assistant in the Fluid Interfaces Group, MIT MediaLab. She graduated from MIT with a Masters in Media Arts and Sciences, she helped run VR/AR at MIT as a co-president. She holds a Multimedia Engineering degree from LaSelle University, Barcelona, Spain and has a Computer Science background, design focused on UX, UI and filming.
She previously interned as a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher at Microsoft Research and at R&D at URL Barcelona developing Augmented and Virtual Reality experiences and at the Google Creative Lab as a creative Technologist. Her grants, awards and publications include over 19 scientific papers, 3 patents, a 2016 Facebook Graduate Fellowship, 2015 Lego Foundation sponsored research, 2016 Finalist Innovation by Design Awards. She also received the 2017 Scent Innovator Award by the Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) and IFF (International Flavours and Fragrances)
Kourosh Ziabari is studying MA International Multimedia Journalism at the University of Kent’s Centre for Journalism on a Chevening Award by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He has been contributing to open Democracy since 2016 and successfully applied for individual membership to Chatham House in 2017.
In November 2016, he had the chance to cover the World Forum for Democracy in Straousburg, France on a Fellowship by the Council of Europe. In April 2016, he became the first Iranian speaker/delegate to give a speech to the American Middle Eastern Network for Dialog at Stanford (AMENDS). Kourosh has been a reporter and correspondent with the San Francisco based Fair Observer since 2014.
Nitesh K. Jangir is a co-founder of Coeo Labs, a medical device company solving unmet clinical needs in the field of emergency and critical care. VAPCare is one of the products which he has developed at Coeo. VAPCare is a patented device to reduce chances of contracting ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), a fatal lung infection which kills more than 250,000 patients in India alone. His work has won many awards including MassChallenge Boston, Millennium Alliance, 3M Young Innovators Award, ASME I-Show, American College of Cardiology, 1776, Tata Social Enterprise Challenge etc.
Pooja Dhingra is the founder of Le15 Patisserie and Studio Fifteen Culinary Centre in Mumbai. Pooja has also opened her first cafe at Colaba in 2016 called Le15 Cafe in collaboration with a culinary school friend called Pablito Naranjo. Armed with a degree in hospitality from Cesaz Ritz College, Switzerland and a Patisserie Diploma from Le Cordon Bleu. Pooja returned home with the single goal of creating Parisian styled culinary experiences in India.
She has been featured in national dailies and is a regular in fashion and lifestyle glossies not just for her abilities in the kitchen but also as a dynamic businesswoman and inspiration to women – she was selected by Forbes India for their ’30 Undeer 30′ achievers list for 2014 and the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list.
Prerna Sharma is a scientist and Assistant Professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. She is an experimentalist in the area of soft matter and biophysics. She studied at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai for a Ph.D degree and followed that up with a three-year post-doctoral fellowship at Brandeis University, USA.
She has been one of the youngest in the recent history to join IISc as a Professor at the age of 28. Her early research was focused on quantitative understanding of variety of interfacial phenomena such as adhesion, peeling and flow through porous media. She is currently involved in using tools of physics to address problems in membrane biophysics and ciliary beating.
Sandith is an ambitious marine transport solution provider and as the founder of Navalt group, he is aiming to help save fuel and money by using better design, renewable energy, and analytics. He completed his Naval architecture from IIT Madras and has worked in the best shipyards in South Korea and Japan. After INSEAD, he started a design consultancy to offer better ship design. A chance encounter led his team to make the first solar boat in their garage that also won the Limca Book of Records for the “Fastest Solar Boat in India” in 2011.
Shekar Naik was born completely blind to an economically weak family in Shimoga, who couldn’t afford even an eye check up. When he was 8, he underwent surgery with the help of a health check-up camp organized in his village, and managed to regain sight in one of his eyes.
During primary school, Shekar started getting interested in cricket. He was told he could not play because of his blindness, which in turn made him more ambitious towards the sport. Seeing this strong interest, his PE teacher in the blind school started guiding him on the rules of Blind Cricket. In 1988, Shekar was selected to play for his school team.
He was then selected for the district and zonal levels, and after that got a chance to represent the State. Due to his performance at the State level, he was asked to attend a camp for Indian Blind Cricket team, becoming a team member and then finally the Captain in 2010. He was presented the prestigious Padmashree award in the year 2017 for his dedication and contribution towards Blind Cricket.
Shravya works as the Director of Transformation and Strategy for a school in a tier-2 town in Telangana. In addition to transforming the learning process, Presidency School has leveraged on innovation in process automations, people and talent management and customer support management to build schematics for school operations.
Her immersive experience in a tier-2 town over the last 3 years has helped her understand the fundamental problems and challenges to successfully implement innovative programs in education in rural India. Her vision is an open source blueprint – Schools 2.0, that schools across the country may use to upgrade their existing systems and processes ensuring sustainable education reform and get on an equal footing as the best schools in the world.
Before relocating to Nizamabad, she worked in Oilfield Operations and Business Development in Africa, US, Mobile East and India.
Somdev is a former professional tennis player, who started his career playing tennis in the NCAA, representing the University of Virginia. He made it to three consecutive finals at the NCAA, winning back-to-back finals in junior and senior years. His 44-1 win-loss record in 2008 is tied for the best in NCAA history.
In 2011, he received the Arjuna Award from the Indian Government. In March 2017, he was appointed as the national observer for tennis by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India.
When Somdev hit stardom in 2009, he had a dream of starting a movement to create a healthier and happier India through sport. Life is a ball, his initiative positively impacts 15000+ kids through sports programs. Among all the accomplishments, providing a sporting platform to underprivileged kids has been the greatest.
Suhail Yusuf Khan is a classically trained sarangi player. Suhail has been training and performing since he was 7 years of age. Suhail’s career highlights to date includes appearing in Forbes India 30 under 30, being awarded an honorary scholarship at Wesleyan University in the US in 2016 and being an Indian ambassador for ‘Arts for the British Council’. Suhail is a part of the GIMA award winning band ‘Advaita’ and is currently signed with Domino Record label band ‘Yorkston Thorne Khan’ and also touring with Indo- Welsh folk/jazz band, ‘Khamira’, Indo-Korean collab ‘Hauz Khas Connction’.
Apart from creating worthwhile music, Suhail’s aim is to take sarangi to new audiences and celebrate its tradition, emotion and vibrancy.
Travis co-founded LumiereVR with the determination to bring empathetic cinema to life through Virtual Reality. He uses his background in computer science to build tools and and softwares that empower and challenge filmmakers to explore new depths with this new medium. Now LumiereVR not only employs a suite of productions tools and workflow, but are also partnering with artists and corporations, setting up VR theatres across the United States to make VR content available to the general public.
Trisha is a social activist, lawyer and UN Young leader for Sustainable Development Goals. Her work focuses on working with and for the youth towards the advancement of the UN’s SDGs by bringing a gender specific approach to multiple disciplinary areas.
SheSays is a youth-led NGO that stresses on civil society engagement to promote gender equality. SheSays functions are in the domains of sexual violence, education, healthcare and sanitation, security and public policy. The organisation has been leading the movement to eliminate sanitary napkin tax, under the viral campaign #LahuKaLagaan that got bipartisan political support.
So far, SheSays has successfully engaged more than 150,000 people. She has also mentored youth in the Arab region and Singapore in response to the SDGs. For her work, Trisha was recently recognised by President Obama as a civic leader and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, Class of 2017 listee under the Social Entrepreneurs and Pioneer Women categories.
Yash Dongre heads the American side of the business at House of Anita Dongre. Having completed his post-graduation in International Marketing from Hult Business School, USA, he is currently spearheading the company’s expansion strategy in the US and recently launched the company’s first store in New York.
Yash has a keen interest in social enterprise and entrepreneurship projects, and has invested in a social impact driven start-up X Billion Labs. The company claims a business-driven approach giving ROI and works in the domain of water, digitization, social cause, marketing, renewable energy, skill development, education, rural development, agriculture and e-commerce.
He is a core member of the Anita Dongre Foundation, undertaking its CSR activities as part of his profile. He led the Charoti Project launched by the foundation, in a small village about 2 hours from the city of Mumbai. They trained completely unskilled women from the village, equipping them with technical skills and employment opportunities, making them economically independent. The Anita Dongre Foundation is focused on turning villages into self-sustainable units. Recently, Yash Dongre addressed over 2000 students at the annual United Nations Young Change Makers Conclave on Anita Dongre Grassroot’s journey of adapting an enterprise approach towards sustainability.
