Ajay is the Founder of Fwd, a go-to app for seeking referrals from your network. Prior to Fwd, he worked at Cisco as a lead developer. Ajay has also worked at Bloomberg, Samsung and Intel. He is an expert in several mobile and web technologies. Ajay was awarded with several accolades at his previous companies. He holds a degree in Engineering (Computer Science). Ajay is paassionate about solving the problem of unemployment.

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Sohel Bohra is Co founder of the Haneez Enterprises Pvt Ltd, which is a ‘demand fulfillment’ firm that helps companies increase sales through the emerging channel of online marketplaces Prior to Haneez he has worked in MoneyWorks4me, the Marketing Manager of MedPlus, India’s fastest growing and largest independent pharmacy chain where he handled roles in marketing, sales, BD and operations. Sohel was the Co-Founder of WikifyIndia - a wiki of government procedures in India. He is a post-graduate from ISB (Hyderabad) and MICA (Ahmedabad). Sohel has spent a term studying in China and is well travelled in both India and China. He is also an alum of 2 outdoor schools – the prestigious NOLS (USA) and NIM (India). Sohel believes that making a startup successful is ‘The Art of Winning an Unfair Game’. Sohel is a 2013 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Pune.

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Adi is the founder of Studycopter.He has an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. While at Darden, he worked with the core team that piloted Kindle reading devices in higher-ed institutes in the US and was also a part of and received seed funding from the Batten Incubator to operationalize Studycopter. He is also a recipient of the UW-Madison Leadership Award, Carole J. Foster Award, and Eugene Hotaling Memorial Scholarship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from where he graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. Adi has worked as a product engineer, operations guy, consultant, and sales manager in his pre-Studycopter life. Adi is a 2013 fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Aakanksha Chhikara is interested in new technologies that create value for business and help change lives. Her expertise is in wearable health monitoring sensor technologies combined with management experience at start-ups. Aakanksha has just founded Akanz, a wearable technology company. Previously, she drove Product Innovation and Business Development functions at dorsaVi, a wearable medical device company in Melbourne. During this time, Aakanksha was also on the committee for AusMedtech. Prior to dorsaVi, Aakanksha was pursuing her PhD at Imperial College London and held senior positions at various Australian & UK start-upsluding Robogals Global, Robogals UK and Epigeum (spin-out from Imperial College). She has also worked in the leading R&D department of Bosch in Germany and Australia. Aakanksha holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (Personalised Healthcare Monitoring Technologies) from Imperial College London (UK), Graduate Certificate in International Business from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship and a Bachelor of Engineering (Robotics and Mechatronics) from Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne, Australia). She is a 2014 fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Melbourne.

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I believe that design is a beautiful thing because it’s art, but when it comes to product or customer experiences, it’s not just art, it's a communication tool with the power to efficiently distil complicated messaging and change consumer behaviour. I am interested in this intersection of design, communication and technology to create an all-encompassing brand experience for the end user. For me, design and technology have to work in tandem from day one to communicate the story of the brand. I started my career in fashion PR, but I quickly became disenfranchised by an industry that was slow in harnessing the benefits of technology. So I started TAGPIN, a fashion technology company that was an antidote to the declining revenues in the publishing industry. The technology utilised the power of digital storytelling while successfully capturing consumer desire at the source of its inspiration and creating a much-needed revenue channel for the brand and the publisher. I have since been involved in many startups, mostly in the disruptive digital sector ranging from Europe's largest beauty booking software, Treatwell to a subscription based e-commerce start-up and collected a few innovation awards along the way. A generalist by nature, I enjoy designing and building experiences with the end user in mind, using a mixture of techniques. The challenge I have always looked to overcome is how to use my skills to evolve the business model, to create innovative revenue streams, so we don’t always have to pedal to keep the wheel turning. Winner of: "Innovator, Visionary and Pioneer Award" 2013 - The Hospital Club & the Guardian Culture Professionals Network “Publishing on the Move” Nov 2014 - Innovate UK (pka IC Tomorrow) Founding fellow of UNLEASH Global Accelerator, 2017; working towards Sustainable Development Goals

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Aanand Krishnan currently works in the corporate development and strategic planning group at Symantec. Prior to this he worked at Dolby, where he focuses on evaluating and executing strategic acquisitions and investments, as well as corporate strategic initiatives. Prior to Dolby, Aanand worked as a technology investment banker at Morgan Stanley where he advised a wide variety of semiconductor, hardware and clean tech companies in financing and M&A transactions totaling over $4 billion. Aanand spent five years at Agilent Technologies' Fiber Optics division in various roles in research, product development, pre-sales and product management. Aanand has an MBA from U.C. Berkeley where he was the recipient of the C.J. White fellowship, a Masters in photonics from U.C. Santa Barbara and a bachelors in electrical engineering from BITS Pilani.

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Aaron Ganick is currently responsible for the SMART Home Business Unit in the Americas, including profit and loss responsibility, business strategy, strategic alliances, and resource planning. HE has been the CEO of ByteLight (Acquired by Acuity Brands, Inc.), a Boston University spin off company seeking to commercialize visible light communication (VLC) technology. Aaron brings with him multiple years of field experience in electrical and mechanical system design, and a master’s degree specializing in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. Since receiving his BS in Electrical Engineering at Boston University in 2010, he has worked to develop business strategies to leverage and commercialize the limitless benefits of solid state lighting. Since incorporation ByteLight has obtained angel investment, acceptance into Highland Capital’s summer program, and is a current semi finalist in the 2011 Clean Tech Open. He is a 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Boston.

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Aaron Khoo is the President of Fonoluo, a device rental company looking to alleviate the pain for companies having to buy and maintain hundreds of different mobile devices for testing purposes. Fonoluo will rent devices to companies on an as-needed basis for a fraction of the cost it would take to purchase them. Prior to Fonoluo, he worked at Microsoft, where he was a Principal Development Lead managing teams in both Windows and Xbox Live, including a one-year stint in China. His diverse contributions at Microsoft include client security, windows shell development, web/messenger gaming, Xbox applications and business intelligence. He has deep experience shipping both client and server software, and is a named inventor on four patents. Aaron holds a PhD in Computer Science from Northwestern University. He is a long time gamer, an avid runner and is oddly passionate about great TV. He is a 2013 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Seattle.

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Aarthi is the co-founder of Giggle Galaxy, an employer-sponsored, on premise, childcare and pre-school educational organization, providing premium childcare facilities for children from 4 months to 6 years. She is an engineer by education and an entrepreneur by choice. Her six years of rich experience in Infosys, where she gained valuable insights into the functioning of an IT workplace and the challenges it poses to working mothers, inspired her to find a solution to the problem of high dropout rate of working women after childbirth; Giggle Galaxy was thus formed! She also understands the dynamics of child learning which she gained when she ran a computer literacy program for the children of an NGO, Prajwala. For her outstanding work in Prajwala and other social initiatives she undertook, she was awarded 'Woman as Catalyst for Social Change', by Infosys. She is a 2014 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Pune.

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Aashish is a youth activist and a social entrepreneur based out of New Delhi, India. He founded Mash Global, which is building innovative platforms for young people to engage with social development work. One of its key initiatives is Mash Project, which is using the power of modern-age technologies like mobile apps to promote sustainable development. Recently, Aashish represented Mash Project on a global platform where it was one of the 15 organisations selected from all over the world to attend the Experts Meeting on Youth Mobile initiative by UNESCO at its headquarters in Paris, France. Aashish has been British Council's Global Changemaker from India in 2009 and represented his country at the fourth Global Youth Summit in London, U.K. Later in 2011, he was selected as a member of the Indian delegation to the International Youth Forum, Seliger, Russia. He firmly believes in young people as an exponential resource to bring the required change in our society. He has addressed fellow youth at various national and international platforms. He is currently working on his new initiative www.YouthPhilanthropy.org and blogs at www.YouthLeadership.in He is also a member of the national committee of Interfaith Youth Action Team on HIV & AIDS, an initiative by the National Council for Churches in India (NCCI). Aashish graduated from Jamia Millia Islamia in Business Studies where he established the University Entrepreneurship Society that went onto become one of the most active students body in a short span of time. He has organised various youth events like first International Youth Forum, New Delhi; Rolex Leadership Forum; and TEDx Talks among others. He has been actively involved with CII's Young Indians (Yi). He is a Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program

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Aayush Srivastava is the Co-Founder & CEO of Amicus Technologies, a startup patent-pending technology which converts large amounts of qualitative data (reviews & complaints) into the "RealCost" of the purchase. He is also currently working at IndiQus Technologies as the Head of Product & Marketing, and at CKS Consulting as an Impact Investment Consultant. Aayush has also worked at iPleaders.in, GE and Advani & Co. He is an expert in Market Research, Strategic PlanningSocial Media Marketing and Strategic Planning. Aayush's startup Amicus Technologies has been selected for Google Startup Launch Program 2015, was one of the winners at IIT Delhi Start-a-thon 2015, and a National Finalist at IIM Ahmedabad Startup Competition. He holds a degree in Law. He is a 2016 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Abdulla Hisham is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Foradian Technologies, a Bangalore-based company that builds innovative web applications for education domain. Foradian successfully initiated and implemented Fedena in all the 15,000 schools of Kerala, India in collaboration with Government of Kerala, which is one of the largest deployment of open source software of its kind in the world.Hisham played a crucial role in growing Foradian from a small town startup to a profitable technology company and helped in winning prestigious awards like MIT TR35, Edustars and A League of 10 in NASSCOM Emerge 50 for innovation in education. Foradian was honored by Education Minister, Kerala for the achievements in Education sector and featured in CNBC TV18 Young Turks. He mentors various other product startups from India. Hisham was invited as speaker for various international conferences like International FOSS Conference India, Indiana LinuxFest USA etc. He was also a speaker for the TedxKids@cubbonpark. Before starting Foradian Technologies, Hisham worked as a control system and automation engineer and lead the famous automation project of the largest University in Middle East. Hisham is a graduate in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Kannur University, India.He is 2013 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Bangalore.

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Abhay Tandon is the Founder of GrowthVilla and also works as the Program and Partnerships Manager at Target Accelerator as part of the Innovation & Strategy team in Target Corporation. He is also a startup mentor, technology evangelist and growth consultant for startups and is associated as a startup mentor with multiple accelerators/ incubators etc. He is a stakeholder with a subscription commerce startup as an advisor and has helped them with their growth strategy and fund raising. Abhay has closely worked with various startups and funds in India and understands the key issues that startups and enablers face. He is an upcoming author and is a regular columnist for ‘business growth and strategy’ and ‘Small & Medium Enterprises’ section in a few digital publications. In the last year, he has been invited by various state Governments (Karnataka and Bihar) as an enabler and mentor for building the startup ecosystem in their states through policy improvement as well as mentoring startups as well as by enablers such as NASSCOM, Corporates such as Yes Bank, Educational institutes such as IIT-Guwahati, IIT-Kgp, Symbiosis etc. as mentor, jury member and speaker for their events to build the startup community. Abhay has worked in the past with startups such as Tracxn – Head of Partnerships and Scaale Group (Scaale Capital and Cross Border Angels) and is a proud alumnus of SPJIMR.

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Abhijeet Deshmukh is the co-founder of Dezinebox, an online interior & architecture solution provider. Before Dezinebox, he worked at Zoomstart India, whereas a co-founder he started ‘Startup Navi Mumbai’, an initiative to raise the profile of Navi Mumbai as the startup strategy capital of India. Abhijeet has also worked at Citigroup, Amity University, Monday Mantras and NMIMS. He is an expert in finance and Startup Valuation. Abhijeet was awarded for highest ever Commercial Paper issuance in Indian Financial Markets by Citi. He holds a degree in Management currently pursuing his PhD. He is a fan of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. Abhijeet is passionate about solving the problem of Water conservation & environmental sustainability and has actively participated in ‘Rally for River’ campaign of Isha Foundation. He is a 2019 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Mumbai.

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