Dr. Devi Shetty, is Padma Awardee and Chairman & Cofounder of Narayana Health. He returned to India in 1989 and initially worked at B.M. Birla Hospital in Kolkata. He successfully performed the first neonatal heart surgery in the country in 1992, on a 9-day-old baby named “Ronnie”. In Kolkata he operated on Mother Teresa after she had a heart attack and subsequently served as her personal physician.[1] After some time, he moved to Bangalore and started the Manipal Heart Foundation at Manipal Hospitals, Bangalore. Financial contribution for the construction of the hospital was provided by Shetty’s father-in-law. In 2001, Shetty founded Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH), a multi-specialty hospital in Bommasandra on the outskirts of Bangalore.

He believes that the cost of healthcare can be reduced by 50 percent in the next 5–10 years if hospitals adopt the idea of economies of scale.[10] Apart from cardiac surgery, NH also has cardiology, neurosurgery, paediatric surgery, haematology and transplant services, and nephrology among various others. The heart hospital is the largest in the world with 1000 beds performing over 30 major heart surgeries a day. The land on which the health city was built, was previously a marshland which was reclaimed for this purpose. The Health City intends to cater to about 15,000 outpatients every day. In August 2012, Shetty announced an agreement with TriMedx, a subsidiary of Ascension Health, to create a joint venture for a chain of hospitals in India. In the past Narayana Hrudayalaya has collaborated with Ascension Health to set up a health care city in the Cayman Islands, planned to eventually have 2,000 beds. Shetty also founded Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) in Kolkata and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Karnataka Government to build 5,000-bed specialty hospital near Bangalore International Airport. His company signed a MOU with the Government of Gujarat, to set up a 5,000-bed hospital at Ahmedabad. He was elected as the chief patron of Indian Association of Clinical Cardiologists during the annual scientific session IACCCON 2013 at Bangalore.

Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Executive Chairman and Founder of 5F World, a platform for Digital Start-ups, Skills and Social Ventures in the country. He is the Chairman of Global Talent Track, a pioneer in Employability Skills Training in Asia and Skills Alpha, a new digital platform venture to transform learning processes in organizations and society.

Dr. Ganesh is Global Board Director and Chairman of the India Board of Social Venture Partners and Chairman of Pune City Connect, a unique collaborative platform that enables corporations to work with the Government on social and city innovation.

Shri Sanjeev Keskar is working as Managing Director India at Arrow Electronics a leading Electronic component global distribution company since June 2015. Earlier he was Managing Director Sales at PMC-Sierra for five years. He was also elected Chairman of India Electronics and Semiconductor Association for year 2013-14.

Prior to PMC Sierra he was Country Manager, Sales, at Freescale Semiconductor from 2005 to 2009 where he led design win and revenue growth for the India sales operations. Prior to that Shri Keskar was the Country Manager, India, for AMD Far East Ltd. from 2001 to 2005. There he started the company’s India operations as the first Country Manager and established AMD India in four years with all major OEM and Channel engagements. Shri Keskar has also worked at National Semiconductor as Country Manager (1996 – 2001), Max India Ltd. (Avnet India) as Regional Manager and Continental Device India Ltd. Overall; he has more than 34 years of experience and has spent 29 years in Semiconductor industry.

Shri Keskar received a Master’s degree in Management Science and a Bachelor’s of Engineering and Technology from Pune University.

I.S. Paul, the Chairman & Managing Director of Drish Infotech & Drish Shoes. He is a Masters in Chemistry and an MBA in International Business and Finance from IMD Lausanne, Switzerland. With varied domains entrepreneurship, his group companies have presently a turnover crossing Rs. 250 crore. Mr. Paul has served on the Board of Directors of State Bank of Patiala. He has been the Chairman, Chandigarh chapter of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for three years and was the President for TIE Chandigarh Chapter for the year 2005-06, 2006-2007, 2007-08. He is known for his contribution to entrepreneurship development in the region.

Pankaj Thakar is a Serial Entrepreneur with 30 years of Corporate and Start-up Experience. In his Various C-level role and founder of multiple start-ups globally, he has built, advised and transformed, both corporate and start-up companies to become highly successful. He has created Global Start-ups like Consilnet Inc.

A first generation entrepreneur, along with his family members promoted CyberMedia in 1982. He is a B.Tech. from IIT Delhi (1975) and MBA from IIM Calcutta (1977). He is the main promoter as well as Chairman & Managing Director of Cyber Media (India) Ltd. He is an industry veteran of 40 years and is highly reputed in the IT Industry. He was conferred the “National Entrepreurship Award as the Best Mentor” by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India as he has mentored over 150 start-ups. He is the co-founder of Indian Angel Network. He is the Chair of the Alumni Trust, the sponsors of IvyCap Ventures Trust Funds.

He is on the Board of the IIM Calcutta Innovation Park. He was a global trustee of TiE, the world’s largest entrepreneurial ecosystem. He was also on the Board of UTI AMC and its subsidiary UTI Capital. He has been the past President of PanIIT India and Association of Indian Magazines. He is/has been on the Boards of IIT Mandi, Indian Newspaper Society, IIT Delhi incubator, etc. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni award of IIT Delhi and the Helen Keller award for working in the disability sector.

Subroto Bagchi, Co-founder Mindtree Ltd, the global IT solutions company & Chairman, Odisha Skill Development Authority, Govt. of Odisha is also heading IEC Team constituted to undertake various activities to spread awareness for containing COVID19. Shri Bagchi is also appointed as Chief Spokesperson of Odisha Govt on COVID-19 and will guide the team in official press briefings. Besides being a successful Indian Entrepreneur and business leader, Mr Bagchi is also a accomplished author. He has authored several books “Go Kiss the World”, “High-Performance Entrepreneur”, “Sell: The Art, The Science, The Witchcraft”, “The Professional” etc.

Mr. Shashidhar Reddy, Vice President (Engineering and business lead of Hyderabad Development Centre) and Centre Head, M/s Qualcomm India (P) Ltd, has consented to be the Chief Mentor for the proposed CoE.

Mr. Shashidhar Reddy is also a whole time Director of M/s QIPL and has built a team to work on development of protocol stacks,multimedia wireless platforms and driver development. Mr. Shashi Reddy has previously worked in Northern Telecom, Motorola,Sony, Intel and Skyworks Solutions.

Arun Jain is the Founder of Polaris Group and Chairman & Managing Director of Intellect Design Arena Limited, the world’s first full spectrum FinTech Products Company in Banking, Insurance and Capital Markets. Ranked #1 by IBS Sales League Table 2022, Intellect powers over 260 leading Global Banks and Financial Institutions worldwide.

Arun got his inspiration from Jamsetji Tata and commenced his entrepreneurial journey by setting up Nucleus Software Workshop in 1986, Polaris Software in 1993 and Intellect Design in 2011. His journey was guided by two strong beliefs – (1) ordinary people coming together to achieve extraordinary results (2) the power of the organisational subconscious in realising the vision. Intellect Design is his third venture, in pursuit of his vision to make India the IP Capital towards the next growth wave for the IT Industry. Arun’s passion to create a technology product power house from India made Intellect a reality.

During his professional journey, Walt Disney and Steve Jobs also inspired him which led to his quest for Design Thinking. What actually started for the business, slowly found its application in different arenas – he has conducted Design Thinking Workshops termed UnMukt (boundaryless Thinking ) for Educators, Students, SMEs, Business professionals, Govt. departments, and the Social sector. It is one-of-its-kind flagship workshop where participants explore and immerse in Design Thinking. He is passionate about Design Thinking as a science and philosophy to create the biggest impact on individual and organisational performance.

As an evangelist of Design Thinking, his brainchild – FinTech 8012, the World’s First Design Center at Chennai dedicated to Financial Technology came into being in 2013. The 30,000 sq ft center helps in immersive experience and is used for innovation and co-creation across different domains.

Arun founded School of Design Thinking – focusing on shaping thinking of young minds and professionals through Design The Thinking™ philosophy; Mission Samriddhi, a social enterprise which focused on applying Design Thinking for holistic rural development in India through the unique philosophy of Celebrate-Connect-Catalyse; Ullas Trust, the social connect program, working towards igniting less privileged young minds into realizing their true potential.

He has been honoured with many awards… prominent amongst them are Dronacharya Award by TiECON Chennai and Life Time Achievement award by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He is an integral part of several Govt. initiatives contributing as (i) Chief Mentor of FinBlue (A Financial Technology Center of Entrepreneurship by Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) in association with ELCOT, Govt of Tamil Nadu), (ii) Member of National Software Product Mission (NSPM) of MeitY, Govt of India, (iii) Governing Council Member of STPI and also Advisory Council Member of STPI Chennai Incubation Facility (iv) Chairperson of the Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Information Technology Ranchi.

Arun holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering.

Saurabh Srivastava is an Indian entrepreneur, investment professional, institution builder, and former chairman of NASSCOM, a non-profit trade organization for the promotion of the Indian IT industry. A master’s degree holder from Harvard University, he founded Infinity Venture, reportedly the first venture capital fund in India, and is a recipient of Dataquest Lifetime Achievement Award, the IT Industry Award from the Prime Minister of India and Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honor of the Padma Shri, in 2016, for his contributions to trade and industry.

Mr. Kalyan is the Co-Founder & Director of InQube Innoventures, which incubates “Innovative Inclusive Initiatives”. Kalyan firmly believes that innovative and effective utilization of technology can lead to Equitable, Inclusive & Sustainable growth for the society at large.

Currently, Kalyan is involved in incubating several start-ups in the areas of Technology, Education, Healthcare, BPM, Skill Development, Data Analytics and Agriculture.

Earlier, Kalyan Co-Founded an US based Healthcare Services company which was finally acquired by the World’s largest employee benefits organization for US$ 140 Million.

His ventures have won “Great Place to Work” award in India for 3 continuous years, as well as “Exciting Emerging Companies to Work for” by NASSCOM and was the All India Finalist for “NASSCOM Innovation Awards”.

Kalyan graduated from St. Xaviers’ College and is a Chartered Accountant as well as a Cost Accountant by Profession with All India Merit Rank in both the examinations.

He is a regular Speaker in various Forums and is known for his business and social views and opinion in the Press, Electronic, Digital & Social Media.

Mr. Kalyan is currently in the Executive Committee of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, IT Committee of Bengal Chamber and Innovation & IT Committee of CII. He is also the Governing Body Member of Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) & Vice President of the Sector V Stakeholders’ Association. Kalyan has served as the Jury for the CII Industrial Innovation Awards, Bihar Startup Ideathon as well as WEBEL BCCI Tech Incubation Initiative. Currently he is a Mentor to the WEBEL BCCI Tech Incubation Center and is a Trustee of Sahaj Path, an initiative towards “Inclusive & Quality Education for All” & “The Boston Pledge – Asia”, which is an initiative to promote “Bengal” Globally.

Mr. Kalyan has also been a part of Government and Business Delegates to overseas countries promoting the “Make in India” & “Bengal Global Business Summit” initiatives.

Mr. Kumaran Venkatesh has over three decades of work experience in consulting, business development, sales management, marketing operations and executive leadership roles across IT, Semiconductors & Software at MNC’s and Indian companies at Hong Kong, Boston and India. He is a partner at AXLerateNOW focusing on scaling IOT Startups. Prior to his current Startup, he was a Senior Director of Business Development at ARM (Softbank Group) developing IOT, AI/ML, Security, HPC & cloud datacentre market. Prior to ARM, he was with an Industry body on Electronics and Semiconductors where he passionately worked to grow the Electronic System Design & Manufacturing industry as well as created an IOT ecosystem in India. He curated 16 IOT Startups across MedTech, Wearables, Spacetech and mentored, coached and advised them on Execution, Market and funding capital.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Venkatesh was spearheading Intel’s Wind River India business as India Country Manager. He passionately worked to open Wind River India Design Center, which helped Indian customers design world-class embedded solutions for Aerospace, Defence, Networking, Industrial and mobile market. Prior to Wind River, Mr. Venkatesh was Regional Manager (US East and Canada) with Tata Elxsi in the US.

From 1987 to 2003, he held various senior management positions in India and overseas at Modi Olivetti, On Mobile, Motorola, and others.

He is also a well-known personality in the media. His article and opinions are often published in leading technology and business publications. He was also featured in “Next Big Thing” on NDTV Good Times channel as a thought leader.

He is the co-chair of IOTNEXT, TiE Bengaluru board member and founder member of NETRA Accelerator Foundation. Mr. Venkatesh is also a corporate faculty of the ART OF LIVING and has taught to various sections of the society.