IoT Startups

Dr. Ajay Data is a techno commercial Founder & CEO of multiple technology companies. Dr. Data also became the first Indian to be nominated for ccNSO Council of ICANN where 170 countries are members. He was also the first Indian to become Chairman of Universal Acceptance Steering Group having 450+ members globally.

• Certificate of Excellence for outstanding services, achievements and contribution, presented by Hon’ble Minister for Communications, Govt. of India
• GUNEEJAN Award given by Hon’ble Governor of Rajasthan
• Distinguished Leadership Award and has been selected for worldwide recognition in the International Directory of Distinguished Leadership for outstanding contribution to the field of Information Technology by American Biographical Institute, USA

Software Products, Turnkey IT Solutions and Mobile Technologies, Technology Innovation, Patents & Copy Rights.

Jaipur

Mr. D. Ramakrishna did his MTech (Electrical Engg.) from IIT Madras. He is the founding CEO of Efftronics Systems Pvt. Ltd., established in 1985 in Vijayawada. He is instrumental in Efftronics growth and in positioning it as one of India’s smart solutions company. Backed by rich R&D, Efftronics is now a leading provider of smart solutions for railways signalling, smart cities, smart buildings and industries.

He is the architect of one of India’s largest IoT network built for Indian railways with more than 6 million things connected across 9000 locations. It reduced the accidents & improved the punctuality. He is continuous learner & thought leader. Under his leadership Efftronics has innovated more than 50 solutions for different domains.

By continually growing Efftronics, Mr. Ramakrishna has proved to Indian Industry that “With Right aspirations and sincere effort to deliver value to customers, it is possible to be successful and location doesn’t matter”. He is involved in various social development activities for improvement of academics and Industry.

Internet of Things, Smart Cities

Vijayawada

Mr. Dilip Kumar Thakur is a strategist and entrepreneur with 35 years of leadership experience in product and business development in Software Services and IT industry. He has successfully founded two startups in the domain of product development and design & implementation consultancy. He has remarkable ability in assimilation of technology, market/industry trends to building customer focused technology strategy and roadmap for the organization, visualize future needs and conceptualize innovative products and services.

He has been instrumental in setting up and operationalizing Incubation and Growth of new engineering businesses (Design Services, Product/IP Licensing); Management of Innovation programs and projects; Creation of strategic Centre of Excellences cutting across multiple business groups and providing Mentorship/leadership to engineering teams during Requirement and Architecture development.

He has earned Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics & Communications from Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bengaluru in 1982 and BSc Hons. in Physics from St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi in 1978.

He has authored a white paper on “Secured Intelligent Devices” for IESA.

His current focus is on bringing impactful transformations in domains such as HealthCare, Industrial Automation and Intelligent premises/buildings by contributing in solution development leveraging new technologies such as Internet of Things, Real time data analytics, Event Processing, AI/Machine Learning/Deep Learning, Augmented reality and Systems of Engagement.

• Technical Consulting – IESA (2019)
• Founder, CTO – DeltaLeap Pvt. Ltd. (2016-2018)
• Founder, CTO – Early Stage Startup Company (2008-2010)
• Chief Technology Officer, R&D Services & Telecom Solutions, Wipro Technologies, Bengaluru (2001-2007)
• Engineer/Scientist – Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Satellite Center, Bengaluru (1982-1985)

Patna

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.

Agartala

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.

IoT Startups

Guwahati

Bhubaneswar

Mr. Nemesh Singh, after not being able to find a job post completing his graduation, founded Appointy and today it has grown to become a force to reckon with. Being used by more than 19,000 businesses in over 78 countries, Appointy helps SMBs to get new clients and keep their appointment books full.

His vision is to create a platform for small and medium sized businesses that would help them grow without much effort. His belief is that one should always focus on the value of the product offering rather than money.

SaaS, Bootstrapping, Hiring in tier 2 cities, Building Culture, Product Scalability, Tech Scalability, Tech Architecture

Bhopal

Dr. G S Darbari, having well over 50 yrs. of academic and industry experience, received M.Sc.in Electronics & Ph.D. degrees in Physics from University of Allahabad in 1966, about 4 years Research & teaching experience at Brooklyn Polytech ( now renamed as Polytech University of New York after taking it over by New York University), as Post Doctoral Research Fellow under the sponsorship of US Air Force office of Scientific Research, carried out Research in the area of materials & taught in USA and University of Allahabad.

Founder and Partner, Darbari Industries, managing the manufacturing and R&D unit at Prayagraj, involved in development and production of energy saving Electronic and Electrical equipment, won prizes on presentation of papers and hold Indian patents.

Sr. Member Instrument Society of America(USA), Life Member, Acoustical Society of India(ASI), Fellow Institution of Electronics & Telecom Engineers (IETE), Fellow Indian Society of Lighting Engineers(ISLE), Past President, Eastern U.P. Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Allahabad, Past chairman I.E.T.E. Allahabad Center, Member, sectional committee of Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi.

As part of stakeholder meet organized by UNCTAD in connection with the Indo-EC and South East Asian countries free trade agreements, Member Advisory Committee of Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Finance , Govt. of India and various committees of Govt. of U.P, Addressed various National Conferences in India on the subjects of Industrial and Infrastructure Growth like Inland Waterways, Growth opportunities in Allahabad and Eastern UP region through Information Technology, Horticulture and Food Processing Industries, Member of Apex committee of UP Government on Electronics & Communication.

Represented Chamber of Commerce as Member of Airport Advisory committee at Allahabad.
Member of the Board for IEDC Centre at Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad.

Prayagraj

Mr. Pankaj Gupta is a BSc in Electronics. He is the Co-Founder of Satya Industries. He has association with industrial / trade association like Industries Association of Uttarakhand, State Udyog Mitra Uttarakhand, MSME Board GoI, etc.

He has compiled various books like MSMED ACT – 2006, Labour Laws Companion, Book on Fire & Safety, Study Report on “Development road map for Uttarakhand”, Report on Organizing the Unorganized Sector in Uttarakhand, VAT act, DUN & BRAD Street, Book on MSME Financial Literacy & Education Workshop.

• “Certificate of Achievement” from the Economist in May 2006
• “Rashtriya Udyog Ratan Award” in the year 2008 for Excellence in Entrepreneurship
• “Honor of Uttarakhand” in the year 2010

Policy Drafting, Market Analysis/Access.

Dehradun

Prof. Rajat Moona heads the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhilai, which is one of the six new IITs established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Prof. Moona is also a Professor of Computer Science at IIT Kanpur and has supervised several postgraduate theses. He along with his students and colleagues has authored 10 patents, several research papers and books.

He had been instrumental in defining applications such as smart card driving license, vehicle registration, e-passport, electronic toll collection, mobility card, etc. The research area of Prof. Rajat Moona spans over embedded computing, computer security, VLSI design and Operating Systems.

In the past Prof. Moona was the Director of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in capacity of Director General. Prof. Moona is recipient of several awards and recognitions, including Indo-US Science and Technology Fellowship, Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professorship, VASVIK Award for the year 2010, IESA Techno-visionary Award 2014, fellowship of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences 2015 and National award of Election Commission of India 2016 for the best electoral practices.

Prof. Rajat Moona is an active member of the technical committee of Election Commission of India for EVMs and has been instrumental in defining the EVMs and VVPAT. He has also been instrumental in defining national voter service portal and national electoral search for the voters.

Embedded Computing, Computer Security, VLSI Design, Operating Systems

Bhilai

Mr. Rajesh is a business leader having over 34 years of global experience in IT and high-tech industries across multiple domains. Since beginning of 2020, Rajesh is advising startups, social ventures and incubators. His areas of interest include Medtech, Agritech, SAAS, HPC, AI and Intelligent Electronics.

Prior to it, as President of India Electronics and Semiconductor Association, he worked towards enabling India to be the leader in Electronic Systems Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) through successful collaboration of industry, academia & government, building a vibrant ecosystem for startups and right skilling of technical workforce. He was board member of ESSCI and committee member of Karnataka Vision Group on IT. Rajesh helped establish SFAL, a fabless startup incubator in collaboration with Govt. of Karnataka and Electropreneur Park at Bhubaneswar in partnership with STPI.

In his long career stint with Wipro, Rajesh held many senior management responsibilities. He was CTO of telecom and product engineering division, Business Unit Head for different verticals namely Computing, Storage, Software Products, Peripherals, Semiconductor, Industrial Automation and Avionics, VP Operations & Competency and VP strategy. He established ARISE labs, a new initiative to develop affordable products and solutions for India in collaboration with global eco system partners, leveraging smart devices, mobility, cloud and analytics. Assure Health, an end to end tele-health platform developed in ARISE labs for remote cardiac disease management, received Golden Peacock award as most innovative solution at the 24th World congress of Total Quality.

He has been executive council member of India Semiconductor Association (ISA) and member of Core Advisory Group for R&D in electronics to Government of India, NASSCOM engineering forum and board of governors for IIIT, Bhubaneswar. His research interests include global innovation networks, role of IP for emerging market multinationals and social innovation.

He has completed his B.Tech in Electronics and M.Tech in Computer Engineering from IIT Kharagpur. Subsequently he has done his MBA from IIM Bangalore.

Bhubaneswar

Mr. Sameer is graduated from NIT, Kurukshetra and has over 20 years of professional experience in technology services sector. His company Net Solutions serves businesses across 6 continents. A company that builds omni-channel digital experiences by converging technologies like Web, Mobile, Social, Cloud and IoT. Net Solutions works with startups and enterprise clients globally and is recognized as one of the top technology services company from India.

Mr. Sameer is also an active angel investor and one of the founding members of Chandigarh Angels Network.

He has led many software teams involved in building software products in the consumer Internet, financial, retail and healthcare domains.

He has won many awards, including Entrepreneur of the Year from Software Technology Parks of India. Net Solutions has also been featured in magazines and journals of international repute, including Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, and Inc magazines.

At present, he is the President of TiE, Chandigarh, Co-Chair for the Chandigarh chapter of NASSCOM, a member of NASSCOM’s National SME Council as well as a member of CII’s National Committees on IT & ITeS.

Product Design and UI, UX Expertise

Mohali

Mr. Saurabh Srivastava is one of India’s leading entrepreneurs, investors and institution builders, widely acknowledged as one of the architects of the Indian IT Industry and as leading the creation of a vibrant entrepreneurial eco system in India. The Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has presented him an Award for contribution to the Indian IT Industry and the President of India has awarded him the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours.

He co-founded and Chaired key institutions of modern India focussed on IT and entrepreneurship: NASSCOM( Indian IT Industry body); Indian Venture Capital Association; TiE NCR ( the world’s largest organization focussed on entrepreneurship with 15,000 members across 14 countries); Indian Angel Network, now the world’s largest angel investor group with over 150 portfolio companies, 500+ investor members globally and operations in 8 locations, including London and Israel).

After a successful stint in the US and India with IBM and Unisys, he founded several successful IT companies including one which was ranked amongst the top 15 companies in India and was listed, post merger, on the London Stock Exchange with revenues of $800 mill. He also founded India’s first private sector VC Fund which created companies like India Bulls and Avendus. He has been involved in investing in around 100 start-ups and has personally mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs. He serves/has served on the boards of reputed public companies in the US, UK and India.

His public service commitments have included the National Innovation Council, SEBI Committee on Alternative Investment Funds, Software Technology Parks of India , Investment Committee of the Indian Government’s Fund of Funds, Bombay Stock Exchange Hi-Tech Advisory Panel ,Telecom Centre of Excellence, Railway Expert Committee, PM’s Empowered Committee for Awards on Excellence in Public Administration and the National Expert Advisory Committee on Innovation, Incubation and Technology Entrepreneurship.

He is a co-founder of Ashoka University, served on the Advisory Board of Imperial College Business School, London and was adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at IIT Mumbai. He has a Masters from Harvard University, a B Tech from IIT Kanpur. Other Awards include “Distinguished Alumnus Award” from IIT, the Data Quest Lifetime Achievement Award for IT, Patrick J McGovern Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurship and an Honorary Doctorate in Technology from the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

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