Speakers

Speaker Bio:

Ajit Balakrishnan

Founder & CEO, Rediff.com

Ajit Balakrishnan is the Founder, Chairman & CEO of Rediff.com. He co-founded and is a director of Rediffusion-Dentsu, Young & Rubicam, one of India s largest ad agencies. Balakrishnan sits on the government committee reviewing the Indian Information Technology Act. He also co-chairs the Confederation of Indian Industry Task Force on eCommerce. Balakrishnan is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and is currently the chairman of its Board of Governors.

Anupam G.Mittal

Founder, Chairman & Managing Director, Shaadi.com (People Group)

Anupam started his entrepreneurial journey by founding People Group - A New Media & Entertainment group, which includes businesses such as Shaadi.com, Makaan.com, Fropper.com, Mauj Mobile and People Pictures. Known for his sharp business acumen and an eye for detail, Anupam has led People Group from one milestone to another and today the group is recognized as one of the most innovative enterprises in the country. Anupam with his keen sense of business development, marketing & business analysis has pioneered a number of revolutionary concepts in Indian business. Shaadi.com - the world’s largest matrimonial service provider was launched in the year 1996, and celebrates its 14th anniversary in 2010. With more than 20 million members and 1.4 million success stories to its credit, Shaadi.com has emerged as the premier matrimonial brand on the Internet, and the first business of its kind across the world. Similarly, Makaan.com – India’s fastest growing online real estate portal, and Mauj Mobile - a mobile content & applications company have been initiated by Anupam and have quickly grown to become recognized names in their respective segments. Besides his operational roles, Anupam is also an active angel investor. He is the primary investor in a few of India’s largest digital media opportunities. He is also a member of Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels. Anupam Mittal has been voted by BusinessWeek as one of India’s 50 Most Powerful People. He has been on the list of one of the 25 people to watch out for by ‘The Week’ Magazine & one of the 100 most influential NRIs in the USA by ‘Roshni’ Magazine.

Bhavin Turakhia

Founder & CEO, Directi

Bhavin is Directis founding CEO, and is responsible for the exponential growth of Directi from a startup in 1998 to a global web products company with over 6 businesses, 20+ products, 500+ employees and millions of global customers. Under his leadership, ResellerClub and LogicBoxes have become industry leaders in their respective verticals, and Directi has consistently featured amongst the fastest growing tech companies in Asia by Deloitte and Touche. He continues to manage the Vision, Strategy, Engineering and Operations of ResellerClub, LogicBoxes, .pw, Answerable.com and WebHosting.Info. Bhavin is the chief architect of the .pw social communication platform, OrderBox, and various other products and services provided through ResellerClub and LogicBoxes. He has authored several technology patents. He concieved and launched CodeChef - a leading coding competition platform. He is also responsible for Directi&rsquot;s community evangelism efforts such as TechCamp. In 1998, at the age of 18, while in college, he founded Directi, with a focus to develop volume based Web Products and Services for a global audience. Having spent his school and college years in developing software, building web applications, and consulting companies, he brings to Directi, a deep understanding of the Web Services Industry, a strong technical background, a keen business sense, and most importantly, an unquenchable ambition for growth. Bhavin is a respected entity in the Web 2.0 landscape, and a frequent speaker at various seminars, tech conferences and colleges. He also serves as a technical advisor to the local CyberCrime Investigation Cell. He has won several awards, including the Entrepreneur of the year award in 2005. Bhavin was former chairman for the Global ICANN Accredited Registrars Constituency for two consecutive terms.

Anup Gupta

Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners

Anup Gupta is a Managing Director with Nexus Venture Partners. Prior to joining Nexus, Anup was the Group Chief Operating Officer at WNS, a leading global IT Enabled Services (ITES) company with revenue of more than $300 million, where he was responsible for global operations comprising over 20,000 employees across 7 countries. In his 8 year tenure, Anup played a key role in transforming WNS from an early stage company into a top tier global business which witnessed rapid growth and listed on the NYSE. Previously, Anup was a Principal with eVentures India, a pioneer in the venture capital sector in India. At eVentures, he focused on developing services and consumer start-ups many of which have become market leading companies, such as CustomerAsset (acquired by Firstsource), Makemytrip (sale to SAIF partners) and Netmagic. Prior to eVentures, Anup was a Management Consultant at Booz & Company, where he worked with a several industrial companies in India. Anup graduated at the top of his classes from both IIM, Calcutta and IIT Kharagpur.

Apoorv Ranjan Sharma

Assistant Vice President, Indian Angel Network

Apoorv Ranjan Sharma is currently taking care of IAN Western Region Investments and IAN Technology Incubator as Chief Mentor.In past, he has been involved in Business Planning, Fund Raising, and mentoring techno entrepreneurs. He have mentored 60 start-ups majority of them secured early stage investment. He has also worked with Indian Venture Capital Association. He has been associated with the JSS Technology Business Incubator, Amity Innovation Incubator, and Amity Innovation Fund. He also spent close a decade in IT Industry in Netherlands, Germany exploring IT Business Proposition. Apoorv has an engineering degree, an M.B.A and Diploma in Mentoring from HAAS Business School, UC Berkley, CA.

Hemir Doshi

Co-Founder & Vice President, IDG Ventures India

Mr. Hemir Doshi is Co-Founder & Vice President of IDG Ventures India. He currently serves on the Boards of 3D Solid Compression and iViZ Techno Solutions and as a Board Observer at Aujas Networks and Manthan Systems. Hemir is an ex-entrepreneur having co-founded a boutique management consultancy, India Capital Advisors. Prior to which he worked with a hedge fund in USA and also in the credit risk group of ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank. His education was fully sponsored by The Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta (USA) where he earned a Master of Science in Operations Research while serving as a Graduate Student Senator and the Career Fair Chair of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Earlier, he received a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics) from Mumbai University (India).

Govind Rammurthy

CEO & Managing Director, MicroWorld Technologies

Mr. Govind Rammurthy set up MicroWorld in the year 1993 with a team of 3 engineers and started indigenously developing AntiVirus and Content Security solutions. Today as CEO and Managing Director, Mr. Rammurthy takes a hands-on approach in managing day to day affairs of the Company and is also responsible for the technical aspect of the business. Under his leadership, MicroWorld has become a renowned name in providing Information Security Solutions and continuous to grow world wide. Mr. Govind Rammurthy has been involved in the IT industry for more than 18 years. He has been involved in developing products for the Information Security Industry for more than 15 years and is a recognized software expert in the industry circles. Prior to MicroWorld, he had a brief stint at TELCO, India. He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering with specialization in Computer Science.

Kiran Kulkarni

Managing Director, Geodesic Limited

Co-founder and Managing Director of Geodesic Limited, Kiran Kulkarni has been at the helm of affairs since the company’s initial years. His futuristic vision has helped create a company that is unique in its ability to provide a diverse and vast range of solutions that meet the needs of individuals and enterprises. He is largely responsible for Geodesic being the only Indian company to be ranked by Red Herring as one of the top 100 innovative companies in the world in 2006. An Electronics and Communication engineer, Kiran has been part of the technology industry for over two decades. After a 12-year stint and a market capitalization of US$ 300 million (Rs.12000 million), Kiran retired from Aftek’s board as the co-founder/Director to pursue building an Indian brand having a global presence. Thus Geodesic was formed. An expert in networking and web technologies, Kiran is the recipient of ‘The Indira Super Achiever Award’ – one that is aimed at recognizing professional talent that has made a difference. An active environmentalist, his interests are as diverse as the products of the company. They range from being passionate about agriculture to wanting to build robots. He’s also passionate about driving his battery-operated car!

Vishwas Mahajan

Managing Director & CEO, Compulink

Mr. Vishwas Mahajan, 44, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, is a Science Graduate and holds a Masters Degree in Management Studies from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management. He is the founder member of Compulink Systems Limited. He is the external interface of Compulink. He is mainly responsible for Business Development Function for its services and product offerings. Before founding Compulink, he has worked for various organizations including PSI Data systems, Hinditron, Digital Equipments (India) Limited and Key Information Technology (Dubai). He is Coordinator for NASSCOM SME forum and also a Charter member of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

Vipin Agarwal

Team Member, Nexus Venture Partners

Vipin has been involved in managing the complete life cycle of investing in early and growth stage companies. Prior to joining Nexus, Vipin was with Kotak Private Equity, India where he executed and monitored investments across logistics, life-sciences, facility management services and financial services domains. Earlier, he has worked at Jubilant Organosys as an engineer where he was part of the team involved in commissioning of multiple unit initiatives at the plant. Vipin has worked closely with entrepreneurs and students to advise them on their startups. He was involved in establishing the first business incubator for technology based ventures at IIT Kanpur. Vipin is an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and has completed his B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he specialized in Bioengineering.

Krishna Jha

Active Angel Investor, IAN

In the year 1999, Krishna Jha, then 25, quit his programmer job with Citicorp to co-found ITFinity, one of the first wireless data companies globally. The call was on the adoption of the phone from then expensive talking device to an extended Internet and data screen. Joining as angel investors were folks like Rajat Gupta from McKinsey, Ashish Dhawan from Chryscap, Naren Gupta from Windriver-Nexus etc. ITFinity went on to create significant innovations in telecom software and consumer services space, with a customer list comprising of top-most telcos and device-manufacturers. The company was highly profitable and ranked among Deloitte Fast 500 tech companies for three years in running. In early 2007 the company was acquired by OnMobile, the telecom spin-off from Infosys, providing a 10x returns to ITFinity&rsquot;s angel investors. Krishna now runs TelNet Ventures which is an investor & co-founder to very early stage Mobile & Internet startups in India.

Amit Grover

Member, Mumbai Angels

Amit Grover, Founder, Nurture Talent Academy (www.nurturetalent.com) and Member, Mumbai Angels, is an individual with a passion for entrepreneurship. He is an IIT Delhi and IIM Indore alumnus with over 7 years of experience. He has previously worked with Infosys, Asian Paints and Onida in various roles involving software, sales, marketing and strategy. He started Nurture Talent Academy in January, 2010, to support and nurture budding entrepreneurs across the country and has already trained 640 startups across 10 cities in areas like finance, marketing and business plan. He is a friend, mentor, guide and counselor for early stage entrepreneurs and has a vision to nurture 1000 startups to generate 20000 jobs in 3-5 years. Mumbai Angels is India&rsquot;s premium group of angel investors and has invested in over 25 early stage ventures in last 4 years.

Arvind Rao

Chairman, CEO & CoFounder, OnMobile

Arvind has more than 20 years of experience in the wireless telecommunications,private equity,venture capital and emerging ,market sectors. With his passion and motivation, Arvind has transformed OnMobile from a startup with big dreams to the No.1 Telecom VAS player in india.He plays an instrumental role in forging new poartnerships with telecom, media @ corporate customers, conceiving new business models which are redefining how the telecom VAS sector operates,identifying and negotiating inorganic growth opportunities for OnMobile around the world, representing the face of OnMobile with investors and shareholders, and ensuring a high growth trajectory for OnMobile to build significant economic value for all stake holders including employees. Prior to Co-founding OnMobile, he was the Managing Director of Technology invetsments at Gilbert Global Equity Partners, New York.Prior to that, he was a Principal with the Chatterjee Group, an affliate of Soros Fund Management.During these years, Arvind led private equity, venture capital and strategic public investments in wireless telecomunications, internet, satellites, application software and IT services world wide. Earlier while at McKinsey & Co, Arvind specialized in the IT, Telecom and electronics sector, providing strategic counsel to high- tech clients on new business entry and development strategies, acquisitions, alliances, product marketing and distribution strategies.

Anshul Abhang

Founder Director, FLUXONIX

FLUXONIX