Speaker Bio:  

Ashay Padwal
CTO & Co-Founder, Vserv.mobi
11+ years experience in managing Mobile and Internet technology projects , with active involvement in strategy, conceptualizations, team building, hands on implementation and operations. Ashay is the part of founding team at Mauj (2004-08) , managing Technology, Product & Operations handling over 120 team members He Launched Mobile Services on SMS and WAP for Yahoo! India (2001-2004) He worked as the Project Manager in Mega E-Services managing various Internet Portal Solutions (1999-2000) with 40+ engineersAshay is responsible for Technology and Product Development. A computer engineering graduate from the University of Mumbai, Ashay’s career spans over a decade, he has been instrumental in building and deploying complex and varied projects in the internet and wireless space. He has actively been involved in strategy, conceptualizations, team building, hands on implementation and operations of technical initiatives. Ashay has been at the helm of many technology initiatives at enterprises like Yahoo! and People Infocom (Mauj) where he spearheaded project management, product development and, technology functions including games development & managed a talent pool of 100 plus resources. Ashay is a compulsive workaholic, self-confessed food connoisseur and loves trekking. Vserv has been working closely with developer community and has the world’s most SIMPLEST way to integrate Ads in to their Apps.We call it Ad Wrapper TM . This allows them to earn Global Income from Day 1 of signup
Vijayramkumar
Vice President, Business Development, MyCityWay India
Vijayramkumar currently heads business development at MyCityWay India. Vijay has received a Science degree from P.S.G College of Technology Coimbatore and was one of the candidates in the pioneer batch of CRISIL’s managerial development program (Crisil Certified Analyst Program) from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering. He worked as a structured finance Credit Analyst for Crisil - A Standard & Poor’s company. At MyCityWay, Vijay is actively involved in making strategic partnerships with services, which would complement the MyCityWay experience. Vijay likes to work on products that redefine and enrich the everyday lives of people.
Anuradha Ramachandran
Principal, Ventureast
Anuradha manages the investments of the Ventureast-Tenet Fund in the technology and tech enabled services space. She is a finance professional with considerable experience in corporate finance and investment banking. Her portfolio companies include Intelizon Energy, a solar power products firm; Mobien, an enterprise mobility solutions firm; Lattice Bridge a speech recognition technology solutions provider; Vortex, a technology-enabled finance solutions provider; and USourceIT a service provider to SMEs in the outsourcing industry. Anuradha works closely with her portfolio companies, in most cases as a director on the boards of companies. In the instance of Mobien, which Anuradha sourced through her network of former colleagues, she identified and studied the value proposition, reviewed the technology, whetted and perfected the business plan, and finally moved to invest in less than six months of identifying the deal. Anuradha has since worked very closely with the company providing strategic direction, and helping to put in place and execute a robust business plan. Anuradha worked with the Tenet group of IIT Madras prior to its joining hands with Ventureast. The fund is a pioneering effort due to its association with the premier educational and research institution. In many cases, portfolio companies of the fund have been incubated at IIT Madras, thus giving them a head start by putting within their reach world-class research facilities, expertise, and knowledge. Prior to joining the Tenet group, Anuradha worked in the investment banking and corporate finance divisions of Lazard India, UTV Interactive, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, and Financial Express. She has experience across segments such as M&A, strategic advisory, planning, project finance, and equity research. Anuradha has a B.Sc in Physics and an MBA in Finance from the Madurai Kamaraj University.
Ranjith Menon
Vice President, IDG Ventures India
Ranjith has over 10 years of industry experience including 4 years of venture investing experience. Prior to joining IDG Ventures India, Ranjith worked with Infotech Enterprises, Indias premier Design Engineering and GIS Company. As Manager-Marketing he played a role in conceptualizing and launching new service offerings for the Aerospace vertical, which is one of the largest offshore Aerospace practices out of India. Earlier in his career he has served as a stress test engineer at Infotech Enterprises and also gained shop floor experience at Bharat Earth Movers Limited, Indias largest earth moving equipment manufacturers. Ranjith is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). He holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University and an MBA from the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.
Rohith Bhat
MD and CEO, Robosoft Technologies
Rohith founded Robosoft in 1996 with the focus on providing product development services around the Apple Mac platform when the rest of the world had given up on the Mac. Over the years, Robosoft has built on this niche and has several ongoing multi-year service engagements with some well known brands. In 2005, Robosoft started porting games from PC/Xbox to Mac and has ported several dozen titles from Microsoft Game Studios, Codemasters, Ubisoft, Popcap, Gamehouse, National Geographic and Disney over the years. In 2008, Robosoft diversified into providing product and game development services on the Mobile platform and has already built several internationally acclaimed games and products on iPhone, iPad, Android, Symbian and Blackberry platforms. In 2008, Robosoft spun off two subsidiaries with focus on building great things for the global markets: ‘Global Delight’ which focuses on building great utility and productivity software for Mac and iOS and ‘99Games Online’ focused on building games for the iOS platforms. Couple of years on, several international awards later, clocking over 25 million downloads and after regularly topping the charts on the App Store, these subsidiaries are raring to up the ante up in a big way.
Aakrit Vaish
Business Operations Director & Managing Director, India, Flurry
At Flurry, Aakrit is Managing Director, India, recently establishing an office in Mumbai. He oversees all business activities for the company in India, including worldwide advertising operations, business analysis, corporate forecasting and the company’s customer center. His primary responsibility in this role is to maximize overall revenue for the company across its portfolio of advertising products by creating monetization and user acquisition strategies for iOS and Android application developers, the company’s core customer-base. He regularly analyzes market and platform trends using Flurry’s data set, which tracks more than three times the data volume of Twitter. Prior to Flurry, Aakrit worked as a Strategy Consultant for Deloitte Consulting, serving clients in the public sector. Aakrit has a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Ganesh Ramakrishnan
Associate Vice President, Tata Capital Private Equity
Ganesh Ramakrishnan is an Associate Vice President with Tata Capital Private Equity. Since joining the firm in 2008, he has evaluated over 200 investment opportunities primarily in the technology, telecom, pharma and agri-business sectors. He was actively involved in deal evaluation, negotiation and execution for the investment in Tata Technologies Limited (TTL) and CEBBCO. He is also involved in the portfolio management of TTL. Ganesh has 10 years of experience in private equity, strategy consulting and business development in India and US. He was formerly a Manager with the Strategy Consulting group of Deloitte where he worked primarily in the areas of growth strategy and go-to-market strategy for technology, media and telecom (TMT) firms. He also assisted leading private equity firms in business due diligence assignments. Prior to Deloitte, Ganesh was with Cognizant Technology Solutions where he focused on business development. He was actively involved in formulating a diversification strategy and an entry strategy into Europe for Cognizant. Ganesh started his career as an Analyst with Capital One and has also worked as a Consultant with IBM. Ganesh holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a Masters in Engineering from Auburn University, USA.
JK Menon
CEO, Interworld Commnet
JK Menon, CEO for Interworld Commnet brings in 15 years of IT experience and successfully marketing it throughout the world. The mobile apps for him was a sheer by choice almost 6 years back. From that time Interworld Commnet has never looked back. From a tremendous growth of delivering 1 application a month to now at least 3 applications a week, the figures for IWC are staggering. Last year Interworld Commnet invested in couple of SE Asian Companies and reaped out results. Thus finally now having a Asia Pacific base in Singapore. The APAC is managed by its another subsidiary and is focused on Asian Markets. Today JK&rsquot;s initiative is to cultivate and harvest the New Media Market Developing in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand and his responsibility is to sell mobile apps and venture partnerships through current B2B and B2C web based technology user group to step on mobile space. He enjoy the exclusive responsibility to develop and implement strategies to sell mobile apps and port current B2B and B2C web based technology user group to step on mobile space. Its all about growing business for the Interworld Commnet and respond to changing market dynamics by creating new revenue opportunities.
Vaideeswaran Sethuraman
Founder & CEO , Divum Corporate Services Pvt Ltd
Vaideeswaran Sethuraman is the Founder & CEO at Divum Corporate Services Pvt Ltd. He is a VLSI Electronic Design Automation (EDA) veteran, with more than 14 years of vast experience in the areas of microprocessor / SoC chip design, flow automation and in-house tools development. The areas include synthesis, lint, logical equivalence checking, design verification (DV), CDC, datapath placer, backend P&R and timing flows. Defined and developed tools from scratch like netlist checkers, RTL power estimation tools, flow-automation tools and Spec-to-RTL tools. Currently developing an Datapath placement and Standard cell library qualification tools for a design house. Founded Divum in the middle of deep 2008 recession and grown upto a team size in double digit. Divum has a track record of developing 40+ iPhone applications in first 6 months. Divum is an idea execution center, where ideas are converted into reality, especially in the areas of iPhone/BlackBerry/Android applications.
Ninad Chhaya
Chief Operating Officer, Playcaso
An entrepreneur and an avid gamer at heart, Ninad has 16 years of experience in the interactive media space with more than 13 years in the field of gaming. At Playcaso, Ninad is the Chief Operating Officer and is responsible for overseeing complete operations and driving Playcaso&rsquot;s growth strategy to establish itself as a developer and publisher of global repute. Prior to setting up Playcaso, Ninad was the Executive Vice President at Jump Games, a Reliance Entertainment Ltd. venture, and has been instrumental in building the organization into a global brand. Ninad was the Creative Director and Co-founder of Indiagames Ltd. and played a key role in building the organization to become a leading global mobile game publisher in its early days. Ninad has extensive experience in creating and publishing games across platforms like PC, Online, Wireless including emerging platforms like iOS, Android, etc. Ninad is affiliated with associations like the NASSCOM Animation and Gaming Forum (NAGFO) and the FICCI Animation and Gaming Forum to help promote the gaming culture and developing the gaming industry in India.
Vineet Govil
Director Engineering, Sling Media Pvt Ltd
Vineet Govil is working as Director Engineering in Sling Media Pvt Ltd, Bangalore and is responsible for development of various Sling media products. He has more than 17 years of experience in software industry, primarily focused on communication industry specifically in mobile handset frameworks, satellite communication, multimedia streaming and networking domain. He has presented several papers and participated in many conference and holds a patent too. His interest area includes streaming, mobile applications, framework and multimedia communication.
Mahesh Murthy
Founding Partner, Seedfund
Mahesh Murthy is a founding partner at Seedfund, and has over 26 years of marketing and communications experience, of which 15 years are in online marketing. After dropping out of college, Mahesh sold vacuum cleaners from door to door, worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV – for whom he wrote and directed a spot voted “Asia’s best commercial of the decade”. He then moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners (later, USWeb/CKS) as Creative Director, GM and Partner – where he helped launch the first commercial version of Yahoo in 1995 and the Earth’s Biggest Bookstore campaign for Amazon.com in 1997. After a successful NASDAQ IPO, Mahesh moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-commerce firm in Seattle subsequently acquired by Intel. Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, a rival to MTV, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in and guide startups. Among his investments were Geodesic, a mobile software firm with a 2008 market cap of over $500m; EBS Direct, a multinational loyalty and marketing services firm; Compassbox (acquired by CareerLauncher) and WebDunia, India’s leading multilingual portal. While running search marketing campaigns for his favourite charity in 2003, Mahesh believed there was a need for a pay-for-performance digital brand management firm – and set up Pinstorm in Bombay. With over 120 people across 6 offices in India, Singapore, Malaysia, Europe and the US, Pinstorm is today among the world’s leading digital marketing firms. Mahesh has spoken at Internet World Chicago, CNET(LA), 140Conf and other net conferences and won the world’s top awards at Cannes and Promax. He penned a reasonably infamous column in Business Today and Businessworld, and played the Donald Trump-equivalent role in Business Baazigar, a game show involving entrepreneurs and business plans. Mahesh writes a column in The Wall Street Journal.
Shekhar Kirani
Partner, Accel Partners
Before joining Accel Partners, Shekhar was heading VeriSign India as country manager. At Accel Shekhar will focus on Internet, Enterprise/SaaS and Mobile. Shekhar is currently on the Boards of Mobstac and SureWaves. Shekhar has been an active angel investor in Bangalore since 2007. Previously, Shekhar worked as VP at VeriSign in Mountain View in their mobile division. Before VeriSign, Shekhar worked closely with Philippe Kahn in creating LightSurf Technologies(acquired by VeriSign). Before LightSurf, Shekhar worked as part of the management team at Starfish Software(acquired by Motorola). Shekhar holds PhD in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, ME from Indian Institute of Science and BE in Computer Science, from the University of Mysore.
Sukamal Pegu
Developer Channel Evangelist, InMobi
Sukamal Pegu have been working in the internet domain for over 6 years now, specializing in gaming across all platforms. Prior to InMobi, he was consulting for Take2 Interactive to get their billion $ IPs such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption on the mobile social platforms in APAC. Before that he was heading Marketing Services for Kreeda Games for clients such as Nintendo, Sony Asia and Take2. He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur.
Sunil Rao
Head, Forum Nokia, India
Sunil Rao is the Head of Forum Nokia-India. At Nokia, Sunil is responsible for evangelizing new technology platforms, strategy and growth opportunities with Nokia third party developers to create a vibrant Nokia ecosystem.Sunil was heading the Ecosystem development for Symbian Software which was acquired by Nokia in 2008. Prior to Nokia and Symbian, he has lead sales and marketing efforts at Talisma software, Wipro technologies, Mphasis BFL and HCL Perot. He has a distinction of working in North America, Europe and Asian Markets.
Akshay Hunka
Founder & CEO , Hunka Web Solutions
Akshay is Founder and CEO at Hunka Web Solutions Pvt Ltd. Akshay started his career in 2000 with Hughes Software Systems, Gurgaon and followed by many other prestigious organizations including Impetus and Kanbay, Hyderabad. He has in-depth knowledge of various domains including Telecom, Security Surveillance, Insurance and also Mobile gaming and application development on variety of platforms including iPhone/iPad, Android, BB and Windows Mobile. Starting from a 8x8 room in 2007, Akshay has created a team of more than 50 world class engineers and designers in a very short span. HUNKA is the largest mobile apps and games development service provider in Central India. HUNKA is primarily working into Mobile Application and Gaming (2D and 3D) and also have a separate dedicated team for Web Solutions on PHP and .Net. HUNKA has done 150+ apps and games on various mobile platforms under guidance of Akshay.
Guenter Zwickl
Head of Global R&D Technology Center Management & Head of Technology Center, Nokia Siemens Networks
Guenter graduated in Telecom’s & Electronics, HTBLuVA St. Poelten, Austria, and joined Siemens AG in 1978 in the traffic engineering division. Until 1994 he served in several project management and service head positions in road area traffic and telecom’s projects in Austria, Hong Kong, Egypt and former Eastern Germany Starting 1995 he moved into sales, with VP-positions in Indonesia and Thailand, subsequently heading Siemens telecommunication country activities in Israel, Russia (fixed line) and Bulgaria. After the telecom merger Nokia Siemens Networks in 2007 he moved to R&D management. In addition to his global assignment as coordinator for NSN’s 27 Technology Centers worldwide, he was running the Technology Center in Wroclaw, Poland and as of Jan 1st, 2011 the global Technology Center in Bangalore.
Manish Kumar B
Assistant Vice President, KITVEN Fund
Manish Kumar B is currently working as Asst. Vice President with KITVEN Funds (Karnataka Information Technology Venture Capital Funds). Rich expertise of more than 10 years in VC investments covering the entire gamut right from deal sourcing, scrutinizing, due diligence, feasibility assessment, board representation to exits. Has represented in 5 assisted units at Board level and has undertaken responsibility on behalf of KITVEN Funds. He has managed successfully Rs.15.00 Crore VC Fund started in 1998-99, and investments made to the tune of Rs.17.56 Crore in 17 units. Some of the key investments include RelQ Sofware, Logix Microsystems, Indegene Life Systems, ILANTUS Technologies, ECAD Technologies, Telibrahma, Comat, Brickwork, Inknowtech, 24x7 Learning etc. Currently managing KITVEN Fund – 2 with investible corpus of Rs.26.50 Crore and focused sectors include Information Technology, Bio Technology and other knowledge industries. He has already invested in 3 units and currently appraising 2 more for investments. Both the Funds are being managed by him and the CEO). He is shortly launching 3 new VC Funds (VC Fund for SME sector, Exclusive VC Fund for Biotech & Semiconductor industries).
Rahul Chowdhri
Director, Helion Ventures
Rahul has been with Helion since 2007. Prior to joining Helion, Rahul Chowdhri has had experience working in strategy consulting, business planning, software product management and project execution roles in India and US. Rahul was a Group Program Manager at Microsoft India. Between 2005 and early 2007, Rahul led the Microsoft Dynamics product planning and Office Live program management team. At Microsoft, Rahul also helped develop business strategy to build a web and mobile based business targeted towards Indian small businesses. Prior to this, Rahul was an Associate Director at marketRx Inc., based out of New Jersey. At marketRx, Rahul was involved in business planning, running operations as well as managing the product for market research focused business unit. Before joining marketRx, Rahul was a Senior Product Manager at i2 Technologies in Dallas. Between 1998 and late 2000, Rahul was a Management Consultant at Boston Consulting Group in India. As part of the BCG team, Rahul was part of strategy projects across software, metals, machine manufacturing, oil exploration and banking verticals. Rahul holds an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and a B. Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Pratapa Bernard
Vice President and Head of the Data Services Center of Excellence, Vodafone
Pratapa Bernard is the Vice President and Head of the Data Services Center of Excellence (Emerging Markets) for Vodafone. He is responsible for developing mobile data products and solutions that are relevant for the mass market audience across the Vodafone Emerging Markets including India, South Africa, Egypt and others. Prior to joining Vodafone, he was the Head of Marketing & Products at OnMobile. As part of the original core team at OnMobile, Pratapa has over the years build several innovative mobile products and applications tailored for both Emerging and Developed markets. Earlier, Pratapa worked at IBM in various positions including Country Manager for e-Business Solutions and Head of Networking Products. Pratapa holds a Bachelor Degree in Electronics & Telecom Engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management.
Venkatesh Peddi
Assistant Vice President, IDG Ventures India
Venkatesh has over 9 years of industry experience including over 3 years of venture investing experience. Prior to joining IDG Ventures India, Venkatesh was Deputy Vice President at Reliance Venture Asset Management - the corporate venture capital arm of Reliance ADA Group. Venkatesh was involved in executing multiple end-to-end investments and was a board member at Gradatim IT Ventures and a board observer at Suvidhaa Infoserve and Pelago Inc. Venkatesh was earlier an Account Manager in Investment Banking division of Adventity, a leading KPO player, where he advised deal teams of leading investment banks at various deal stages. Venkatesh later moved to Adventity Inc., New York, to take up roles involving close client interaction, while being promoted on a fast track basis from an Analyst to Manager within 10 months. Prior to Adventity, as Assistant Manager at Blue Star Infotech, Venkatesh helped in structuring deals and M&A activities of the firm. Venkatesh is an active CFA charterholder from the CFA institute, USA and holds a Bachelors degree in engineering from VJTI, Mumbai and a Masters degree in Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), where he was consistently among the top 10 candidates registered for the program.
Rajesh Rai
CEO, India Innovation Fund
Rajesh Rai is CEO of India Innovation Fund. He currently serves on the Boards of Surewaves, Sedemac and Mitra Biotech. Rajesh brings over 15 years of industry experience including over 9 years of venture investing experience to his position. Rajesh co-founded and served as Partner with New Markets Venture Partners (NMVP), a leading venture capital fund in the Washington DC region with over 20 portfolio companies in information technology, health care and education. Rajesh worked at NMVP across the life cycle of fund raising, investing, building companies and exiting investments. Prior to co-founding NMVP in 2002, Rajesh worked in operational roles at Godrej-GE Appliances, Career Plan and Kirloskar Electric. Rajesh holds a MBA from University of Maryland, College Park and a B.E from Regional Engineering College, Surathkal.
Viswanath Poosala
Head of Bell Labs India , Alcatel-Lucent
Vishy comes with an experience of taking ideas from creation to launch (geopepper.com, alertpedia.com), leading global teams (at Alcatel-Lucent Ventures), strong Computer Science roots spanning mobile/web apps, databases, and networks (IIT-Madras, PhD from UW-Madison, Adjunct professor at NYU), invention experience (40+ patents filed, 20+ papers published). He is a Mentor Partner at HeadStart Ventures LLP and currently is the Head of Bell Labs - India at Alcatel-Lucent.