Mentors

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.

Kamakoti Veezhinathan is a Director of  IIT Madras. He was also the Chairman of the Artificial Intelligence Task Force constituted by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. He specializes in the area of Computer Architecture, Information Security and VLSI Design. He also heads the Microprocessor Development Program and the Information Security Education and Awareness Program funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

Dr.V. Kamakoti received the M.S. degree and the Ph.D. degree in computer science and engineering from IIT Madras, Chennai, India.He is currently a Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Associate Dean at ICSR,IIT Madras. He has more than 15 years of experience in computer systems development and specializes in the area of computer architecture, CAD for VLSI, and high performance computing. Dr. Kamakoti took SHAKTI processor initiative which aim to break the barrier between Academia and Industry by providing open-source Processor and SoC designs. He has authored a number of research papers that have been published in various international journals and in the PROCEEDINGS of many scientific conferences. Dr.Kamakoti also has interest in writing literature and has published Ganiporiyum Adipadiyum, a book in Tamil released in 1992.Dr. Kamakoti received DRDO Academic Excellence Award instituted by DRDO in recognition of the contribution from Academicians to various programs of DRDO. Recently, Dr. Kamakoti was awarded Techno Visionary Award, which is a lifetime achievement award given to an Indian academician, who made significant contributions to the field of Electronics and Semiconductor through research and development.

Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, is an indian academic and innovator. He is currently holding the position of president of IIT Madras Research Park. During his career, he has contributed extensively to technology innovation and adoption in the Indian context. He received his B.Tech. (Electrical Engineering) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and MS & PhD from University of Maine, USA. He was an Assistant Professor at Washington State University, USA for a year and has been a faculty at IIT Madras since 1981. He had been a Principal Advisor to Minister of Power, MNRE and Railways, Government of India, New Delhi.

Prof.Jhunjhunwala is considered a pioneer in nurturing Industry-Academia interaction in India towards R&D, Innovation and Product Development. He conceived and built India’s first university affiliated business park (IIT Madras Research Park). He has been developing products for masses; affordable yet technically advanced products in India, like Wireless in Local Loop, Remote health monitoring system, ATM, Solar-DC to homes, Affordable electric vehicles, etc. Prof Jhunjhunwala was also instrumental in driving India’s startup revolution and has incubated 200+ deep-tech companies, driving innovation and entrepreneurship across India and the region.

Professor Jhunjhunwala is Member of national Academy of Engineering (NAE), USA and Fellow of IEEE and World Wireless Research Forum (WWRF). He is also a fellow of the four S&T academies in India, namely, INSA, NAS, IAS, INAE. Prof. Jhujhunwala was conferred the highest civilian Honor, Padmashri in India. He has received a number of awards in India including Shanti-Swarup Bhatnagar Award, Vikram Sarabhai Research Award, H. K. Firodia Award, Milenium Medal at Indian Science Congress, UGC Hari Om Ashram Award, IETE’s Ram Lala Wadhwa Gold Medal, JC Bose fellowship, Dronacharya Award and Lifetime Achievement Award by TIE, Chennai among others. He has also received Silicon India Leadership Award in USA. He has also been conferred honorary doctorate by University of Maine, USA and Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden.

TIE conferred him the title of Dronacharya for his contributions to the cause of entrepreneurship,at IIT Madras. He heads the IITM Incubation Cell and Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI). He leads the TeNeT group, which has worked closely with industry to create innovative affordable products in sectors like telecom, banking, renewable energy and electric vehicles. His strength has been in designing and developing products which are affordable to Indian people at large.

G.Aghila received her B.E. Honors Degree from Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai in the year 1988, and the M.E. degree from Anna University (College of Engineering, Guindy), Chennai in the year 1992 with the specialization of Computer Science & Engineering discipline. She earned her Ph.D in CSE in the year 2004 from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai

Starting her career as a Teaching Research Fellow, over an illustrious career spanning 32 years, she rose to take over the reins since Feb’22, as Director at NIT Trichy, which is ranked 8th best (NIRF) in the country. Earlier at NIT Puducherry, Dr. G. Aghila donned multiple roles as Chief warden, Professor and Head & Registrar (i/c), member of Senate and BoG etc. Prior to joining NIT Puducherry, she served as Head of Department of Computer Science in Pondicherry University during 2008-09.

Dr Aghila’s areas of interest include Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Steganography, Artificial Intelligence, Semantic Web Engineering, Cheminformatics, Ontology Engineering, Block Chain, Big Data Analytics, Edge Computing, Smart and Secure Computing and Context Aware Computing.

Her academic administrative responsibilities include, Chairman & Member of Board of Studies, Doctoral Committee Member, Women Student Advisor, Chairman & Member of various panels for Faculty & Non-Teaching Staff Recruitment, affiliation committees Nodal Officer – NKN, Chairperson of Startup Research Grant, Principal (i/c) of Community College of Pondicherry University etc

Dr. Aghila has organized numerous national/international workshops, FDPs and Refresher courses on ICT Applications, Ontology Engineering & Cheminformatics, Data mining & Data warehousing, grid computing, AICTE Training and Learning (ATAL) Academy – FDP on Data Analytics using Python/R Programming etc. She had delivered the plenary lecture at the First (1st) EnCoRE meeting and had collaborated with Prof. Alain Krief in the area of Cheminformatics, University of Namur, Belgium.

She is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Life member of the Computer Society of India (CSI) and a Life Member of the Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE).

Dr. G. Aghila is the principal author/ co-author of over 120 journals, conferences and book chapters. She has guided 9 Ph.D., dissertations and over 100 MS/M.E/M.Tech Theses. She has been granted a patent entitled “System for Storage Reduction in cloud based video surveillance and method thereof” and has executed five major sponsored and consultancy projects worth over Rs 2.09 crores, including the FUNDP (Faculté N.-D de la Paix) grant.

Dr. G. Aghila was selected for the MoE’s prestigious “Leadership for Academicians Programme (LEAP)” organized by IIT Roorkee in association with Ross School of Business, USA during Nov-Dec’18.

Akhila Rajeshwar is a leading mentor and trainer in Tamil Nadu’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. For

more than a decade, she has worked with established and aspiring entrepreneurs all over TamilNadu, providing individual support as well as creating shared spaces for peer learning. As the Executive Director of TiE Chennai, she has initiated and led multiple new initiatives including Personal Boards (platforms for facilitated peer sharing) and Catalyst (personal development for entrepreneurs). These initiatives have been met with resounding success, and Akhila has received the Best Executive Director award from TiE Global 3 times. Under her leadership, TiE Chennai has also been adjudged best chapter 2 times.

Akhila’s work is deeply influenced by her experience spanning consulting, BPO and healthcare industries. This experience, coupled with her passion for impact-driven work, characterises her work

Vishal Kanvaty is Chief of Innovation at NPCI. He has around 20yrs in Payment Industry and has expertise in Payments and Retail Banking. He also has good knowledge on Blockchain and has ran a startup on Blockchain.

His areas of interest include payments, credit cards, retail banking and impact of technology on Banking. His recent focus has been in the area how payments can be transformed in India leveraging various technologies like Blockchain, AI/ML and API’s.

Mr Vishal has been instrumental in seeing the growth of various products at NPCI including UPI/Rupay/ NETC/AEPS etc. He is very passionate about digital payments initiative.

Bharath a Senior Partner at Anand and Anand, India with almost 2 decades of practice in intellectual property law (trademarks, copyright, designs, patents, confidential information, information technology and E Commerce). He is sought after for his Business side approach and Strategy from the early stage of ideation, protection and enforcement of IP rights not only in India but across foreign jurisdictions as well. His practice includes Litigation before Courts, Opposition, cancellation, arbitration and other proceedings before various IPR Tribunals including Trademarks, Designs, Copyright Geographical Indications, Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). He has been the lead counsel in numerous proceedings before the Indian Courts and IP Appeal Board with several reported decisions to his credentials.

He is engineering the Future – A futurist, angel investor, and Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, Sanjiv Goyal is paving the way for humanity to embrace the disruptive world of cutting-edge technology.

Sanjiv believes that through innovation and fostering entrepreneurship, humanity can transform and emerge from poverty. It is his life purpose to work with our next generation and help them go beyond their potential to solve humanity’s biggest future challenges; food and quality of life.

Sanjiv aspires to transform the world by inspiring and embracing technological advances and unconventional ways of solving long-standing challenges.

Pioneering creative solutions, Sanjiv implements strategies to maximize ROI, promote team-based productivity, and cultivate new forms of engagement.

Sanjeev Jha is the Founder & Principal of Strumng, a niche consultancy services focused in
developing competencies of insurers, insurance brokers, agents, bancassurance partner &
emerging distributors, service providers and insurtech entities.
He is currently Consultant for Fairfax and is actively involved in their operations across multiple
high growth Asian markets like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.

Rajesh Kumar is responsible for strategizing and steering TransUnion CIBIL’s business to support India’s financial ecosystem in navigating sustainable credit growth while managing risk. TransUnion CIBIL- India’s pioneer Credit Information Company, has been a partner of choice to India’s credit industry and Rajesh holds the mantle to further build on the trust that both lenders and borrowers place in the company.

With over 25 years in India’s financial markets, Rajesh has played a meaningful role in driving digital transformation and innovation in the retail lending ecosystem in the country. His rich experience, expertise and contribution makes Rajesh a respected thought leader in the banking and finance sector. He is a member of many national committees of various Industry associations like FICCI and CII. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and also conducts academic lectures at RBI and other training programs. Prior to joining TransUnion CIBIL in 2020, Rajesh was the Group Head for Retail Credit & Risk at HDFC Bank where he led a team comprising more than 3,000 bank officers.

Rajesh holds an MBA Degree in Finance & Marketing from T A Pai Institute of Management, Mumbai and Bachelors Degree in Science from MES College, Mumbai.