Mentors

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.

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.

Mahesh Ramachandran is a successful Serial and Social Entrepreneur turned investor.

Mahesh is a distinguished Sloan Fellow of London Business School.

Mahesh is Leadership Council and Programme Management Group member of FinBlue FinTech Centre of Excellence set up by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India at STPI, Chennai.

Mahesh is Managing Partner of Pontaq India, a cross border venture capital Innovation Fund.

Mahesh is an angel investor, mentor, independent director supporting innovative startups and helps build the ecosystem. Mahesh is a member of The Chennai Angels, The Mumbai Angels, Keiretsu, Native Angels and many other angel network.

Mahesh chairs TiE FinTech Special Interest Group and is in the Governing Council of TiE Chennai

Financial Technologist for 19+ years, spending almost half the time in London working for Citigroup’s Capital Markets, and afterwards for NatWest(Formerly Known as RBS) Technology India in various leadership roles. Currently leads NatWest Group’s Technology Transformation initiatives driven from India for the bank’s global Retail/ Commercial/ Corporate/ Private banking businesses. He is also India Lead of the bank’s Sustainable Futures Network, a Certified Coach, Mentor, and Diversity & Inclusion Champion. Charter  Member of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE), member of British Business Group and connected to British Deputy High Commission, Chennai to help collaboration between UK and India, specifically for FinTechs.

Aspiring writer, with work published in literary magazines.MBA from London Business School, University of London,  Post-Graduate in Software Engineering, and Bachelors of Electrical Engineering.

Pradeep Kumar is the head of Strategic Initiatives for PayPal India.  He also oversees the strategy and operations of PayPal Incubator. Prior to PayPal, Pradeep was working for a multi-million dollar incubator fund focusing on multi-sector early stage startups. He has in-depth experience of working in a variety of areas such as Quality, Consulting, Project Management and Business development across industries such as Telecom, education services and Pharmaceutical in India, USA and Philippines.

He is the author of three best-selling non-fiction books in Tamil and co-founded a startup to sell Tamil e-Books. He has a passion for teaching and has delivered training programs to corporates and campuses covering more than 10,000 students. Pradeep holds a Bachelor’s of Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Vellore Institute of Technology and MBA from Asian Institute of Management and a Chevening Fellow.

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.