Founders

Abhishek Nayak, Founder, Gharpay
Abhishek Nayak is a co-founder of GharPay, a venture backed company that manages offline payments for internet companies. He studied Biological Sciences at BITS Pilani before starting his company. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Aishwarya Mishra, Satya Shodh

Aishwarya Mishra is the co-founder of Satya Shodh, an effort to enable people in Hyderabad form better opinions on issues by way of screening documentaries. He is also the President of the Hyderabad Chapter of Rang De, an online platform for peer-to-peer microlending. As a full time employee, Aishwarya works as in quality at Pramati Technologies, on JackBe Presto, an Enterprise Mashup Platform. Before joining Pramati, he worked with Mahindra Satyam. He earned his engineering degree in computer science from Cochin University of Science & Technology. He has driven across the country, trekked, and ran the 21 kms Mumbai Marathon which he has survived. His real passion is Social Development and strongly feels each person has a role to play in making the society a better place. He is 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Ajay Datta, SNLogic Systems Pvt. Ltd., TechEnclave.com

Ajay is a founding partner at TechEnclave.com, India’s largest technology community. He is also a director at SNLogic Systems Pvt Ltd, a company he founded, which offers end-to-end web development and marketing services for online social and community platforms, apart from managing a number of niche blogs and websites. Prior to his entrepreneurial venture, he worked for DRDO as a research scientist. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Ashok Varma Kucharlapati, Silmaril Software
Ashok Varma is the Founder & CEO of Silmaril Software. Founded in Jan 2011, Silmaril Soft has been developing products to help mobile app developers reach their product market fit faster. Prior to Silmaril Soft, he has worked at Knolskape Solutions, a startup based out of Singapore. Ashok holds a Bachelors degree in Information Systems from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India. He is a 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in the Hyderabad chapter.

Asha Jayaraman, Wonder Cab
Asha Jayaraman is the Founder and Managing Director of Wonder Cab, a start-up providing women-friendly transport solutions. Prior to Wonder Cab, she worked in anti-human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Serbia and India, emergency response, technology for development, association of SMEs in the ICT space in Europe and India, public relations and inventory accounting. Asha is an alumni of the International Visitors Leadership Programmes (IVLP) of the U.S. Department of State (a premier professional exchange program that seeks to build mutual understanding between the U.S. and other nations through carefully designed short-term visits to the U.S. for current and emerging foreign leaders). She holds an MA in NGO Management from Euromed Marseille, Ecole de Management. She enjoys fresh salads and Cabernet Sauvignon. Asha is passionate about solving the problem of gender inequality. She is 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Dhiraj Pillay, Founder & CEO, Fragstore Retail

Dhiraj Kumar Pillay is the Founder & CEO of Giftaperfume.com and the Managing Director of Fragstore Retail Private Limited, a paradise for all branded perfume lovers and envisioned to become India’s first multi-branded retail chain exclusively into perfumes. Prior to this he was the head of Career Launcher India Ltd.’s Hyderabad business. He is also one amongst the 99.99999 percentile people who started their careers with Coke, uncommonly known as Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd. He is a graduate in Statistics and has done his MBA in 2004. He has specialised in International Business from Symbiosis Institute of International Business. He is passionate about outdoor sports and relishes cooking at times. He is 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program at Hyderabad.

Hemanth Satyanarayana, Imaginate

Hemanth Satyanarayana is Founder and CEO of Imaginate, a high technology enterprise that develops innovative and revolutionary products in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality using Computer Vision and Computer Graphics. Prior to Imaginate, Hemanth worked as the Technology Lead for Sovoz Incorporation, USA where he engineered the design and development of a Patent pending Virtual Locomotion Controller, a sophisticated motion tracking device for the US Department of Defense and also helped raise more than USD 500K in technology grants. Hemanth has also worked in research and development roles as a Project Leader at Tactus Technologies, a US based Virtual Reality startup and also at IBM Software Labs. As a researcher at SUNY, he pioneered the development of a Image guided Liver Surgery apparatus using Augmented Reality in joint collaboration with the Pedeatric department at Kaleida Health hospital, USA. Hemanth, a jack of all trades, enjoys inventing new products and solutions to bridge technology gaps across industry verticals and is passionate about entrepreneurship. He is an avid sports fan, an amateur photographer, and likes travelling. Hemanth holds a B.Tech degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Madras) and a Masters degree from State University of New York (SUNY Buffalo). He also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Patent Law from NALSAR. Hemanth is a Co-Inventor of 2 Patents (Filed) in USA and India. He is a 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Kumar Mangalapalli, RightSource Global

Kumar is a co-founder of RightSource Global, an integrated Technology and Operations firm with offices in India, UK and US. He currently heads Operations at RSG. Prior to that, Kumar worked in various capacities at a few boutique consulting firms and startups in leadership roles. Before relocating to India, he lived in US for close to 8 years working with an Indian IT major at one of the world’s largest investment banks. While away from work, books, music and movies keep him busy. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Mili Srivastava, Foodys.in
Mili has 9+ years of experience in the training and hospitality industry. In the past, she has trained more than 2000 employees on soft skills in the IT, ITES, Manufacturing, Medical, NBFC and Telecom industries. She planned, strategized and designed the content and functioning of the training division at ISFC. She designed and trained for projects focusing on aspects of training of trainers, effective communication, assertiveness, influencing skills, customer service, time management, team building, sales, call handling and cross culture. Mili did a part time certificate course on Statistical Quality Control, at the Indian Statistical Institute, Hyderabad. She is currently Director of Foody’s (Zoha Foods Pvt Ltd), which specializes in home and office delivery for 20+ top end restaurants in Hyderabad. She is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Niranjan Seelam, Playsportz

With a vision to increase the fitness levels of school-going children, Niranjan Seelam co-founded Playsportz in 2010. Playsportz partners with schools and helps them understand the fitness quotient of each child and customize the regimen to suit the children’s needs. Prior to Playsportz, Niranjan was the Head of Operations and Finance at redBus. Ops and Finance are his forte. Along with running and squash, he enjoys “making and thrashing” business plans. This die Hard “Rocky” fan, is a Chemical Engineering graduate from BITS-PILANI and MBA from Asian Institute of Management-Manila. He is a 2012 Startup Leadership Program Fellow of Hyderabad.

Pradeep Palelli, EfficientCarbon Management Solutions

Pradeep has always been interested in the idea of sustainability and he is now one of the partners at “EfficientCarbon Management Solutions” (www.efficientcarbon.com) whose work is focussed entirely on environmental sustainability. Pradeep has previously worked at Infosys for 3 years during which he explored domains such as microfinance (financial sustainability) and e-waste management. With “Sustainable Living” and “Sustainable Business” as the core ideas of his company, Pradeep now aims to spread the message of sustainability. Pradeep holds a B.E. (Honors) in Electronics and Instrumentation from BITS-Pilani. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Ramesh Kandikonda, Schoolcanvas

Ramesh has over 25 years of work experience in the IT industry and is a recognized authority in Information Technology. He currently pursues development of online school Academic Management System (ERP +) Schoolcanvas. Schoolcanvas is a hosted online platform and brings innovative features to school management with integrated communication. Early in his career, he provided consultancy in the areas of enterprise architecture and IT solutions architecture to solve enterprise business problems. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Sangeetha Narasimhan, Twimo

Sangeetha Narasimhan is the co-founder of Twimo, a mobile marketing startup which creates applications for consumer-facing businesses to connect and richly engage with their customers. Her venture is incubated at the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurial Development at the Indian School of Business. Before her entrepreneurial stint, Sangeetha worked for Cisco Systems for 9 years in Bangalore, San Francisco and Atlanta. She started her career developing routers for Cisco’s Multiservice Switching portfolio and then moved to Cisco US Sales, selling to AT&T’s backbone and enterprise VPN businesses. Sangeetha holds a B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science degree from BITS, Pilani and a Post Graduate Programme in Management from the Indian School of Business (ISB). She made the Dean’s List at ISB, served on ISB’s Admissions Committee and on the core team of iDiya, ISB’s social venture ideas competition. She continues to volunteer for Admissions interviews, candidate outreach and counselling. Sangeetha talks fast, eats slow, adores P G Wodehouse, enjoys a good swim, is afraid of heights but loves to go backpacking in the wilderness. She believes that poverty is an anachronism and she wishes to travel, taking only photographs and leaving only footprints. She is a 2012 Fellow and Co-Program Leader of the founding class of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Santhosh Kumar, Fountain Chocolate
Santhosh Kumar is the founder of Fountain Chocolate, India’s first fountain hire company. He has been instrumental in bringing the rich, expensive chocolate fountains from shopping malls into the reach of every customer and catered to all kinds of occasions. After catering to clientele from sectors such as IT, Hotels, Fashion, etc, relying on the feedback and realising the scope within the chocolate industry, FC expanded into chocolate making under the brand name ETALOCOCH. Apart from running FC, Santhosh has been into freelancing for branding and has named start up companies such as Dsigncell, Yellow Petals – designing firms, Blue Beeds – candle making company, Bol-daal – portal for educating consumers, Beads & Buttons – Apparel Designer. He has been involved with Nirman – an association for the intellectually challenged and has been working towards making it a self sustainable organization. Santhosh had been active in sports and has represented his school, college, institutes in various competitions and won awards on numerous occasions. An award from the Grand Master – Vishwanathan Anand, a science fair award, etc are few to his credit. Santhosh holds a PMI certification and works as a program manager with one of the largest banks and would like to see himself as a serial entrepreneur. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Shameek Chakravarty, Ohana Media
Shameek runs an online advertising startup based out of Hyderabad and New Jersey. He holds an undergrad in Computer Science from BITS Pilani and a MBA from the Indian School of Business, and has worked as a Product Manager at Amazon.com and a SBU head at Rediff.com, prior to starting off. He is a 2012 Fellow and Program Leader for the founding class of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Surendra Lingareddy, AlongTheWay

Surendra Lingareddy is the founder of AlongTheWay, an online service intended to allow rail passengers order food and condiments from acclaimed vendors along their train route and get it delivered directly to their berths. This service leverages India’s diverse cuisine and condiment shops and is being designed to address a significant problem area in Indian Railways. Surendra transitioned to Hyderabad from Austin, TX (USA) in early 2010 to further his discussions with Indian Railways. Surendra currently works at Crossroads Systems, where he develops Ruby on Rails apps in addition to managing its Indian operations. Prior to that, he worked for Texas Instruments developing Graphical User Interfaces for scientific calculators that enabled teachers teach better. He specializes in developing usable and intuitive user interfaces. He holds a Masters degree in Engineering Management from Portland State University where he was awarded MECOP International Intern in 2001. Surendra is concerned about traffic in India and is ardently working to promote innovative ways of car pooling to ensure maximum occupancy in a car. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Srinivas Rao Nemmarugomula, SDS Partners/Dimecast
Srinivas Rao is a co-founder at Dimecast, a company involved in providing shopper-marketing solutions. A serial entrepreneur, during his graduation, he enrolled as the authorized vendor of fresh produce for a national chain of retail stores and Jain Irrigation. He was a key player in establishing a cost effective procurement process for the chain of stores. Later he joined an NPA company and was instrumental in clearing the balance sheet of all debts and played an important role in its revival. He started a mineral trading company and has been listed as a vendor for many prestigious cement companies for supply of Laterite and imported coal. He is a member of AP flying club, has a keen interest in billards, participant in many national events. Golf is a new found interest. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Innovators

Chandrasekhar Kasiraju, Indigenius IT Solutions

Chandrasekhar Kasiraju (Chandra) is the Director of Indigenius IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, a start up in the software product development domain. Indigenius specializes in application development using open-source frameworks like Ruby on Rails, outsourced product development, and work flow based enterprise applications for small and medium enterprises. Managed by experienced industry professionals, Indigenius has emerged as one of the trusted IT partner providing software solutions; a testimony to this is the long and the impressive list of clientele. Prior to Indigenius IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, he worked at IBM India Pvt Ltd, where he was heading the Rational Software business for large accounts like Accenture, Capgemini, CSC, PwC, HCL. He was a high performing seller who has overachieved his numbers consistently and was part of the prestigious Hundred Percent Club in IBM for his consistent sales performance. Chandra has also worked at Tata Communications Ltd., Sify Ltd. and Sonata Software Ltd. in his sales career spanning over 13 years across India. He is an expert in Enterprise Software Sales, Relationship Management, Account Management and has closed several breakthrough deals through his career. Chandra was awarded Best Performer award in all the organizations he has worked with earlier. He holds a degree in Electronics and Masters in International Management from Pondicherry Central University. He plays violin (Carnatic Classical) and spends most of his free time listening to Indian Classical Music. Chandra is passionate about solving the problem of hunger. He’s currently associated with NGOs in Hyderabad and working towards networking the NGOs to build a self-sustainable ecosystem. He is 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad chapter.

Aditya Vuchi, Media Mint

Aditya has 6+ years in the online advertising industry, working in multiple job roles which include sales support, business operations, product management, program innovation and sales strategy. He has a comprehensive understanding of the ad business and its emerging trends and is currently Founder/CEO at Media Mint, an online media services company. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Mayura Balasubramanian, Indian School of Business

Mayura is currently Associate Director, PGP – Projects at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Her role includes managing and facilitating practicum courses including live industry projects and business plan writing. Prior to this, Mayura was with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) handling the Endogenous Tourism Project (ETP). This was a national pilot for craft and culture based rural tourism as a means of developing sustainable livelihoods, implemented in 36 villages across 20 states, in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. She currently serves on the Rural Tourism Board of the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation. A theatre enthusiast, she has acted in plays across different genres, most recently with ‘Dramanon’, Hyderabad. She is a 2012 Fellow and Co-Program Leader of the founding class of Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Ravi Sathanapalli, Group Head, Wipro

Ravi Sathanapalli, a Group Head at Wipro is a seasoned software & IT Professional with a career goal and strong aspiration to be an entrepreneur. Ravi has a rich experience in software development, sales & account management. He has played a variety of roles and been involved in large product development activities with global multinationals like Nokia, Ericsson as well as hot startups like OpenMarket and Intervoice. He has also nurtured Centers of Excellence & Innovation in Mobile Applications within Wipro. Outside his day job, Ravi is polishing his business plan around a solution for the Indian Retail market and is keen to network with others in the startup ecosystem, including other entrepreneurs interested in working together. Ravi holds an M.Tech. in CS from IIT Madras and a B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from JNTU Kakinada. He has a variety of interests – photography, travel, trekking/camping, loves a game of poker, bridge, discussion on spirituality, and loves to try out anything new. He is a Fellow of the 2012 Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Sarath Babu Vegesna, Fermentech Biologics

Sarath Babu is a Researcher at Fermentech Biologics. He is an aspiring entrepreneur with special focus on agri-biotechnology, animal health and productivity enhancement for the improvement of rural livelihoods.He was the CEO of Shri GBS Biotech, Founder of Vegesnatechs, a consulting firm for entrepreneurs in the biotech sector, Senior Research Fellow at CFTRI Mysore, Director of R&D at Alpha Technologies and Medical Sales representative at Juggat Pharma. During his PhD, he screened microorganisms capable of degrading caffeine. Sarath has 12 patents and has 9 publications. He has also been involved in the development of development of biosensors and bioremediation of pesticides and petroleum products. He holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Mysore, Master of Science in Life Sciences from the School of Lifesciences, and Bachelor of Science, Microbiology, Applied Nutrition and Public Health from Andhra University. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Santosh Lakshman M, Software Engineer, Maxrange Retail

Santosh Lakshman is currently working in the software team of a retail startup. Prior to this, he founded a personalized merchandise firm, named Colon K, while still in graduation at BITS Pilani, a premier institute in India. He also has experience of building websites that brought in 50K unique visitors per day. He was awarded Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year 2009. He is an active blogger, social media guy and SEO with the handle “Lucky Murari”. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Varadarajan Sampath Kumar, Gemcom Software

Varadarajan Sampathkumar is the Development Manager of Gemcom Software Inc, a leading provider of software solutions to Mining and Geology industries across the world. Prior to Gemcom, he worked at Spandana, a leading microfinance entity, where he was CTO. Sampath has also worked at Capgemini and Intergraph. He is an expert in hiring & leading high performance teams and developing highly scalable & reliable desktop & web software. He holds a Master’s degree in Commerce and Advanced Accounting. He is a fan of Edward De Bono, A.R. Rahman, M.S. Dhoni, wine, value investing etc. Sampath has lived in US, Europe and Middle East across his career of 15 years and has travelled across the regions. He is a 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Vivek Patel, PolySol

Being an analytical blend of a techno-commercial person (M.tech in Plastics Engineering and Technology from CIPET and MBA), Vivek was associated with MNCs like Dupont and also worked as a Scientist in DST’s (Govt. of India) lab. He has expertise in composites, polymers, chemicals and nanotechnology domain. In 2011, his business idea “Biodegradable Polymer” won the “Next Big Idea” business competition (DST & Intel in association with IIM-B) and will be showcased in Intel Global Challenge at UC Berkeley. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.

Vipin Misra, Project Leader D. E. Shaw

Vipin Misra is currently working as Project Leader at D. E. Shaw India with more than 6 years of experience in IT. He has worked extensively on developing complex automation frameworks. He received his Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from Barkatullah University. Apart from holding many certifications like CSQA, CSTE etc., he was involved in testing of e-commerce start-ups and also one of the privileged beta testers for a leading manufacturer of navigation systems. He is also founder of ‘Peppers N Petals’, a company that deals in exports of cut flowers and spices. Vipin enjoys reading books and listening to music. He is a 2012 Fellow of the Startup Leadership Program in Hyderabad.