Arpit Agarwal is the founder of Academic Ventures, a technology commercialization firm located in New Delhi. At Academic Ventures, he has been responsible for commercialization of technology with CII and establishing a private sector technology business incubator in Delhi/NCR. He is also a co-founder and Director of HeadstartNetwork Foundation, India's leading startup ecosystem organization with initiatives in 9 top cities. Before starting up, Arpit was working for more than 4 years with Tata CRL (Pune) and Ittiam(Bangalore) in Product Development and Business Development roles respectively. At CRL he was responsible for closing enterprise cloud orders worth Rs.26 Million in first 14 months of his sales career. Arpit carries a B.Tech from NIT Trichy and an MBA from IIT Bombay's SJM School of Management. He is also very proud of Pragyan, an event he started in NIT Trichy in 2005. He has also founded Headstart Network Foundation,a non profit dedicated to fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. He currently serves as Principal at Blume Ventures which is a leading early-stage seed & pre-series A venture fund based out of Mumbai, India.

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Arpit graduated from NSIT with a degree in Manufacturing Process and Automation, and was keen to start a consultancy that designs Special Purpose Machines (which could never happen). Arpit worked with Yamaha and Wipro for close to six months each and left both of these because he felt he was a misfit in these jobs. He joined Evaluserve as an Intellectual Property (IP) Analyst and kind of convinced himself that closest he can be to research in India is through this field only. After EVS, he started his first venture, Sagacious Research in IP research. At Sagacious, he started as an operations guy and soon started heading Business Development. He was able to accumulate a total revenue of more than USD 2 Million for Sagacious within 4 years. Alongside Sagacious, he was pursuing his dream of developing an electronics product over the weekends and developed a controller for LED Displays. He left Sagacious in April 2012 and started Sparrow Devices with his wife, Smriti. He is a 2013 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Delhi.

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Bahul Arora is the Co-Founder of mHire. Prior to mHire he has worked at Pupil Connect and ONZE. He is an expert in leadership and entrepreneurship. Bahul has a Bachelor's degree in Engineering. He is a fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi

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Dhruv Gupta, Founder, Valuehire.com Dhruv worked for eleven years in global IT project / product management across 6 industries primarily in New York and Singapore, before becoming an entrepreneur in 2010. He is currently the Founder of Valuehire.com, a SaaS / cloud-based offering for recruitment. His qualifications include BSc in Computer Science (National University of Singapore), MBA in Strategy (Hult International Business School), and PMP certification (Project Management Institute). He is a 2012 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Jyoti Sandhu is the Co-founder & CEO of JKratos Solutions, a startup offering Recruitments, Trainings, HR Consulting and Content Solutions. Prior to JKratos Solutions, she had previously co-founded 2 companies, both in HR space, by the names of TARC (Training And Research Consortium) and VCS (Virtuoso Consulting Services). Jyoti has also worked at SEEDS Education and Convergys. She is an expert in Business Strategy, Business Planning, Talent Acquisition and Business Networking. She holds a degree in Botany, Zoology and Chemistry. She is a 2016 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Kulwant Singh is the Founder & CEO of AccessFood, a startup that allows food professionals to provide, through internet, supplies of unsold but still edible food to charitable to feed the people that don’t have enough to fulfill their hunger needs. Prior to AccessFood, he worked in a Russian Social organization, where he identified 3 key problems, which laid the foundation of Accessfood. Kulwant has also been an Entrepreneur in Residence as a part of the Excubator program. He is an expert in Entrepreneurship, Management and Strategic Planning. AccessFood was awarded the Startup Innovation Award 2015 at Startup World Network held in Bengaluru and was also in the Top 50 startup by Conquest at the International Startup Conclave. He holds a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. He is a 2016 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Manas Wadhwa is the Co-Founder & CEO at WeddingPlz.com, the only portal that simplifies the entire wedding planning process by smoothly integrating intelligent planning tools, Inspiration, features, and services making it the most comprehensive yet exhaustive portal currently present in India. Prior to Weddingplz, he founded Virtual Space Info Tech, which was among the Top 360 Virtual Tour Companies in India, and had some of the most coveted brand names under its client list viz. IGI Airport, Mercedes Benz, Max Hospital, Amity University and many more. He has also co-founded Bean Tree Hospitality, a leading and award winning chain of restaurants in Delhi/NCR. Manas was a part of the Cabin Crew at Jet Airways. He is an expert in Operations Management, Marketing Strategy and Business Planning. He is a 2016 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Namrata Suri is the Founder of Merabuddy, a personalised service that provides Gadget Training, Doctor Visits and Travel Assistance for old adults. Prior to Merabuddy, she worked at Synchronica as a Senior Account Manager. Namrata has also worked at Vodafone as the National Account Manager. She has worked at Standard Chartered Bank and Vaktech Corporation. She is an expert in Telecommunications, Revenue Enhancement, Business Development and Key Account Management. She holds a degree in Economics and a PGDBM in Marketing. She is a 2016 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Nitin Gandhi is the Co-Founder & CEO of Shapecrunch, a startup reinventing orthotics & prosthetics with 3D Printing. He is also the co-founder of LBD Makers, which makes user friendly 3D Printers for Students, Hobbyists and Innovative Companies and a not-for-profit, Junior Einstein, which aims at providing education to underprivileged students by using methods of scientific teaching. Prior to working on his startups, he worked at Avanti Fellows, National Entrepreneurship Network and Ericsson. He is an expert in Product Management, Marketing and Management. He holds a degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication. He is a 2016 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Saket Dave is the Founder of International Forum for Leadership and Sustainability, a social startup running projects in the domain of education, cold storage and waste management. He is currently pursuing his research into zeolitic materials at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Prior to IFLS, he founded a local chapter of a national NGO in Patiala in 2010, focused at building community collaboration on environmental challenges, which was eventually established as one of its 7 key offices in India. He was selected among 17 young leaders from across India, as an International Climate Champion by the British Council and has received the Prakriti Foundation Award. He was the Indian delegate at the United Nations COP17 held in South Africa, World Climate Summit 2011 - annual international green business conclave, along with several conferences focused on youth entrepreneurship. He was among the founding members and youngest among 8 international Steering Team members of The Global Summit, 2012 held in London, UK (www.theglobalsummit.org). He is currently pursuing his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from Thapar University, Patiala and is passionate about sustainable development. He is a 2013 fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Samay Kohli is the CEO of Grey Orange Robotics (GOR) Pvt. Ltd., a startup that is revolutionizing the warehouse automation industry in India. Prior to GOR, he founded Team AcYut that created India’s first humanoid robot and won the country’s first ever medal at the 2009 Robo Olympics (San Francisco). He has travelled extensively and has delivered several keynote speeches at premier universities such as Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University and business forums such as NASSCOM. He is passionate about teaching, and occasionally conducts workshops for students to ignite passion for Robotics. Samay was awarded BITS Alumni Association’s 30 Under 30 Award for his leadership impact across the globe. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from BITS, Pilani. Samay is passionate about solving the technological problems that prevent India from growing rapidly. He is a 2013 fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Shailesh Gupta is the founder of an upcoming mobile payments startup, focusing on enhanced user experience with a lot of other cool features. Prior to it, he worked at General Electric, ITC, Planning Commission and UIDAI, where he was responsible for new business development and bringing innovation in work place respectively. Serial Entrepreneur by nature, he had founded couple of startups during his college years and has worked with some others, helping them orchestrate their business strategies. He is an expert in technology, market sizing and product designing. He was awarded at several key platforms including University of Illinois for Product Design and TIE Kolkata for Young Cub award. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing Science from IIT Kharagpur. He is a fan of Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk. Shailesh is passionate about solving government induced inefficiencies through entrepreneurial means. He is a 2013 fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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A management graduate in Business Economics from delhi University, he has been working for the past 16 years in different capacities in the sales and distribution and business development for leading FMCG & Insurance cos. Vikas’s last assignment has been with a leading Pvt Sector Life insurance co , working as an AVP & regional head of sales for West. One word That describes him the best is "INQUISITIVE" and the quest for seeking answers to questions posed by himself is the driving force behind all actions. All his work in the past has been driven by this drive to define problems and find relevant solutions for improving cost , people and operational efficiency. His quest is to find ways to increase efficiency and speed in information collation with the use of new technology , merging of technologies into a smart phone and the social media , in providing insights about consumer , customer and competition to the corporates. He is a Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program 2015 - New Delhi Chapter.

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Vikram is the founder of yavvy.com - One cloud application to manage all your business funnels. He is a CS engineer and worked in banks (in US, Dubai, Malaysia, HongKong and India) for the most part of his pre-entrepreneurial career. His code & design runs credit cards for HSBC across 88 countries and if your credit credit card overcharged you, he insists it's not because of him! He codes, can keep accounts, knows Photoshop and doesn't really find a Mac-book all that better than a PC (but prefers Ubuntu). When out of office, he loves playing and puppeteering with his 4 year old. His favorite puppet story is "The awesome-ness of running your business as integrated funnels". He is a 2013 fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New Delhi.

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Vinayak Garg is the Founder of Zest.Md, a web based tool which helps Medical Professionals and Health Coaches to create and run their own eClinic, for online patient management and consultation. Vinayak has recently launched Zootzy.com a tool which allows users to create a website using their facebook page as input, and the website then updates whenever new content is posted on facebook page. Prior to this, he co-founded LeapEd Education Solutions, a company focused on education marketing and student leads generation. Vinayak has also worked as a Consultant for Government Reforms with PwC. Vinayak is an expert in online marketing, search engine marketing, leads management and online user experience & engagement. Vinayak is passionate about solving the problem of global access to information. Vinayak holds a degree in Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He also spent a year at Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon, France. Vinayak was awarded as INDIAFRICA Young Visionary 2012, by Government of India. Vinayak is 2014 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Delhi.

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