Rajeev Chandrasekhar is an Indian entrepreneur, philanthropist, and politician. He is currently serving as the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in the Government of India. Chandrasekhar graduated from Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka with a degree in electrical engineering. He later earned a Master of Science in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, USA.
Before joining politics, Chandrasekhar had a successful career in the technology industry. He founded BPL Mobile in 1994, which later merged with the Essar Group. He also co-founded Jupiter Capital, a private equity firm that invests in technology and infrastructure. In 2006, Chandrasekhar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, as an independent member from Karnataka. He has been re-elected to the Rajya Sabha twice since then, in 2012 and 2018, and is known for his work in promoting entrepreneurship and innovation. As the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Chandrasekhar has been instrumental in driving digital transformation in India. He has also been a strong advocate for the development of the country's startup ecosystem, particularly in the technology sector

Tejasvi Surya is an Indian politician and Member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Surya is a lawyer by profession and has been actively involved in politics since his college days.
Surya's political career began when he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, while studying at Bangalore Institute of Legal Studies. He rose through the ranks and became the general secretary of the BJP's youth wing in Karnataka. In 2019, Surya was elected as the Member of Parliament from Bangalore South. He is the youngest member of the current Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. Surya has been an active parliamentarian and has been vocal on issues related to national security, education, and healthcare. He has also been a strong advocate for the development of Bengaluru, his home city, and has been involved in several initiatives to improve the city's infrastructure. Surya is known for his oratory skills and has been a regular speaker at various events and conferences. He is seen as a rising star in the BJP and is expected to play a prominent role in the party's future.

Rajeev Gowda is an Indian politician and academic who is associated with the Indian National Congress party. He is a professor of economics and social sciences at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and has authored several books and research papers. Gowda's interest in politics began during his college days, and he has been actively involved in student politics. He was the president of the All India Law Students Federation in 1985 and was a member of the National Executive Council of the Indian Youth Congress.
In 2014, Gowda contested and won the Rajya Sabha seat from Karnataka. He has been re-elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2020. As a member of the Parliament, Gowda has been vocal on issues related to education, public health, and economic policies. Gowda has also held several positions in the Indian National Congress, including the national spokesperson and the chairman of the party's research department. He has been a strong advocate for the party's policies and has been involved in drafting the party's election manifestos. Gowda is known for his academic achievements, and his work has been recognized with several awards and honors, including the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship

Over a career spanning 37 years, Mohandas Pai has served in the areas of finance, accounting, information technology, human resources, education, corporate governance, social impact innovation, environmental conservation, policy formulation, heritage preservation, philanthropy, and the venture and startup ecosystem.
Mohan is currently the Chairman of Aarin Capital, Chairman of Manipal Global Education, Member of the Boards of Havells India and the Institute of Public Enterprises, Member of the Board of Governors of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), Governing Council Member of the Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRAL) promoted by RBI. He was awarded the Padma Shri award by the President of India in 2015 and the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award in 2008. Mohan was previously a Board Member and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Infosys over a span of 17 years, a Board Member of SEBI, a Member of the Board of NSE, President of the All India Management Association (AIMA), and Founder-Trustee of the Akshaya Patra Foundation.
Mohan holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce as a University Rank Holder from St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore, a bachelor’s degree in law (LLB) from Bangalore University, and is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India as an All-India Rank Holder.

Vivekananda Hallekere is Co-founder and CEO of Bounce. Bounce pre covid was one of the largest scooter sharing company in the world. Post covid, Bounce pivoted to making electric scooters in the name bounce infinity. Vivek believes that access to affordable mobility is access to livelihoods. He believes that access to mobility should be seen as a fundamental right and access to all.
Through Bounce share, Vivek and team were building new age public transport. Had enabled over 4.5 crore rides and was serving over 2 crore Bangaloreans to give up their personal vehicle and use shared scooter and public transport.Bounce was also one of the largest scooter sharing in the world with 20k scooters in one city and made Bangalore as shared mobility capital of the world.

Rituparna Chakraborty is an accomplished business leader with multi-faceted experience, passion for excellence, and a proven ability to drive growth at scale. She has business experience of 23 years and as Co-Founder of TeamLease she has been instrumental in making TeamLease India’s largest people supply chain company. She has joined the board recently as an Executive Director. She is the only person from Asia to be included in the Global Power 100 and International 50 Woman in Staffing and is the winner of the Telstra Business Woman in Asia Award. She has also won the Femina Super Achievers Award 2018. She was conferred the distinguished alumnus award at the 10th Indian Management Conclave, 2019 as a GIM Batch of 99 Alumnus. She is also an AMP Alumnus of Columbia Business School batch of 2022.
Besides scaling the business to over a $ 750 million business since its inception. She continues to be involved in forums like CII, FICCI, ILO, ISF within India and internationally to give a voice to important issues in the area of employment & employability. She is driven by TeamLease’s vision of ‘Putting India to Work’ and providing the youth of the country a job of dignity is at the heart of what she aspires for. She always says, “Not sure whether we can solve all of India’s job problems, but we shall die trying.”

Ganesh is a seasoned entrepreneur with a proven track record of launching and exiting four successful ventures. He is the founder and partner at GrowthStory.in, a leading venture builder platform that incubates and promotes new ventures and entrepreneurs.
Currently, Ganesh serves as Director of Domestic Workers Sector Skills Council (DWSSC) working under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). He has been the founder Director and Board member in Bigbasket, Bluestone, Portea Medical, Homelane, and other technology companies. He has been actively involved in guiding these companies in areas of Strategy, Fundraising, Technology, scaling, and governance.He has served as a Member of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.
Ganesh holds a postgraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi University. As an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, he teaches an MBA class on “New Age Business Models” and as a Visiting Faculty at the Indian School of Business Hyderabad, he teaches a course on “Launching Software Startups” to postgraduate management students. His non-profit Bahaar Foundation, focuses on creating micro entrepreneurs in Healthcare and Agriculture sectors.

Chaitra Chidanand co-founded SALT with the mission to enable women to take charge of their finances and help bridge the gender gap in finance. Previously, she co-founded Simpl, where she built India’s first Buy Now Pay Later solution. Chaitra’s career in tech has taken her through Infosys, Sony Pictures, and even Apple’s factories. She holds an MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor's degree (B.E.- ECE) in engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University.

Sanjay is the founding Managing Partner at the early-stage VC firm, Prime Venture Partners. Over the past 10 years, Prime has been the first institutional investor in several category defining companies in India including WheelsEye, Quizizz, Niyo, MyGate, Dozee, Bolt, PlanetSpark and many more.
A serial entrepreneur, Sanjay approaches Prime as a startup. Sanjay was a co-founder at ZipDial (acquired by Twitter) and Ezetap (acquired by Razorpay). Sanjay worked as an early volunteer on the Aadhaar project under the leadership of Mr. Nandan Nilekani, prior to which he was the founding CEO of India’s largest Mobile Payments initiative, mChek. Sanjay has also lived and worked in Silicon Valley for 11 years during the DotCom era.
Sanjay has also co-authored the book Sailing Through a Storm: Making a Crisis Work for You along with TN Hari.Sanjay graduated with a degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Bangalore University. He later went to École nationale supérieure, Paris and completed a degree in Avionics & Control Systems Engineering. He has also done his MS from University of Washington, Seattle.

Revathy Ashok is the Co-Founder of Strategy Garage a boutique consulting firm working with start ups and small and medium businesses helping them with their growth strategy and has held senior leadership positions in global corporations.Revathy is an Independent Member on Boards of several leading giants in the country listed and public companies.
She is the Honorary Managing Trustee of B.PAC, a leading advocacy group in the city, where she actively works with the political leadership, the bureaucracy and citizen groups in improving transparency and governance of the city. She actively works on public policy matters and advocacy on key issues of city governance, sustainability, environment, women and child safety and mobility and is on the Board of Athena Infonomics a public policy and development consulting firm with global operations in several developing countries and the US.
She is a gold medalist from IIM Bangalore and a Distinguished Alumnus Awardee from her Almamater.

Sri B V Gopal Reddy has taken charge as President of Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI) on 29th September 2022 at the 105th AGM for the year 2022-23. Sri B V Gopal Reddy is the President of Martial Motors Pvt Ltd., Authorized Volvo Cars Dealer. He is involved in his family business since 1933 as Partner in B Munireddy & Co., which has a high market presence and popularity. He is also associated actively as President of Dharmasagara Education Society which is involved in many social and welfare activities. He is also the Managing Trustee of B.Munireddy Charitable Trust, Vice President of The Grain Merchants Co Operative Bank Ltd., Bengaluru, Vice President of Karnataka Maize Merchants Association, Treasurer of Grain Merchants Association, President of Ranganatha Swamy Temple Trust. He was actively involved as Chairman, APMC, Internal Trade, Civic Affairs Committee, as well as Co-Chairman of State Tax Committee. Shri B V Gopal Reddy has succeeded in his efforts for removing APMC Cess and GST on Food Grains & Pulses.

Aravind is a first-generation entrepreneur who has built India’s foremost vertically integrated aerospace manufacturing ecosystem over the last decade that drives scale & efficiency through co-located capabilities delivering end-to-end value streams.
Driven by a vision to transform India into a global manufacturing hub, his laser-sharp focus has helped him create long-term value through innovative strategies leading India to increase in-country value add and gain a competitive advantage. His passion for building economic engines for India’s future led to Aequs’ diversification into the consumer vertical in 2016. Today, Aequs is at the helm of developing and building India’s first 400-acre toy manufacturing ecosystem in Koppal, Karnataka, and India’s first sector-specific Consumer Durable Goods Cluster in Hubballi.
Aravind is a mechanical engineering graduate from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, and holds a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Sandeep Shastri is currently Director - Academics of NITTE Education Trust. He was earlier the Vice Chancellor of the Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal, Pro Vice Chancellor, JAIN and faculty in the Department of Political Science. Dr Shastri's research has been in the fields of Elections Studies, Federalism, Political Institutions and Processes and the Teaching/Learning Process. He has authored 15 books, over 50 chapters in Edited books and over 100 articles in prestigious research journals. Dr Shastri is also a political commentator who appears frequently on television and has been a featured election analyst on various Indian TV Channels. He is the National Coordinator of the Lokniti, an All India network of social scientists involved in survey based election and opinion studies. He is a consultant to prestigious international bodies like the United Nations, World Bank and the Forum of Federations. He was an adviser on Political Party Reforms in the Pacific Rim States to the UNDP, Adviser on Governance Reforms in Nepal for the World Bank and an adviser on constitutional reforms and transition to democracy in Myanmar and South Sudan for the Forum of Federations. He played a key role in drafting the Karnataka State Youth Policy by serving as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the said Policy. Dr Shastri has lectured extensively across the world and spoken at Universities in more than 50 countries. Dr Shastri has been an Adjunct Professor at University of California, Berkeley and taught there in the summer term.

Sanjay Kumar is currently a Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. He served as the Director of CSDS between 2014 and 2020. His main area of research is Electoral Politics and voting behaviour. He has also done research on Indian Youth.
He has several publications to his credit, “Elections in India: An overview” and “Women Voters in Indian elections: Changing Trends and Emerging Patterns” being the latest. His other important publications includes “Post Mandal Politics in Bihar: Changing Electoral Patterns”, “Changing Electoral Politics in Delhi: From Caste to Class” and “Measuring Voting Behaviour in India”.He has contributed chapters in edited volumes, written numerous research articles in national and international research journals.
He writes regularly for both English and Hindi newspapers. He is also a popular face on Indian Television.

RK Misra, fondly known as ‘RK’, is an undergraduate from IIT Kanpur with Masters Degree from Tokyo University. He is an alumnus of Harvard Kennedy School of Government & Global Leadership Fellow of Aspen Institute, USA.
He is non-resident scholar at Carnegie India, A Global Think Tank.
RK is the Co-Chair for ASSOCHAM-Karnataka/South, India's oldest & largest Apex Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
RK is also the Cofounder of YULU, India's largest 'Shared Mobility Platform' driven by electric 2 wheelers, both for Personal Mobility and Goods Delivery.
RK actively engages with state governments, central ministries and industry bodies on matters of public policy and economic development.
In 2008, RK was adjudged, the WINNER of the LEAD INDIA, an initiative by the Times of India to identify new generation political leaders. RK is the Chief Patron of Bangalore International Midnight Marathon (www.midnightmarathon.in).

Ravichandar was a member of the Expert Committee on BBMP Restructuring exercise. He set up a City Connect platform for Corporates, Civil Society and Government to work together in 5 cities. The idea of Tender SURE in Bangalore, streets built around pedestrians, was evangelized by him. Ravichandar has been active on urban issues in India on a pro bono basis since 2000 when he was a member of BATF and instrumental in designing SAS property tax system. He was co-chair of the Karnataka Tourism Vision Group from 2014-18.
Ravichandar is Hon Director of Bangalore International Centre.
Ravichandar has a Mechanical Engineering degree from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Aiyshwarya Mahadev is a 30 year old Lawyer by education, a farmer by profession and a Politician by Passion. She currently serves as a National Media Panelist for the Indian National Congress. Additionally she is as a General Secretary and Chief Spokesperson for the Karnataka Congress’ Media and Communications Wing.
As a Spokesperson she has represented the Party in over a 1000 debates on National Channels including NDTV, CNN News18, India Today etc. Even though her primarily rolein the party has been that of a spokesperson, her passion is her constituency in rural Mysore. She works very closely with the farming communities of her region about sustainable farming practices and helps organise their collectives for better benefits and remuneration. She also actively works with the youth and women of the area in the fields of legal awareness, rights and empowerment.

Dr.Ashwin Mahesh is a social technologist and urbanist based in Bangalore, India. He studied to be a climate scientist and an astronomer, but after a dozen years in scientific research, he switched to a very different career in urban development. As an entrepreneur, he has founded several companies that work on complex urban challenges. He created the social technology lab, Mapunity, which builds platforms and tools for urban public-problem-solving. He was a co-founder of Lithium, the EV-based transportation service which built the first and largest fleet of electric cars in India. Recently, he has been working on a neighbourhood improvement company called LVBL to accelerate the adoption of sustainable products and services.
He founded the national public affairs journal, India Together, in 1998. He also leads the work of the How Institute, a center for problem-solving based on collaborations between people, the government and industry. He has held research positions at several leading academic institutions, and also served briefly in state government. He writes a regular column in the Deccan Herald about the intersections of state, market and society. He was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurship in 2009. His personal website is www.ashwinmahesh.in

Tara is the Co-founder of Citizens For Bengaluru - grassroots people's movement for civic issues, public transport, environment & citizens manifesto. She has worked with GoK for suburban rail, Bus Lanes; Bengaluru Corporation on Ward Committees. She was also the Co-Convenor of Nirbhaya Fund Round Table, Hyderabad for administration of the Nirbhaya Fund. She has also presented to multiple Rajya Sabha Standing Committees on Lokpal amendments and the Justice Verma Committee for Rape Law amendments. She was also instrumental in the release of 270+ bonded labourers of Odisha from brick kilns in Tamil Nadu. She has authored many articles on federalism, citizenship, gender and caste in the The Seminar, Times of India, Hindustan Times, Live Mint, Deccan Herald, The Wire, The News Minute, etc. She is also a TEDx speaker & a recipient of Gold & 2 Silvers at Cannes Lions 2022 - social impact, campaign for women in politics.