Team

Dhruv Gupta is a researcher turned entrepreneur and now Chief Program Coordinator for AISEA. He is a computer scientist by certificate, mathematician by hobby, a design thinker by training and a strong believer of empathy driven approach.

Dhruv did his first startup at age of 18 and had built 3 (three) tech startups by now, with successes and failures. He has a strong hold in technology domains like Machine Intelligence and Web 3.0, and is well versed in designing user experience, business models and revenue models. He had been part of the journey for many startups  as consultant, mentor and investor.

Dhruv had been bestowed with Gandhian Young Technology Innovator Award 2016 by Dr R. A. Mashelkar at Rashtrapati Bhavan, and was hosted for evening tea and dinner by Hon’ble President of India Shri Pranab Mukharjee. His interpersonal skills had made him gain a huge network of people and organizations whom he always tries to help in any way possible with his belief in the concept of CoRise. With all the learnings and experiences he had gained with his successes and failures, Dhruv is designing next generation products and helping companies to grow to the next level.

Keyur Punjani is a Mechanical engineering graduate from GTU (2013 batch) and Rajeev Circle fellow (2018 batch). Prior to joining AISEA and i-TIC Foundation as Program Manager, he worked with GUSEC, an incubation center under Gujarat University, as a consultant, managing programs and outreach activities.He started his career with General Air conditioners as a Trainee. Within a short period of time, he was promoted and was looking after techno-commercial sales in 7 cities of Gujarat. In 2016, he left his job to pursue his passion for 3D printing technology and founded Stardust, a 3D printer manufacturing and printing services company. During the next 3 years, Stardust catered more than 400 odd customers from multiple domains, received grants from GoG and GoI, Startup award from GTU, and many more accolades. In 2019, after collaborating Stardust with another company serving engineering services, he moved into the startup ecosystem to help other entrepreneurs. During his spare time, Keyur chooses to meditate, read books, and travel.

Dhaval Kaku is presently working as Acceleration Program Executive, AISEA (iTIC and AFI Joint Program).

He has been with GTU Innovation Council and Startup Centre for 2 years assisting the SSIP(Student Startup Innovation Policy Program) a seed grant support by Education Dept., Government of Gujarat, and supported more than 280 early-stage innovations and startups for developing their first PoC/ Prototype along with providing holistic support to deploy their products/services along with devising a unique flagship program titled, “Pitch It Right”. 

He is the former founder of GrungeTech, a music technology product based venture, recognized by CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad under the Ideathon program. Voluntarily he is currently helping the nationwide community of cybersecurity researchers and enthusiasts- The Hackers Meetup as Operations Head, India. He is a Power Electronics Engineering Graduate from Vishwakarma Government Engineering College

Prachi Parikh is pursuing her P.G Diploma in Management in Business Entrepreneurship from Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India. She is a B.Com graduate with finance background and is a certified Intermediate Chartered Accountant. Her interest lies in business analysis, providing solutions and introducing change to the business world. Prachi is keen to learn about the innovations, entrepreneurship and culture involved in the startup ecosystem of India. When she is not busy learning about different aspects of business, she enjoys music, movies and playing badminton.

Somdutta Banerjee is the manager for the Incubation Centre at IIT Hyderabad. She manages the daily operations, provides service and assistance to startups in incubation and pre-incubation with three incubators, namely i-TIC Foundation IITH, FabCI and iDEX-DIO. Additionally, she takes care of CSR funded programs, and GOI funded programs like MeitY TIDE 2.0 and NIDHI Prayas. Earlier, she has worked for companies like GE Capital (India/ USA) and Quality Engineering International (USA).

Somdutta is a keen businesswoman and is the founder of her own startup “Som’s Studio” launched in USA in 2005. As a success story, she has been featured in Times of India and has been a Speaker at TiE Hyderabad.

Somdutta is an MBA from Drury University, USA and has learnt Financial Modeling from Harvard University, USA (Summer school).

Venu Rathore is an MBA from Gujarat Technological University. He is a soul entrepreneur. His journey started with a Start up named GoWofee as a Co-founder he learned all his ground lessons along with the growth and success of this start up into a fully established company. He later on started working on the start up idea of surprise travel. With the adamant vision of transforming the travel sector to the next level with help of automated, personalized and intelligent services. He established Anywhera which instantly got funded by various incubation center’s like Manipal University(Jaipur) & LJ Incubation centre (Ahmedabad).

 His entrepreneurship skills have been acclaimed as he was awarded runner up at Global Students Entrepreneur Awards.

Venu is also a Gym enthusiast and a hodophile at heart. His love for football can be made out from the number of tournaments he has won at school level as well as at college level. Tournaments like T20 Soccer Gujarat Cup, LJ Cup, LJ IMBA Cup and many more.

Ritu Trivedi has over more than 7 years of experience in Technology Management & Incubation of life Science Startups She has experience working as Incubation Manager at BIRAC supported TBI supporting bio and life science technologies & Atal Innovation Mission supported Technology Business Incubator  focusing on Healthcare and Medical Devices.  

She has vast experience working with various stakeholders in Startup ecosystem & working closely with Department of Science & Technology supported Biotechnology Mission of Gujarat in Technology Management Project  & Entrepreneurship Support cell activities & then, as  Incharge Project Coordinator with DBT-BIRAC & DST, Govt. of Gujarat supported Savli Technology & Business Incubator, Vadodara.
Mentored more than 50 + Innovators in strategic drafting for funding & commercialization proposals. Also a mentor for Biotech Ignition Grant & Other Govt. Funding Schemes of DBT & DST schemes.

Post graduate in Biotechnology & earned certifications in Basics of technology transfer & Licensing and R& D Collaborations from Society for Technology Management (STEM)

Rumela holds a mass communication masters degree specializing in Public Relations from Rabindra Bharati University (2011). She has volunteered for 5 years with SMOKUS (NGO) as a case study/report writer for international funding platforms. During her college days she has been a part of a telemedicine research study conducted by ISRO. 

Rumela got her first job as a content writer before graduating and ended her 6 months work probation in 5 weeks to get promoted as a social media analyst to deal with client brand management. She taught communication in Calcutta University colleges, Kalyani University. In 2015 she moved to USA to work on collaborative project (1947 partition archive) of Stanford and UC Berkeley University as an archivist and reviewer. At completion she moved on to become an assistant manager for Biovet S. A. Laboratory (Spain) to help them break grounds in Eastern USA. Now Rumela is working as a Research Associate in i-TIC Foundation at IIT Hyderabad. 

While staying in Berkeley she has received her Competent Leader and Communicator award for exceptional achievement in Toastmasters International Communication program (2016). She has also served two years with the organization as a Vice President of membership for their Campus Chapter.

Sreeparna Chowdhury is pursuing her PG Diploma in Business Management from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. She has a Master’s degree in Political Sciences and Fine Arts (Music). She also has a degree in Education and an HR Diploma which add to her array of capabilities. She has worked in various work spaces ranging from elementary education to incubation centres. Adding to these is a special project, Prayas’, which catered to women from marginalised communities during the lockdown period. This was not only her brain child but the rnore strenuous and arduous task of rnanaging a group of artists to collaborate virtually was also accomplished by Sreeparna. Her experience of working as a Senior Project Assistant in the Creative Arts Programrne at IIT Hyderabad, where she worked with stalwarts like M,K.Raina, Wasifuddin Dagar and Arko Mukherjee to name a few, helped her chaperone the humanitarian project which eventually helped a lot of women and Rickshaw workers from rural India. Presently she is the Programme Coordinator for the GOI funded MeitY Tide 2.0 at the Incubation and Innovation Centre of IIT-H, i-TIC Foundation and this has added even more value to her dynamic work experience.
Sreeparna is extremely keen about leaming more about the incubation culture in India and wants to explore ways to incorporate the enormous talent pool that India possesses and different incubation centres in India. Taking time out of her stringent routine of coordination she indulges in classical singing and loves movies and playing badminton. She has also represented IIT Hyderabad in the Inter IIT Staff Sports Meet in Guwahati, in 2018 and Kharagpur, in 2019.