Innovator Speaks

On this episode of Innovator Speaks, we are joined by Anuj Prasad, a design entrepreneur, industrial designer, and innovator. With over thirty years of experience in the design industry, Anuj founded Desmania Design, a leading blue-chip design house with integrated design facilities. Anuj has been a recipient of several design awards, a founding member of CII’s National Committee of Design, and a jury member for the ‘India Design Mark’.

Join us as Anuj shares his passion for innovation through design thinking and doing, his experience as an entrepreneur, and his journey to pioneering new social and personal spaces.

In this episode, we interview the co-founder of PreSolv360, Namita Shah.

Namita began her career in Ernst & Young as an Article Assistant, following the same for around 5 years. During this time, she learned about the challenges a lot of small-time businesses face during disputes, especially in dispute resolution. Following this, she co-founded Legal Tech Asia as a platform that brings out articles on the latest trends in the technology and legal field. When she and her co-founders sat through a court proceeding, they were inspired to begin something new to ease mediation for disputes before they ever enter courts. And this started her journey of building PreSolv360. The existing ways of resolving conflicts are not conducive to the investment and business climate of the country - they are resource-heavy, time-consuming, and inefficient. Where 19th century laws still dominate dispute resolution, Presolv360 provides a 21st century solution to uproot such modern-day challenges. Presolv360 is a platform that puts into practice a unique approach to resolve commercial disputes at zero cost. They have made this possible by blending technology, human expertise, and innovation to provide a quick, effective, and enforceable outcome.

Namita is a certified chartered accountant apart from having a degree in law.

Her work through PreSolv360 has won them many awards and recognition, including from the Department of Justice, Government of India.

Given her work and experience, Namita is mentor for Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, and The Sedibus. She is a member of Women Entrepreneurship Platform - NITI Aayog, She Breaks the Law, and Young Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration. She also has been recognized among the top 60 in the 'Women Transforming India, 2018' initiative of the Government of India.

We learn about her story, the challenges she faced, and her advice for entrepreneurs. Listen in for this interesting conversation!

In this episode, we interview Shikha Pandey. She is an entrepreneur, a yogini, and a podcaster. We learn about her growth over the years, her challenges, and her advice for entrepreneurship.

She is the founder & chief business strategist of Gemini New Media Ventures, a co-working space that provides a conducive atmosphere for growth of startups based in Mumbai. She is the co-founder of BECKFriends.com, a startup she began in 2016. BECKFriends.com is a traveler powered delivery marketplace that enables travelers to monetize their unused luggage space by carrying verified packages on their travel route. The network provides a flexible, affordable, and simple shipping solution to buyers and shippers. Apart from this, as an initiative to give back to the community, she began PurnaYog. PurnaYog was launched in June 2020, right in the middle of the Covid-19 Pandemic, to enable people across the globe with various age-old practices to help cope with the unprecedented times. Shikha believes that yoga is for everybody and with PurnaYog she aims to make it accessible to everybody. Making this holistic approach to life & self-accessible to everyone, PurnaYog offers a range of techniques and practices that enable you to build on the four pillars of fitness (both mental & physical) i.e. Balance, Flexibility, Strength & Stamina. We achieve these through traditional Hatha Yoga practices, Vinyasa & Power Yoga Flows, Pranayama, Mindfulness, Meditation & Inspirational Wisdom talks through their podcasts.

Shikha has recently been recognized as a part of the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator program for 2022.

Before she became an entrepreneur, Shikha worked with various large multinational brands such as Hindustan Unilever, and Airtel in roles relevant to brand management and communication.

Henna Khan is the founder & CEO of Universe Simplified Foundation (USF).

Universe Simplified, a Mumbai based nonprofit, is setting up STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) based Innovation Hubs within schools for economically challenged children in rural and urban slum areas. These hubs are low cost and run on a “once a week” basis. The Innovation Hubs empower children to apply Science and Technology to address real life local and global challenges and to create opportunities for themselves. The curriculum is implemented in a hands-on, inquiry driven manner to inculcate Innovation and problem-solving skills in children. Universe Simplified has currently set up 5 Innovation Hubs in and around Mumbai, two of which are within Zilla Parishad Schools.

Universe Simplified encourages and promotes an inquiry-based learning method which is very hands-on, and collaboration based. This is very much needed for children to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovative skills. They are pioneering efforts in conducting research in such educative interventions and open sourcing the same. Their work has been recognized widely for their unique and impactful approaches in democratizing STEM education. Universe Simplified has a STEM fellowship program for individuals to participate in USF's work. The USF STEM Fellowship is a full time, two-year immersive fellowship during which the fellow will take the ownership of setting up and running low cost, STEM based Innovation Hubs within low-income schools and community centers for rural and urban children. In addition to gaining an in-depth understanding of inquiry driven and hands-on STEM education, the fellows will also work on multiple social innovation projects during the fellowship.

Henna is an alumni of University of Bradford with an MBA degree in Strategic Management. Before USF, Henna has worked in various roles in a corporate atmosphere. 

In this episode, we get into the depths of the work done by her non-profit Universe Simplified, her motivations, and several other topics. Listen in for an interesting conversation.

Roli Pandey is the Founder & CTO of Zucate. Her role as the CTO includes Technology Research, Developing a Tech Strategy, Tech-Market Research, Social Media Marketing and Branding. As a result of her meticulous approach to technology management, Zucate has been able to establish itself as a proven player in the AR Edtech space being a part of XR Accelerator powered by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM)
and Unity Technologies as well as the grant winner in India International Science Festival (IISF) 2020 in the category of New Age Technologies in Augmented Reality.

She is also the Founder & CTO of design, development, and digital marketing start-up WebbTechy, which sustained well during the pandemic and has been able to prove its credibility in the IT services space with more than 50+ B2B Projects in the span of 2 years.

She is an alumnus of Symbiosis International University, Pune.

She is a Fellow at Women Entrepreneurship and Empowerment (WEE) Foundation by SINE IIT Mumbai & NITI Aayog.

She is actively involved in conducting training programs and sessions on prototyping and technology transformation for various reputed organizations like AICTE, IIIT Allahabad, Symbiosis, ESCI. She has been an active evaluator and panelist for various National Level Contests organized by AICTE, MIC such as Smart India Hackathon, National Innovation Contest. She is a mentor onboard for IIC, RDNC, Mumbai
University and successfully conducted major EDPs as a sitting mentor. She has recently been selected as a Business Coach for the Business Blasters Program 2021, Government of Delhi.

Zucate’s entrepreneurship penned down by her has been published in the book 'Eves Against the Odds'. The book, 'Eves Against the Odds' explores inspiring women entrepreneurship stories which is an initiative of the organization, Billennium Divas headed by Bhavesh Kothari. Her literary works have also been published in the books 'Wanderlust' and 'A Night to Remember'. She has also been an active columnist at DIMAT news bulletin, EngiTech.

She has been interviewed by various platforms where she talked about Zucate and its journey. Some of them include Facebook in US-India Business Council 2018, Roundtable on Role of Women in XR, at Unite India 2019 and Startup Sunday.

In this episode, we interview Roli on her entrepreneurial journey, the challenges she faced, and several topics. Listen in to this insightful conversation!

Bhavesh Kothari has more than 20+ years of rich experience at middle and senior management positions across industry verticals such as Pharmaceutical, FMCG, Corporate Event Management, Business Information, Media, and IT & ITES industries. Bhavesh started his career in sales & marketing. While working with these companies Bhavesh has been instrumental in enabling some of these small companies to grow from a startup phase to a market leader in the industry by developing business models, partner networks as well as revenue generation streams. He is also an in-house trainer providing sales process & management training & mentoring new recruits & existing teams.

He has authored more than one hundred articles focused on SME's (small and medium-sized enterprises) & entrepreneurship for various magazines. He has been empaneled as a trusted mentor / expert on various platforms. He frequently is invited as a guest speaker/panelist/jury at Startup/SME events across the country with leading institutes like Chetna’s Institute, Parul University, Chitkara University, SRM University, N L Dalmia Institute of Management, Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia), MNNIT Allahabad, L N Mishra College (Patna), SIES College of Management Studies, Fr. Agnels, S.P. Jain Institute, K J Somaiya College of Engineering, Symbiosis Pune, Bharati Vidyapeeth, Sinhgad College of Engineering and many more.

He actively mentor's start-ups/entrepreneurs in areas of their business such as strategy, business management, sales & marketing, funding, etc. He has mentored startups in the domains of healthcare, IoT, Adtech, gaming, eCommerce, FoodTech, Education, to name a few.

With a mission to encourage and nurture women entrepreneurship and leadership, Bhavesh along with his wife Minal began 'Billennium Divas' in 2016.
During this time, he has co-authored a book titled 'Eves against the odds': 25 inspiring women entrepreneurs' stories. Bhavesh is on the look-out for more inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs. He intends to include more such stories in his next edition of 'Eves against the odds'. Please do reach out to him if you are one such individual.

In this episode, we learn about Bhavesh's growth journey, his passion for contributing to society, value of mentorship, and his several initiatives.

Shabia Ravi Walia, Founder and Owner of 'Wild Earth' has been a media professional for the past 25 years. Dabbling in production, direction, writing, she is proficient in all aspects of the media world.

After being a creative director, writer, script head, consultant for others, Shabia last year turned producer by writing and co- producing 'Badnaam Gali' for Zee 5 which won the best digital film award and was acclaimed by everyone. She also conceptualized, co-created Kaatelal & Sons, a show on SAB TV. She also authored the story for the show. Shabia has also authored the best-selling book 'Mamma Mania' that received rave reviews and critical acclaim from everyone.

'Wild Earth' was born out of Shabia's fears of what she put on her baby's body after she became a mother. Today Shabia is proud to have created a brand that provides natural quality products which young, old and babies can use without any fear of side effects of harsh chemicals.

Not satisfied by her own achievements, Shabia also wanted to share her share of blessings with those who are not so blessed or loved. With this intention of giving back, 'The Bluebells Community' was formed.

Shabia is also the winner of the 'Rex Karmveer Chakra Award' (2015-16, 2016-17) Women of excellence Award 2016' 'Top 50 Rising Stars Award 2016', & 'Digital Women Achievers Award 2017', 'ICICI Advantage Woman Award' & the 'Women of Influence Award' by I Inspire 2018, Global Leaders Award & many more for her exceptional work in her profession and the field of social work. She has also been a part of IIT, and IIM last year having been selected for their esteemed entrepreneurship programs. She managed to ace both the programs creating a mark for herself. She is also alumni of Goldman Sachs Growth Fellowship 2022, Cherie Blair Foundation Mentorship Program for Entrepreneurs, WEE Foundation, 10K Entrepreneurs Program by NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore.

In this episode, we learn about Shabia's growth journey into entrepreneurship. Her fiery passion for doing good is contagious. Listen in for this insightful wisdom.

Bethany Adams is an entrepreneur, and a consulting professional in the areas of business strategy, marketing strategy, web development, and content strategy. She began her journey towards becoming an entrepreneur at the age of eight. She is a very mature entrepreneur who began at the grassroots of building businesses around her community in Greenville, South Carolina and Asheville, North Carolina. She began her upcycling fashion brand, Rhetorical Factory in 2010. Through her company, Rhetorical Factory, she promoted the ethos of sustainability by prompting customers to reflect on the choices they make in clothing. Her work as a Creative Director at Ilumivu helped scale their business and revenues by 3000% in span of 3 years through her strategies in streamlining customer acquisition, CRM development, and marketing strategy. Through her company, Lofty Goals which she began in 2016, she has helped local businesses in branding and budgeting.

In this episode, we explore this inspiring personality's growth story, her passion, and her motivations.

Amit Modi is a tinkerer, educator, and entrepreneur. Amit is an alumnus of IIT Bombay. He became an esteemed LIF Fellow (Leaders in Innovation Fellowship) by the Royal Academy of Engineering, London. Through his love and passion for teaching children to tinker and build STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math) projects, he started his Ed-tech startup TechShiksha Labs in 2014. Over the years of learning children's behavior and motivations, Amit and his team built the product WitBlox. WitBlox is a kit of modular electronics where children can build projects in anything including robotics, automation, IoT, and others. Apart from this, WitBlox has an app through which the children can interact with others. This app has managed to garner well over 300,000 users pan-India since its inception in 2020. It's inspiring to learn from this individual for his persistence and passion in building WitBlox over the years, while building an active and strong community around it. Amit and his team are trying to make it easy for young children to take the exploratory path of learning fueled by their natural instincts of curiosity and attitude for creation.

WitBlox has also been featured on investment shows such as Horse's Stable and Shark Tank India.

Amit also offers project consultancy on STEM Education in areas like Curriculum Design, Content Development, Kits Design, Electronics for Students, Teacher Training, ATL (Atal Tinkering Lab) content & support. Amit also organizes training & workshops on Design & Innovation, Robotics, Drone Building, Arduino Programming, 3D Printing, Embedded & Analog Electronics, IOT (Internet of Things). 

Arun Venkataraman is a robotics engineer and Innovation Management professional with multidisciplinary international research and patent consulting experience.  He is an alumnus of one of Sweden's top universities, KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Arun journeyed into entrepreneurship with his company Invenk Solutions and works with technology companies and academic institutions in managing their innovation through R&D consulting, building, and managing patent portfolios, providing training, and strategizing best innovation practices.

At Invenk Solutions, Arun managed to capture opportunity during the pandemic and develop a learning management platform called 'Invenk Learn' to help tutors and teachers of small institutions to deliver content online to students with ease. Arun has recently also launched 'Invenk Insights' that helps clients and customers with specific market and competitor insights with respect to intellectual property. His work through Invenk has spanned across various startups, companies, and educational institutions in Indian, Europe, and United States.

In this episode, we interview Arun on innovation, his professional journey into entrepreneurship, his work in innovation management, his learning management platform Invenk Learn and his future goals for his company. Arun draws an interesting parallel to a character from a cult classic of a movie. Listen to figure out who that is. We hope you enjoy and learn from this episode as much as we did.

Dr. Kumaresh is a doctor of ENT, entrepreneur, innovator, visionary product developer with more than 20 years in healthcare. Through his company AUM MedTech, he has developed six products in healthcare and has filed for global patents. He has entered international markets (4 countries) and helped achieve a turnover of more than ten million, all within 18 months. Despite the challenges unique to healthcare space, he was able to comply with international regulatory requirements as stringent as in the United States and ensured the products are devised to overcome trials. Hence, his products have entered the markets much faster and saved millions of dollars in trials. He has ensured his company AUM MedTech is debt free, profitable, and made his products available in some of the well-known hospitals and manufacturing sectors.

We talk across several topics including Dr. Kumaresh’s transition into entrepreneurship while being a doctor of ENT, his design and development process for his products, his mentorship to healthcare startups, his outreach to universities, regulations, intellectual property on healthcare, his inspirations, and their future goals for AUM MedTech.

Phalgun Polepalli is the co-founder and director of Dice Toy Labs. In this episode, we talk with Phalgun on his career transition into board game design and publishing, the challenges they faced in developing Indian-themed boardgames, educating board game designers, his competition, the stereotypes around board games and his future goals for Dice Toy Labs.

Dice Toy Labs was founded in 2018 in Bangalore, India by Phalgun Polepalli and Shwetha Badarinath, a husband-and-wife duo. They are on a mission to create engaging gender neutral, culturally relevant and uniquely Indian board games for the world. Over the years, they have worked with and licensed games from several local inventors. They passionately believe in championing the work of independent board game designers, especially from India, with the goal of narrating facets of our rich Indian culture to the world, through board games. DICE in short stands for Design Intelligent Completely Engaging games. They have sucessfully sold board games on themes ranging from the Indus valley civilization (Indus 2500BCE), Indian wars (Yudhbhoomi), the Indian tea (Chai Garam), startups (Startups & Beyond), the city of Bengaluru (Namma Bengaluru) and many others. They eat, breathe and sleep board games. As a lover of board games, Phalgun has a proud collection of over 300 board games. His insatiable thirst for creating Indian board games has brought them well-deserved recognition from local and international news media. They have also been featured and recognized by Board Game Geeks. He has recently been recognized by Mojo Nation as one of the 100 most influential figures working in toy and game design. He actively participates in guiding, educating, and helping upcoming board game designers through his tight-knit communities. Apart from this, he is also the founder of Plinkit where he has developed DIY board game kits for various age groups.

To buy the toys published by Dice Toy Labs, go to – https://dicetoylabs.com/collections/master-shop

Reach out to Phalgun via their Insta handle @dicetoylabs to learn more about the work they do, brainstorm on innovative ideas, and to find out about their upcoming board games.

Vyasateja Rao who also goes by VT, is the founder and creative director of Analogy Design. In this episode, we talk with VT on his professional growth, the challenges of developing design frameworks, finding talent, the differences in how the design industry is in India in comparison to other countries, and his future goals.

VT is an industrial designer specializing in designing memorable and fresh experiences for products, both physical and digital. Since moving away from corporate design in 2013, where he had the opportunity to work with large fortune 500 companies and leading design studios, he has worked globally in the US, HK, China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and India. He founded Analogy with a goal to create a blend between physical and digital products. After graduating with a Masters in Industrial Design from North Carolina State University in 2007, VT lived and worked in the US, before travelling around the world collaborating on various projects. As a mentor helping designers with visual communication, he has helped many understand the importance of contrast, surprise, and hidden artefacts in Design. 

He has received various international design awards and patents, including the Red Dot, Industart, IBDC, IBD award, Singapore Design Award, and currently, VT designs for various global clients such as Panasonic, Amazon, Marvel, Cellairis and other leading companies who are passionate about creating breakthroughs in product and user experience. He also collaborates with numerous start-ups from the US, Asia, and Europe. His projects are featured in leading international design blogs. His foremost interests are based on creating fresh approaches in how products are experienced by people and the underlying emotions that are triggered. His work and experiments continue offline when he has time to explore various different places and is a big advocate of global design, drawing inspiration from cultures around the world. With Analogy, he plans to create a diverse and well-rounded ensemble of specialists and is focussed on creating a studio culture that is respectful and observant of cultures globally.

VT has executed and creatively managed key projects in the fields of Industrial Design, Branding, UX, Human-centered design, User-centered innovation, Material knowledge, and Process improvement.