Re:imagine the Future

Bohdanna is the Managing Director of International Summits at Singularity University. She oversees the execution of Global Licensing SU’s International Summits, impacting and educating over 100,000 people on exponential technology and how to use that technology to solve the world’s largest challenges. Bohdanna works with partners from all over the globe, including South Africa, India, Western and Eastern Europe, Canada, Central America, Asia, and South America. Between 2016 – 2019 Bohdanna will have managed 45 summits around the world. Her talent lies in her ability to build strong relationships, respect regional traditions, and customs, all the while empowering her partners to produce impactful summits for thousands of participants in their country. Stakeholders who attend the SU International Summits include all sections of government officials, including Presidents and Prime Ministers, C suite management of Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, NGO’s, and students. Prior to Singularity University, Bohdanna worked for Peter Thiel and the The Thiel Foundation, managing dozens of projects including CNBC Transforming Tomorrow, a documentary focused on the Thiel Fellowship and the Wired.com series ‘Teen Technorati’ showcasing Fellows from The Thiel Fellowship. Bohdanna was also one of the architects of The Thiel Foundation Summit; a bi-annual assembly of young entrepreneurs and visionaries from around the world. And, while working at SU, Bohdanna devotes time to her painting career, exhibiting her work in the US and internationally. Bohdanna holds an M.F.A from San Francisco State University, a Post-Baccalaureate certificate from California College of the Arts, and a B.S. from Indiana University – Bloomington

Dermot is an integrator and process expert, driving excellence in business operations as a tool for rapid growth.  Dermot began his career as a biochemist with Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals in their state of the art bio-manufacturing facility in Cork Ireland. After moving to California in 1994, Dermot quickly transitioned from the laboratory to operations and project management with Syntex, Roche, and Yamanouchi.  Dermot’s commitment to the impact of process re-engineering was strengthened during his leadership of the automation of the monoclonal antibody production process at Medarex (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2008), combining process re-engineering, custom software development, integration, and massive change management to allow four technicians to produce nine times more R&D samples than sixty scientists had produced prior to automation.

Dermot joined SU in 2016.  Leveraging rapid prototyping, experimentation and customer focused development to build dynamic tools and interfaces,  Dermot is creating the infrastructure and operational effectiveness needed to scale SU’s global community of customers, experts and partners.

Today Dermot leads the day to day operations of Singularity Group and is driving the recovery post-Covid.

Dermot received his a B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biochemistry from National University (Galway Ireland) and his MBA from Pepperdine University.

Alex Gladstein is Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. He has also served as Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum since its inception in 2009. In his work Alex has connected hundreds of dissidents and civil society groups with business leaders, technologists, journalists, philanthropists, policymakers, and artists to promote free and open societies. Alex’s writing and views on human rights and technology have appeared in media outlets across the world including The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, Fast Company, The Guardian, The New York Times, NPR, TIME, WIRED, and The Wall Street Journal. He has spoken at universities ranging from MIT to Stanford, briefed the European Parliament and US State Department, and serves as Singularity Expert, at Singularity University and as an advisor to Blockchain Capital, a leading venture firm in the fintech industry. He frequently speaks and writes about why Bitcoin matters for freedom. He currently lives in the San Francisco area, and you can reach him at alex @ hrf.org. He co-authored “The Little Bitcoin Book” in 2019.

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Taddy Blecher is part of the SingularityU South Africa Singularity Expert, with a focus on Exponential Education. He is CEO of the Maharishi Institute and the Imvula Empowerment Trust.Taddy is a pioneer of South Africa’s free tertiary education movement and has helped establish six free-access institutions of higher learning. He also co-founded the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship with Sir Richard Branson.Taddy is a World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow and Young Global Leader of the World. He has also received two honorary doctorates.As a qualified actuary and management consultant, Taddy is passionate about the approach of Consciousness-Based Education, which develops the full potential of every student.SingularityU South Africa Singularity Expert, MemberI am a member of the SingularityU South Africa Singularity Expert, with a focus on the future of education. As a pioneer of the free tertiary education movement in South Africa I have helped establish six free-access institutions of higher learning. I believe that access to holistic education is necessary for transformation, equality and the economic development of the country.

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Shayamal Vallabhjee is a Sports Scientist with a double Masters in Clinical and Organisational Psychology. He is a course facilitator with the Stanford Business School LEAD Program.

Shayamal has worked in the capacity of a High-Performance Coach to elite athletes, sports teams and executives for more than two decades.

His work in Peak Mindsets and Flow States blends evidence based science, behavioural psychology and ancestral wisdom. Shayamal lived as a monk for three years at the Hare Krsna Temple in Durban, South Africa.

He has traveled with the Indian and South African Cricket and Davis Cup Teams, and was the Sports Scientist appointed to the Indian Olympic Contingent to the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics Games, 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.

Shayamal is a bestselling author and host of digital shows on ESPN, Star Sports, Nat Geo, You Tube.

He advises organizations on making the shift from linear to exponential mindset, identifying long-term technological threats and opportunities, and making a positive impact.

Rob is a technologist, engineer, serial entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and father of two small kids who remind him daily that his past is mostly irrelevant to their future. He is equally excited and terrified by this future and is passionate about creating tools, content and networks that can shape an equitable and inclusive future of abundance for all.

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For over 20 years, behavioral scientist Ja-Naé Duane dedicated herself to one mission: Make life better for one billion people. This award-winning innovator and expert on global systems focuses on helping corporations, governments, and universities understand and develop systems of the future using emerging technology such as VR/AR, AI, and blockchain. Ja-Nae guides companies forward, helping them get out of their own way to create exponential innovation and future forecasting. She has had the pleasure of working with companies such as PWC, Samsonite, Constant Contact, Natixis, John Hancock, AIG, Deloitte.  A top-rated speaker within the Singularity University community and the author of the bestseller, “The Startup Equation,” Ja-Nae at helping both startups and multinational firms identify new business models and pathways for global scale.

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Sally Dominguez is a thought leader in resilience, sustainable innovations, and exponential mindset.A futurist and inventor with seven international product awards, Sally pioneered two new product categories that are now mainstream, and has been named one of Australia’s “50 for the Future” entrepreneurs in the USA. Sally coaches Fortune500 Companies in moonshot thinking and 10X leadership, and has worked most recently in the innovation areas of green hydrogen, electric transportation, and the convergence of work, transport, home and decentralized green energy.

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Anita is the CEO and Co-Founder of Iris.ai; one of the 10 most innovative artificial intelligence companies in 2017 according to Fast Company. Iris.ai is an AI Science assistant, able to read and connect scientific knowledge, that will grow up to be the world’s first AI Researcher within a decade.Anita was announced by Forbes to be one of the World’s Top 50 Women in Tech in 2018. She throughly enjoys her time on stage, has done two TEDx talks and 500 startups, SU Global Grand Challenges Awards and TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield alumni.Anita has never had what she refers to as “a real job” and Iris.ai is her fourth own startup. The past 10 years of her career have spanned over 9 industries including developing an e-learning tool in Silicon Valley, performing theatre for babies, reducing energy consumption in the process industry through heat exchanger network optimization, getting 30 (mainly middle-age, male) engineers to dance to ABBA in front of their co-workers, facilitating solar light business creation in Kenya, being in the centre of several startups crashing and burning, organizing entrepreneurial conferences and trying to disrupt the recruitment industry. She also dropped by 6 universities on the way. And built a race car.

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Kris Østergaard is the co-founder and Chief Learning & Innovation Officer of SingularityU Nordic, a country partner of Singularity University, as well as a Singularity Expert, member of Singularity University.As the Chief Learning & Innovation Officer of SingularityU Nordic, Kris is responsible for designing and running education and innovation programs for organizations as well as startups in SingularityU Nordic’s +7,000 square meter innovation campus based in Copenhagen.Kris is the author of Transforming Legacy Organizations: Turn Your Established Business into an Innovation Champion to Win the Future; translator of the best-selling business book Exponential Organizations into Danish; and also the co-author of The Fundamental 4s: How to Design Extraordinary Customer Experiences in an Exponential World.

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As the Founder and CEO of INKTalks, Lakshmi has built one of India’s leading platforms for exchange of cutting-edge ideas across a wide spectrum of science, technology, community and culture.  Lakshmi brings over three decades of experience in the corporate world, philanthropy, entrepreneurship and venture capital.

Lakshmi has been instrumental in identifying unusual game changers of all ages, coaching them to communicate their stories, and curating a powerful network of resources that help turn great ideas into reality. A dynamic storyteller and an interviewer with a penchant to help global leaders connect the dots and share their professional and personal stories, Lakshmi has worked with them to help build their personal brand and narrate their stories on the global arena.

As an insightful interviewer, she has interviewed notable leaders across various domains on radio, on stage as well as online.  Her interviews bring out the behind-the-scenes brilliance of leaders across disciplines like Oscar winning director James Cameron, Magsaysay award winner Prakash Amte, billionaire philanthropist Anu Aga, iPod designer Tony Fadell, inaugural executive director of Google.org and member of the team at the W.H.O that eradicated smallpox, Dr. Larry Brilliant – to name a few.

As a keynote speaker, Lakshmi has inspired youth and corporate leaders alike. She talks on a range of topics like future of technology, women leadership, women in tech, youth leadership, and diversity as a competitive advantage. Lakshmi has spoken at global conferences such as the TED conference in the US, the DLD Conference in Germany, and WIRED conference in the United Kingdom and at corporations like Accenture, Oracle, Intel, KPMG, Google, Deloitte, BankInter Spain, RAI Italy.

As an influential writer, Lakshmi empowers her community through her engaging posts and thought-provoking content for her digital audience to learn about leadership challenges in everyday lives, and explores ideas on how to navigate through them in challenging times. In addition to posting regular columns on LinkedIn, she has written for leading global publications including Fortune, Open Magazine, Deccan Chronicle, San Jose Mercury, and San Francisco Chronicle.

Lakshmi’s journey began at Intel, where she was part of Intel’s transformation from a chip company to a consumer brand and an industry influencer through important investments. Later, she joined the American India Foundation, where she streamlined diaspora charitable giving and raised over $30M in her five-year tenure. Following that, she co-hosted TEDIndia along with Chris Anderson, unleashing a surge of stories from India to appear on some of the most powerful platforms across the globe.

Lakshmi is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including being named as “Inspirational Icon” at the Audi Ritz Awards in 2015, Forbes Magazine’s 2010 list of “Women to Watch in Asia”, Alumni award from Portland State University in 2010.

Christian is a cycling addict, entrepreneur, CEO, author, speaker, networker and humanity activist. He travels the world by bike, meets people by the heart and consults businesses by his experience in growth and problem solving. Spinning the wheel is his motivation for change, a constant effort to keep moving, to push his projects forward, to keep people together and to make a difference in this world.

Christian is the co-Founder of 7 start-ups operating in different industries, Investor in 10 impact start-ups, CEO of Impact Agency HI NEXT, has published 3 books on Artificial Intelligence, Social Entrepreneurship and Social Media and is currently writing a book on cyber security and another book on climate change to be published in 2022 / 2023. He is also board member and advisor, at the United Nations World Food Programme, activist on clean water and Initator of Friends of Water, and a Rapha Cycling Club Member.

Shinjini Kumar is the co-founder of SALT-mysaltapp, a fintech platform to track, save, invest. The mission at SALT is to close the gender gap in finance by helping more women create and manage wealth; for themselves, their families, their communities.

Prior to setting up SALT in 2021, Shinjini was Country Business Manager for the consumer bank at Citibank India for over three years. She has occupied senior leadership positions across Indian financial services, including as CEO of Paytm Payments Bank, Banking and Capital Markets Leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Country Compliance Officer for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Shinjini also has a unique career trajectory, having occupied important positions at the Reserve Bank of India, where she handled Foreign Direct Investments, Currency Management and Supervision of banks and non-bank finance companies.

Shinjini is known in the Indian financial system for her deep understanding and experience of regulations as well as managing businesses. Her transition from regulator to large financial institutions and to new age fintech startups gives her a well-rounded perspective on finance. She has been an active contributor to various magazines, journals and newspapers and spoken at conferences and seminars in India and abroad on subjects relating to Indian financial system, regulation, leadership, future of finance and gender and finance.

She is currently Non-Executive Director on the boards of Paytm Payments Bank, Baroda BNP Paribas Mutual Fund and Nium Forex Pvt Limited. She is also a member-at-large on the Executive Council of CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), a global partnership of more than 30 leading development organizations across the world.

Shinjini has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from Delhi University and a M.A. in Public Policy from University of Texas at Austin, Texas. She is also co-founder of www.indiannovelscollective.com and her works of fiction have been published in Journal of Indian Literature, the Beacon Magazine, the Out-of-Print magazine and others.

Arnab Kumar is Director, India Market Expansion for Coinbase. Previously, he was India Director for Fintech Investments & Strategy at Prosus. Arnab’s professional credentials also include serving as Program Director, Frontier Technologies at NITI Aayog and working as an Investment Banker for Deutsche Bank across their New York and Singapore desks. Arnab is an alumnus of Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Ramanand Mundkur is an independent director on the board of The Federal Bank Ltd, in India, where he serves on various board committees, including the audit, and credit and investment committees. He is the managing partner of Mundkur Law Partners, a corporate law firm based in Bangalore, and specializes in mergers and acquisitions. He is also an arbitrator and visiting faculty at NLSIU, Bangalore (where he teaches a seminar on law, economics, and game theory).

He was previously with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, and the United Nations in Geneva,  before he returned to India in 2007.

He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and NLSIU, Bangalore and is qualified to practice law in India and New York.

Akshay has played a vital role in changing the landscape of Indian education. He founded the BML Munjal University in 2011 and Hero Vired in 2021. He has been instrumental in the conceptualisation and operations of these companies. During his stint at Hero Mindmine, Akshay understood the challenges faced by students in the higher education sector. Both his education ventures are centred around introducing programs and advanced courses that are designed around the latest developments across industries. He set out to create an experiential learning-based experience for learners to be gainfully employed.

Munjal University has been recognised as one of the most upcoming emerging Universities in India, with the potential to revolutionise the sector. The University which has over 1,600 students has already published 150+ research papers and is filing 30+ patents this year. Hero Vired is a startup venture that offers career-relevant programs, in partnership with world-class universities, to make learners more competent and industry-ready for emerging jobs and professions under Industry 4.0. With best-in-class short and long-term learning programs, Hero Vired offers overall professional development via skill-based programs and courses that are imperative to a learner’s growth in India’s rapidly evolving digital economy.

Before founding the University, Akshay helped turn around the operations of Hero Mindmine, a professional skills development Institute. Akshay began his professional journey with Accenture in New Delhi. He was part of the team that designed the IT infrastructure for Delhi Metro. Akshay feels proud to have witnessed the flagging-off of Delhi’s first Metro train. From equity research at Merrill Lynch, New York, to evaluate the effectiveness of incentive schemes for business partners at American Honda Motors, Los Angeles, to making the funding-endowment process at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) more effective, Akshay has tried to gain varied experience in different domains.

Akshay considers the late Dr Brijmohan Lall Munjal, the founder of the Hero Group of companies, as the biggest influence on his personal and professional life. Akshay considers Dr Munjal’s success mantra – Focus on the basics, everything will take care of itself as his guiding principle in his life. Akshay holds an MBA from Pepperdine University, USA and a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Management from the University of Bradford, UK. He has been playing Tennis for over two decades and follows the sport passionately. One of his personal goals is to participate in competitive tennis tournaments. As a marathon runner, Akshay has participated in over half a dozen marathons.

Divya is the Co-Founder of BYJU’S, the world’s largest EdTech company, currently valued at $22 billion. A University Rank Holder, Biotechnology topper, and a passionate teacher, Divya’s focus, since inception, has been to create unique and personalized learning experiences for students everywhere.

A champion of putting the student in the driver’s seat of learning, Divya believes that the spirit of curiosity is what makes better learners for a brighter tomorrow. As a leader, Divya encourages the spirit of intrapreneurship to stay dynamic and help employees grow. By prioritizing trust and mentorship, Divya believes that creating an environment where every team member can achieve their best is the perfect way to chase high goals.

Featured on Fortune 40 under 40 entrepreneur 2022 list, ranked No 2 in the Worlds’ most powerful women in starts up 2022 by Fortune Global, winner of Fortune Most Powerful Women (2022, 2021, 2020), Express AWE Awards – Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, Education (2022), MAKERS Women Entrepreneur of the Year (2021), ASU GSV Power of Women (2021) award, Business Today’s Most Powerful Women (2019, 2020, 2021) award, LinkedIn Top Voices in Education (2019,2020) (India and Global) and Forbes Asia’s 25 Most Powerful Women (2020),

Apart from headlining several initiatives at BYJU’S, Divya strikes a perfect work-life balance by being a doting mother to her sons and by indulging in her passion for singing.

Tina Muthoot, a Chartered Accountant, is a professional in finance with over 11 years of experience. Tina is a 4th generation entrepreneur and stepped into the business as an Associate Vice President with Muthoot Pappachan Group’s only listed entity, Muthoot Capital Services Ltd. (MCSL), leading MCSL’s Corporate Lending function for about two years. She oversees the vehicle finance division of the group and manages a portfolio of about Rs. 2000 Crore. As part of business group that has existed for more than 135 years, Tina is working on a complete process overhaul, digitization and bringing in the best talent to scale the two-wheeler business to greater heights.

In the last two years, Tina had also spearheaded #RestartIndia, an initiative of Muthoot Pappachan Group, together with INKtalks to create a common ecosystem for small and nano businesses in India so that they can find a way to come out of the challenges they were facing, by enabling them to reach markets and adapt to efficient ways of doing business.

Before taking a lead role in Group’s star performer, she has gone through a challenging stint of over 6 years, with various Indian & Global Financial Services & Consulting majors, viz., Deloitte, Haskins & Sells; S R Batliboi & Co. (part of E&Y) and B S R & Co. In her 6-year long stint, Tina has been hands-on on various aspects in the financial space like, amongst others: Audit, International Tax Consulting, Corporate Law, Data Analysis, Regulatory & Compliance Aspects and Operational aspects of Taxation.

Her extensive and grueling work experience comes on top of outstanding academic foundation. Aside from Chartered Accountancy, Tina has completed Level 1 of the CFA programme and has undertaken Summer programme in Management at Harvard Extension School in Strategy and Management and a Certificate program in Business Analytics from HBS Online, on the back of her Bachelor of Commerce degree with high scores. Tina has excelled at School & College level as well, being district level topper across varied parameters.

A former Toastmaster, Tina is a speaker at various business and entrepreneurial forums organized by CII, FICCI Flo, HerMoneyTalks and Dhanam Business Magazine and was also awarded as one of India’s Top 100 Women in Finance in the ‘Promising’ category by AIWMI in 2019.

Apart from her serious focus on work, Tina has an inclination for social projects. She has in fact, worked for a not-for profit start-up to strategize their fund raising vertical. In her spare time, Tina enjoys design and art-work, public speaking, singing, writing and reading up on the Christian faith.

Shoba Purushothaman is a financial journalist turned entrepreneur on her third global start-up, Hardskills, a pioneering B2B global workforce development solution focused on the hard-to-teach cognitive and human behavioral skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, how to sell & influence,  how to be inclusive, etc. As automation and digital transformation disrupts industry, enterprises and nations are increasingly upskilling workforces in these human skills to future-proof them.

Shoba has a 20-year track record of business and entrepreneurial innovation in the digital economy and in building profitable B2B SaaS companies. At Hardskills she focuses on Customer Experience and is proud of the near 100% retention rate since its launch in 2019. Clients include PwC, Deloitte, SAP, Tata group, HCLTech and dozens more around the globe. She began her career as a financial journalist (WSJ/Dow Jones), and then co-founded, turned profitable and exited two start-ups disrupting the intersection of media & marketing. Her last start-up was backed by Tier 1 VCs including Apax, Battery Ventures, Hearst & Softbank Capital. Hardskills is backed by angel investors and family offices.

Awards & Accolades include:
Finalist in EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year for NY
Deloitte’s Fast 50, NY
Top 50 Asian Americans in Business
Springboard Enterprises North Star
On-the-the Board fellow, International Women’s Forum

Shoba is of Sri Lankan descent and was born and raised in Malaysia. She lived in New York for most of her professional life, and now shuttles between Berlin, Germany which is Hardskills’ product development hub and India, the world’s largest human capital market. She has lived and worked in 7 countries.

She is a regular speaker and moderator at international events on digital disruption, human capital trends and entrepreneurship.

A branding and marketing professional with over 15 years of experience, Chandralika turned her attention to digital entrepreneurship with a focus on building digitally empowered brands. She strives to build simple, well positioned, and intuitive high tech products that anyone can quickly understand and adopt. At Bigthinx, she is building revolutionary new ways to put consumers first and foremost into the metaverse with its products for fashion, retail, gaming and wellness. In addition, she is a fashion design enthusiast and owns a fashion label called Velvet Piano.

A strong supporter for women in tech, Chandralika is the recipient of the distinguished Accenture “Women in Tech” 2021 award. She is also an active speaker and advocate for emerging technologies, including Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, and is involved with educational institutions globally to familiarize students with new job opportunities being created due to technological evolution.

Lathika Pai is Country Head, Venture Capital and Private Equity Partnerships at Microsoft. Prior to this she headed Microsoft for Startups, which supports startups in India, the Middle East, and SAARC countries. Her prior work experience includes large technology companies in the US and UK like Nortel, American Management Systems (CGI) and a $300million funded start up Relera which was in the cloud and managed services space. As a serial entrepreneur, Lathika successfully raised capital for her ventures both through equity and debt funding, as well as provided profitable exits to her investors. She has been on the Indian Boards of international technology companies and helped them with their strategy for Asia.Lathika is the Founder of SonderConnect, an organisation that discovers, empowers and promotes women entrepreneurs looking to scale their business and raise funds through targeted mentoring and a robust, supportive community of executives, leaders and founders. Lathika strongly believes that helping female entrepreneurs scale their business will be of huge impact to the global economy at large, an important step towards empowerment and gender equality. www.sonderconnect.com