Suyash Keshari is a 25 year old wildlife presenter and filmmaker. Wildlife has fascinated him his entire life. It began at a very tender age of four, under the influence and tutelage of his late grandfather. He spent his childhood in the Central Indian States of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where his affection for wildlife was ignited. What began as disgust for animals kept in captivity slowly transformed into love and thirst for learning about the last remaining wild places on our planet. In the summer of 2019, Suyash quit his Political Advocacy job in Washington D.C., USA, with one goal: to fulfill his childhood dream of having his own wildlife series and influencing people across the globe about the need and urgency to conserve our wild spaces.

Suyash Keshari’s first series is inspired by the very region of the Central Indian States of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, its people and its animals. In December 2019, his series was picked up by WWF International for a web release.

He has graduated from Wake Forest University, North Carolina, and was a Political Science and International Affairs Major with Minors in Journalism and Entrepreneurship. He’s also fond of public speaking.

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Shana Parmeshwar is a pilot, motorcar racer, and an entrepreneur. Shana and her partner Anush Chakravarthi, are on the track to build India’s longest racing track of 5.5 km in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. From circuits in Malaysia to Sweden to England, Shana has driven various race cars, including Volkswagen, Porsche, and Lamborghini. She is a well-known and popular figure in the automotive community, with a large following of her own. She was also an integral part of the K1000 rally between 2005 and 2009 in India. Shana moved to New Zealand for aviation training and has taken up opportunities of flying tourist planes and commercial jetliners in the country. She holds the “fastest woman in a production car” at the Buddh Circuit 2019, and drove the first Indian car to participate in the Modball rally in 2017 (UK/EU).

The construction of the site for India’s longest racetrack is underway with around 3.5 km of track already cut out. The estimated time for the project’s completion is 1.5 – 2 years. The track will host Formula Two, Three, Four, and Lamborghini Super Cup, Porsche Carrera Cup, Tata Truck Racing series and superbikes.

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Roti Bank Foundation is a non-profit, tech-driven food rescue organization currently operating in 23 cities. One of the founding team members of the organization – Shriya Kumar, has developed the ‘Roti Bank Foundation’ application, which is now helping immensely in identifying hunger pockets and diverting surplus food to where there is none. Shriya Kumar – an investment banker, is a visionary towards adapting technology for solving India’s hunger problem. Her idea of mapping hunger pockets across the country for large-scale operations led to the app’s innovation. The app uses artificial intelligence to find out the hunger pockets. The app assesses the map of a city, and based on the publically available demographic data such as population density, proximity to luxurious services, and the propensity of a particular area to spend, it gauges the level of income and creates a virtual hunger map.

Roti Bank looks forward to creating well-fed communities throughout the various nooks and corners of India.

Slangaluru is a social media page started by Ikyatha Yerasala that’s teaching non-Bengalureans witty Kannada slang. To help her friends and others like them learn the local slang, Ikyatha started the social media pages in 2018. Slangaluru as of now has 9000+ followers on Instagram and 1000+ followers on Twitter. Though Ikyatha herself knows a fair bit of slang, she does not shy away from learning more words from other people. She also collaborates with illustrators to help people understand the meaning of these words through fun illustrations. She believes in clearly differentiating between witty slang and abusive slangs.

Slangaluru is not only a glossary of 350 slang words but it has also launched a merchandise line that sells bookmarkers, pillow covers and magnets printed with these cool words. The Instagram page has also become a platform to engage with old-time Bengalureans. On live sessions, actors Rishi and Hemant Rao have talked about their experiences of growing up in the city and their go-to-slang words. Priya Ganapathy, who was known for her radio show ‘Lingo Leela’ in the 90s, has also come over.

Pallavi Seth is one of India’s first performers to specialize in this genre (opera). Delhi-bred Pallavi Seth is one of the first young opera singers to come out of the country. She moved to New York for a formal undergraduate degree in Opera and Vocal Performance from the prestigious Mannes School of Music. Her music journey started with learning technicalities of Hindustani classical music, but later on she developed interest in exploring more genres of music. Performances at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall saw Seth transitioning from her passion for music to making it a profession. It was in 2018 and 2019 that she went around Italy and France. Even before they entered the bigger cities, they performed on the outskirts. Seth believes that the operatic tonality will sit well with Bollywood music. Her dream is to perform at the iconic Opera House - Salle Garnier in Monaco.

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Metro lines have been plying in some of the top metro cities in India for some time now, but they are not yet accessible by many. Girish Nagpal and Kaaman Agarwal faced this problem not just in India, but on a global level.

A resident of South Bengaluru, Girish faced this problem when he tried using the Namma Metro service from JP Nagar to reach his office in the CBD area.

Surprisingly, his friend Kaaman Agarwal, who was based in the East Bay in California, also faced a similar issue while using BART (Metro rail in the Bay Area) to travel to San Francisco City.  They also spoke to over 300 metro commuters in India and realised this was a recurring issue.

This led them to start  MetroRide , an AI-driven electric mobility platform that offers first and last-mile connectivity to high-frequency destinations.

Started in 2019, the Bengaluru and San Francisco-based startup leverages AI, IoT, and data to deliver a hassle-free experience.

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KuKClean is a marketplace for plant-based snacks, foods, and essentials founded in 2021 by Kirti Yadav. It all started, when Kirti wanted to make healthy plant-based and vegan food for her daughter. She and her husband, Akar started working together on this mission. While Akar focuses on Taste, Kirti (who is also a certified holistic nutritionist) focuses on nutrition. Having faced difficulties in sourcing healthy, vegan food products in Bangalore, Kirti started out on this journey of exploring vegan food and snacks and finding the best and healthy sources for them in Bangalore.

To burst the myth of ‘healthy food being boring’ she created a Facebook group in 2019, where she invited people from her friends circle, and started posting pictures of healthy and delicious food she cooked at home. The emphasis was always on plant-based food, and she was soon joined by other ladies who would also share their healthy recipes. One thing led to another and Kirti started getting collaboration offers from small entrepreneurs to launch their vegan brands on her group. With more than five thousand active members in the group, Kirti was on the brink of a business opportunity when the pandemic hit India in 2020.

Kirti has introduced her label with six ready-to-eat products including classic dry fruits granola, premium nuts and seeds trail mix, organic ragi laddu, dry fruit laddoo, baked wheat crackers/mathri and organic peanut butter.

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27-year-old Kalyani Potekar holds the record of being India’s fastest female motorcycle racer. She recently achieved the title with a record 2.08-minute lap on NCR’s Buddh International Circuit. This is the second time Kalyani Potekar has made the record by beating her previous record of 2.16 minutes atop a Ducati Panigale V4 superbike, proving that her only competition is herself. She belongs to a royal family that has always been into adventure sports. They exposed her to several sports, from horse riding to paragliding, skiing, etc. And the racing was technically passed on to her by her dad, who practiced it back then. Mr. Potekar would take his daughter to the track while she was a baby, and she fell in love with what he did.

She has ridden at Raid-de Himalaya, one of the world’s highest rally-raids, and the Indian National Racing Championship, an event backed by the country’s motorsport governing body Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI). She has also been recognized in the Outstanding Women in Motorsports category.  Kalyani has also represented India internationally, in Thailand and Taiwan.

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Dr. Jayanti Thumsi is one of the very few lady surgeons specializing in Breast Oncology Surgery and women-related surgical problems. She has 21 years of experience in complete breast care with impressive training from some of the most prestigious institutions in India. Dr. Thumsi completed her MBBS and MS (General Surgery) from Grant Medical College and JJ group of Hospitals, Mumbai. She has also received Breast Oncology training from the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai (Breast Unit) and training in Breast Reconstruction Surgery.

Her current area of focus remains in Breast related diseases and has performed over 3500 Breast surgeries till date including procedures like Breast Conservation Surgeries, Mastectomies, Non-palpable Breast Cancers, Microdochectomy, Benign (non cancerous) Breast Diseases, LD Flaps, Implant based and Breast Reconstruction Surgeries, Sentinel Lymph node biopsy, etc.

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D2C brand Crave By Leena is one of the first vegan bakeries in Bengaluru, which makes cakes and desserts with gluten and sugar-free ingredients. The brand did a year of R&D to get the taste, aroma, and texture right, using substitutes from locally grown organic and sustainable businesses as much as possible.

Leena Mathai always loved baking, which prompted her to take a professional baking course in Tafe in Sydney, Australia. She continued as a cake decorating artist at the renowned Sydney Baking Institute, Planet Cakes, under Paris Cutler's guidance in 2011. Her vegan cake journey began in transit from Sydney to Bengaluru in 2014. While vegans were on the rise, there was hardly much available. She noticed this gap in the Indian market when she found it impossible to find vegan desserts in Bengaluru. Thus, she started Crave by Leena — a vegan bakery that makes cakes and desserts with gluten and sugar-free ingredients. The D2C brand delivers across Bengaluru through its website, app, and a network of seven in-house delivery staff.

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