Startup Garage

Paula Newby is the Founder of Predixa, an AI tool for corporations to quickly evaluate the key issues and solve for them using a data driven, objective approach. Paula started her first business in textile e-commerce back in the late-nineties and has been an entrepreneur since. She moved to the UAE and started Predixa, and has been working with some of the leading change programs in the region. Paula is long on diversity and inclusion for companies to succeed.

In this episode, we speak with her about consulting, about solving business problems using AI and data analytics and also about how and why diversity and inclusion are important!

Learn more about Microsoft For Startups, Middle East: GrowthX Accelerator and Highway To 100 Unicorns Series

The official trailer of Innovators Unplugged by Startup Garage & Microsoft For Startups, Middle East

Anuscha Iqbal is the co-founder of Spotii, a Buy Now Pay Later startup based in Dubai, UAE. Anuscha has been working in the investments and private equity space for over a decade with The Abraaj Group.

In this second episode, we have with us Gülşah Gülser, Founder, Quin AI. Gulsah is a strategy consultant with over 10 years of experience mainly in customer and deal strategy. She has worked in retail, e-commerce and travel & leisure and has engaged with leading local and global companies.

In this episode, we talk to her about e-commerce and the emerging small seller segment in developing economies, about how Quin is solving for them using AI and about the Turkish ecosystem. 

Jose Rubinger worked in the computer-sales industry in Brazil when he identified a global problem: lack of accessible technology for specially-abled children. A few years of research and many MVPs later, he founded Key2Enable, a technology startup that empowers children with disabilities, their parents, caretakers and teachers to accelerate the child's communication, assessment, monitoring, and learning process.

Abhishek Goyal has worked at Yahoo and Amazon, joined Accel Partners and led Flipkart's first investment round in 2009. He then became an entrepreneur and started Tracxn in 2013, one of the largest private-market data and deal services platform, globally. Today, Tracxn is used by governments, corporates and VCs across the globe to track innovative companies and access data. 

In this episode, co-hosted by Vaibhav and Gaurav, Abhishek talks about his journey from corporate to VC and then to entrepreneurship. He talks about the famous Flipkart-Accel deal that made history in the country, about Tracxn and about the SaaS play in India. 

Peter Hopwood is an international speaking coach. He travels the world and coaches TEDx speakers, entrepreneurs and corporates on building smart habits for impactful communication and thinking.

The hemp industry in India is one of the fastest growing industries with more states legalising cultivation of industrial hemp. There are a lot of myths and taboos around hemp, cannabis and marijuana in India. For this episode, we invited Rohit Shah, Co-Founder & CEO of Health Horizons, a vertically integrated hemp startup from India. Rohit came to India after working in US real estate and has pioneered hemp product manufacturing and distribution in India.

Saudi Arabia's PIF - Public Investment Fund is a $347B sovereign wealth fund. It is headed by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and has been an investor in Softbank's Vision Fund. In this episode, Vidit Khendry talks about PIF and the gray areas around it.