Automation, however, is only one piece of the puzzle, says Ashwini Asokan, a user interaction design expert who co-founded Mad Street Den, one of India’s most promising artificial intelligence companies, with her husband Anand Chandrasekaran in 2014. The couple left Silicon Valley—where she was leading a user experience team at Intel and he was a neuroscientist working with cutting-edge AI technology—to start up in Chennai.
Name lifestyle products - bags, phone covers, key chains, wallets, etc - that are colourful and attractive and chances are you will find these at Chumbak, the Bangalore-based lifestyle products start-up. The start-up has strong visibility, both online and offline - at its exclusive stores and multi-brand outlets. Founder and Chief Executive Vivek Prabhakar and co-founder Shubhra Chadda have built a strong business around extraordinarily designed and crafted products, including apparel and footwear, bags and wallets, souvenirs, key chains and jewellery. Its range includes phone covers and a unique ‘whistle charm’, a funky bracelet.
Our weekly column looks at the men and women who are leading the technology industry, and get a glimpse of how they work and which gadgets they're dreaming about. Rohan Bhargava, co-founder of online-coupons site CashKaro. Along with his wife Swati Bhargava, Rohan has also launched a similar site in the UK called PouringPounds. Bhargava tells us what devices he can't do without, and how technology defines his life.
Gigstart, a marketplace that facilitates quick and transparent connect between entertainers and party planners, was founded by Atit Jain and Madhulika Pandey in the year 2013. Atit Jain is an Electronics and Instrumentation engineer from Birla Institute of Technology and Science. After working for almost four years, Atit decided to startup with his own company. He met Madhulika Pandey at Applied Mobile Labs in the year 2012, where he was working as a Senior Manager for Promotions and Usage. The duo then teamed up to start up with The Weekend Consultant. Gigstart is their second venture.
Anand Shahani and Mehak Shahani met in a health nutrition company in 2010 during their internship and fell in love with each other. After four years of long distance relationship, they tied the knot last year. While planning their wedding the duo had to face difficulties in discovering the right venue, vendors like band-baja and catering service among others. To solve this pain the husband-wife duo started a wedding centric blog –Wedmegood (WMG).
BreakFree, an Android based mobile app for smartphone addicts. The basic principle of the app is to make users aware how addicted they are to their phones and helps reduce the same. Developed by husband and wife duo Mrigaen and Nupur Kapadia, BreakFree was conceptualized over a discussion.
While she’s worked with Stella McCartney, Jasmine Di Milo, Giorgio Armani, and Liberty of London, he also leads an advisory practice in New York and has been affiliated with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns in the past. Bringing their experience and talent together, Nihar and Sana founded the fashion brand Indelust. Started in early 2014, it aims to promote sustainable design through the labels they house at the store.
When Abhinav Khandelwal and his wife Radhika Khandelwal found themselves carting about four kgs of Indian sweets and snacks each time from India to Switzerland during Abhinav’s tenure as an IT consultant in Europe, they knew they had to do something about it. In August 2014, they co-founded Sweets InBox (based in Pune), an online platform that offers Indian sweets and snacks, chocolates, cookies from leading vendors across the country and delivers it to your doorstep.
