Speakers

Startups & Technology lover, Branding & Marketing Strategist & an Entrepreneur, Aditya Gupta is the Co-Founder of SocialSamosa.com, an Indian Social Media Knowledge Storehouse. He is also the Co-Founder of iGenero, a web technologies, communication design & digital marketing firm.
Aditya Gupta was hooked on the concept of social media since the early days and made sure he was at the forefront of all things new media related. It was during his first job at a startup that he realized the vast potential of social networks, not only as tools for social connections, but also as potentially powerful customer tools for engagement & public relations. This realization led Aditya to start his first venture, iGenero, in 2009. Under his guidance the team at iGenero has conceptualized and devised many online strategies for multiple brands & organizations across different verticals. At Social Samosa, he takes care of Product Development.

Abhishek Baxi
Digital Consultant,Technology columnist

Abhishek Baxi is an independent digital consultant and a technology columnist for several leading international publications. He’s an active participant in diverse communities, and lives on the web at www.baxiabhishek.info. Digital Consultant-Web, social media, and mobile strategy for brands, organizations, and the guys next door. Technology Columnist-Contributing writer for ZDNet, Mint, Hindustan Times, and managing editor at Techie-Buzz Speaker- Frequent speaker on digital media, Microsoft technologies, and mobility .Community Ninja -Bootstrapping, managing, and engaging online and offline communities.

Madan Mohan Rao
Research Director, YourStory.in

He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay and completed his advanced studies from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is M.S. in computer science and a Ph.D. in communications. He works as a consultant and author from Bangalore, in knowledge management and new media. He was formerly the Communications Director at the United Nations Inter Press Service bureau in New York, and vice president at India World Communications in Bombay. He is the Research Projects Director of Mobile Monday and co-founder of the Bangalore K-Community.

Soumya Sarkar
National Editor,MINT

Soumya Sarkar is News Editor in Mint, a sister publication of the Hindustan Times published in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. He has been working in Media and Communications for over two decades and was previously with The Times of India, The Indian Express Group, the Telegraph and the Down to Earth magazine. He has also worked as development and communications consultant with organizations that include the World Bank and the Aga Khan Development Network. Besides working in the areas of environment, rural livelihoods, energy and water resources, Soumya is keenly interested in science and technology issues.

P. K. Roy
Adviser,CyberMedia

Prasanto Kumar Roy is President and Chief Editor at CyberMedia Publications, publishers of Dataquest, PCQuest, and other leading IT publications magazines in India. He heads the ICT Publishing group of CyberMedia, which includes seven IT and telecom publications, both B2B and consumer. A technology journalist, hands-on user and electronics enthusiast for over 20 years, Roy, 41, is a physics graduate from St Stephen’s College, and attended school at St Xavier’s, Delhi. He joined CyberMedia in 1990, as Dataquest’s assistant editor. In 1993 he moved to PCQuest as editor. Over the next six years, he started the PCQ Online electronic bulletin board, the Computers@Home monthly, CyberMedia Test Labs, and the PC Quest CD-ROMs, the latter two being firsts in Asia. From 1996-99 he was editor and head of the PC magazine’s group, comprising PCQuest, Computers@Home, and PCQ Labs. In 1999, he moved on to head the Dataquest and Voice&Datagroup, which then launched DQ Channels and various DQ Week newspaper editions.

Shubhranshu Chaudhary
Founder, CGNet Swara

Shubhranshu Choudhary is a journalist and is currently working on a Democratization of Media project in Central Tribal India. During the process he has developed world’s first Community Radio on Mobile phone called CGnetSwara
Choudhary was a BBC South Asia producer for more than 10 years. He produced the first television coverage of foreign militants operating in Indian Kashmir and conducted the first television interview with the chief commander of the Kashmiri militant organization Hizbul Mujahidin.
He was also the first person to film with militant organisation ULFA from North East in their camps in Bhutan. Earlier he worked as a reporter for The Guardian London’s South Asia bureau for two years. He also works as media trainer for the BBC the United Nations and Indian universities.

Vishal Kumar
Director, Swaniti Initiative

Vishal has been part of the core team at SwanitiInitiative and is currently serving as Director of Swaniti’s knowledge initiative Jigyasa. Prior to that, He has worked as an Equities and Fixed Income Trader for 5 years in Investment Management Industry. Beyond his professional life, Vishal has served a Fellow with Hon’ble Member of Legislative Assembly MrHibi Eden in Cochin and presented a research paper on Urban Growth Challenges. Vishal aspires to work in the niche area of Development Consulting and build scalable models to address the problems at grassroots. Jigyasa, India’s first and only platform to address development issues in an objective manner, is an attempt in same direction. Vishal graduated from NSIT Delhi in 2007 with a degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering.

Raheel Khursheed
Communications’ Director – India, Change.Org

Raheel is I work as India Director, Communications at world’s fastest growing social action platform Change.org. Previously, as an independent freelance journalist, Raheel has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, ProPublica, BBC, The Wall Street Journal Online, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, CNN-IBN, ANI and a host of other publications & outlets across the world. Prior to Change.org, Raheel worked as a strategic communication officer to organizations like UNDP, Tata Sons, Tata Quality Management Services among other companies.

Anika Gupta
Digital Strategy & Outreach, Whypoll Foundation

Anika works as digital strategy and outreach officer for the Whypoll Foundation, a nonprofit that uses technology to hold elected leaders more accountable. She joined them recently for a joint project between Whypoll and Safecity, called #100UnsafePlaces. The campaign uses citizen-sourced reports to create a map of the most unsafe places in Indian cities, with the ultimate goal of sharing the map with policymakers so they can take more effective action to make the city safer. In her day job, she heads CNN IBN’s CJ Online, a citizen journalism site that uses mobile and multimedia storytelling tools to empower citizens and encourage more diversity in the mainstream media. She’s a graduate of Northwestern University in the United States, and was born and raised near Washington DC. She moved to India in 2009.