Global IndianstoryMohit Aron: The Indian-origin techie who went from building Google File Systems to be known as ‘father of hyperconvergence’

Entrepreneurship

Mohit Aron: The Indian-origin techie who went from building Google File Systems to be known as ‘father of hyperconvergence’

Written by: Global Indian

(October 27, 2021) Back in the day, when someone wanted to launch or run an IT firm, they had a number of things to check off their lists: buy computer servers from one vendor, storage from another, and then connect the two with expensive networking before running applications. Needless to say, the process was cumbersome, expensive and hard to manage. That is, until, in stepped Mohit Aron, an enterprising Indian entrepreneur, with a solution that changed the way the IT industry functions. He built an IT framework that combines storage, computing, and networking into a single system to reduce complexity and increase scalability.

Today, Aron is known as the Father of Hyperconvergence, the main technology at his first startup Nutanix, now a public company valued at over $5 billion. He then went on to set up Cohesity, which develops software that allows IT professionals to backup, manage, and gain insights from their data, across multiple systems or cloud providers. His ingenuity earned him the CRN Top 25 Innovators of 2012 title; in 2016, Cohesity was on the list of 10 Storage Emerging Vendors You Need To Know, and was also listed as one of the Top 25 Disruptors of 2016.

Global Indian entrepreneur Mohit Aron

From Chandigarh to the world

Born and brought up in Chandigarh, Aron grew up with parents who encouraged him to expand his horizons. His father worked with the Indian Forest Services, while his mother was a homemaker. In the India of the late 1980s computers were still relatively low on the popularity charts and therefore not everyone’s first career choice. However, Aron had heard people say that computers were the future; it piqued his curiosity. With a high JEE rank, the Chandigarh lad found himself a spot in the prestigious IIT-Delhi’s Computer Science stream in 1991. The institute had just received a donation of mainframe computers from a British company and the blinking lights and futuristic sounds at IIT-Delhi’s computer center had Aron hooked. It was a whole new world.

This curiosity and interest soon developed into a passion and he would spend hours programming: Unix, C and C++ became his best friends. According to an interview in YourStory, Aron said that he soon came to be regarded as one of the best programmers in his batch. “I would get lost in the world of coding. It was a world of its own and nothing else mattered while I was at it. It was all science with no room for ambiguity, only logic,” he said.

IIT Delhi's Distinguished Alumnus Mohit Aron Gifts USD 1 Million to IIT Delhi’s CSE Department

Link for the press release: https://t.co/oDSzEVeqlL @mohitaron @Cohesity @nutanix @iitdelhi @EndowmentF @EduMinOfIndia @dpradhanbjp @PMOIndia @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/7uCrzYN9Gq

— Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao (@ramgopal_rao) October 18, 2021

Soon after he graduated from IIT in 1995, he moved to the US for his Masters and then PhD in Computer Science from Rice University in Houston. It was here that his passion for the subject grew; he specialised in distributed operating systems. During his PhD, he built the first scalable web server, the concepts of his research were used by IBM in running the web server for the Olympics in the 90s.

The beginning of a fruitful journey

Aron began his professional journey with Zambeel, a California-based data startup, as a principal software engineer before joining Google as a staff engineer. Here, he was an integral part of the team that built the Google File Systems, that are still used by the tech giant to store and manage data.

Incidentally, Aron was offered a job by a Google engineer soon after his PhD, but he chose to forego it to join Zambeel, which was building distributed storage technology, an area that fascinated him. As luck would have it, the dotcom bust put a spanner in the works for the startup and Aron was once again approached by the Google engineer. This time, he decided to take up the job as it was clear to him that the company was going to be a game changer. That Google engineer is Jeff Dean, the brain behind the company’s tech projects and the current lead of its AI division.

His time at Google taught Aron how to build big systems that could be scaled. By 2007, he was ready to branch out on his own and bring his learnings to the real world; but he didn’t know the first thing about building a company. So, he joined data warehousing startup Aster Data Systems where he learnt what to do and not to do when building a startup. A couple of years later, he was confident enough to build his own company and he founded Nutanix in 2009 along with three others from Aster. It was here that he pioneered the concept called hyperconvergence (hence, the moniker). The idea caught on and today Nutanix is a public company worth over $5 billion.

In 2013, Aron launched Cohesity, a company with an estimated $300 million in revenue and growing at 70% annually. Cohesity is backed by Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia Capital, SoftBank, and Wing Ventures. According to Aron, data growth is exploding while also becoming increasingly fragmented, which makes Cohesity the perfect fit in today’s world. The Global Indian entrepreneur is working towards making the company a single platform to manage all forms of data in an easy manner. Some of Cohesity’s clients include the Hyatt chain of hotels, Novartis, and a smartphone major. It also recently partnered with Amazon Web Services to manage cloud data as a service.

Global Indian entrepreneur Mohit Aron

Giving Back

For an Indian who’d landed in the America of the 90s with less than a thousand dollars, Aron has come a long way. And he isn’t one to forget where it all started for him. With this in mind, he makes it a point to give back in whatever way he can. Be it through technical and entrepreneurial sessions, mentoring young entrepreneurs or donating to charitable organisations. Aron, who is on the engineering advisory board for Rice University, is also involved in encouraging Work2Future, a San Jose-based foundation that helps people find employment and provides career guidance to those who need it.

He recently donated $1 million to his alma mater IIT-Delhi to help fund the institute’s computer science and engineering department. The fund will be used to support the faculty’s research activities and ensure that students can attend conferences, workshops, and competitive events in India and abroad.

Follow Mohit Aron on Twitter and LinkedIn

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Published on 27, Oct 2021

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5 Indian Americans helming some of Silicon Valley’s most successful ventures

In the cut-throat world of Silicon Valley where startups bloom ever so often, the race to the top is fierce. But several Indian-Americans are ahead of the curve in shepherding some of the US' most innovative ventures, some that have gone on to become unicorns and even publicly-listed companies According to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends of 2018, startups founded or co-founded by Indian-origin entrepreneurs were among the most highly valued private tech companies in the US. Over the years, several Indian-Americans have shot to the big league in Silicon Valley, the hotbed of global innovation. Global Indian traces the journeys of contemporary Indian-American entrepreneurs who are making waves, especially during the pandemic. Baiju Bhatt, Robinhood [caption id="attachment_4024" align="aligncenter" width="483"] Baiju Bhatt[/caption] The eight-year-old no-brokerage stock trading app has over 13 million users and is valued at more than $40 billion. The company, which is planning to go public later this year, was founded by Baiju Bhatt and his friend from Stanford University, Vladimir Tenev. The app lets users invest in top stocks of major companies gained immense popularity with millennials who earlier might have felt intimidated at the prospect of investing in the stock market. The COVID-19 pandemic, especially, saw

-year-old no-brokerage stock trading app has over 13 million users and is valued at more than $40 billion. The company, which is planning to go public later this year, was founded by Baiju Bhatt and his friend from Stanford University, Vladimir Tenev. The app lets users invest in top stocks of major companies gained immense popularity with millennials who earlier might have felt intimidated at the prospect of investing in the stock market.

The COVID-19 pandemic, especially, saw the app gain 3 million users and a 250% increase in revenue since 2019. 37-year-old Bhatt who grew up in eastern Virginia was born to immigrant parents from Gujarat. His parents moved to the US in 1984, when his father Praful Bhatt enrolled for a Ph.D. program in theoretical physics at the University of Huntsville in Alabama. The family eventually moved to Poquoson where Bhatt completed his high school and relocated to the West Coast for his under graduation in physics at Standford University. He stayed on at Stanford to earn his Master’s in Mathematics and it was here that he and Tenev became roommates and friends. The duo had earlier launched two companies in New York before striking gold with Robinhood.

Bhatt’s idea for Robinhood stemmed from the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests; offering no brokerage stock trading, the app cuts out the high fees charged by stockbrokers, which otherwise makes investing in stocks feel like an intimidating experience for those with low funds. In 2020, Bhatt stepped down as the company’s CEO to focus on product development, stated a report in Forbes.

Rohan Seth, Clubhouse

[caption id="attachment_4027" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups Rohan Seth and his daughter Lydia[/caption]

Launched in 2019, Clubhouse was founded by Indian American Rohan Seth and Paul Davidson. The invitation-only social media app gained traction early on in the pandemic when people realized the need for human interaction like never before. Some of its most noted users include the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Within a year of raising funding, Clubhouse went on to become a unicorn and now has more than 8 million downloads.

The founders met when they were studying in Stanford University and after a string of failed businesses decided to give Clubhouse one last try. The app clicked and the two are on their path to success. Incidentally, Seth a New Delhi boy, who did his early schooling in India’s capital city, first worked with tech giant Google for six years before trying his hand at entrepreneurship. He met Davidson when he was looking for funding for Lydian Accelerator, an open-source platform that aims to customize genetic treatments for children born with severe genetic mutations. Seth and his wife Jennifer named the Accelerator after their daughter Lydia, who was born with a rare genetic mutation that causes mental and physical impairments. On his Medium page, he wrote, “We were told her disease was too rare, and there was no treatment, but neither is true.” His daughter is now undergoing gene-silencing treatments.

Apoorva Mehta, Instacart

[caption id="attachment_4029" align="aligncenter" width="341"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups Apoorva Mehta[/caption]

Backed by marquee investors such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, grocery delivery and pick-up startup Instacart came as a godsend for many American users during the pandemic. The company recently signed pacts with grocery majors such as Loblaws, Alberstons, Kroger, Costco and CVS and reached a valuation of $39 billion in March 2021. Founded in 2012 by Apoorva Mehta, Max Mullen, and Brandon Leonardo, Instacart saw a drastic increase in profits during the pandemic when social distancing and lockdowns forced a change in lifestyles.

Mehta, a former Amazon employee, was born in India and moved with his family to Canada in 2000. He studied engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario from where he graduated in 2008. He also worked with companies such as Blackberry and Qualcomm, before branching off on his own. Before he struck gold with Instacart, Mehta had launched over 20 startups ranging from an ad network for social gaming companies to a social network specifically for lawyers. In 2013, he was featured in the Forbes 30-under-30 list. In 2016, he made to America’s Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 list and in 2021 he was included in the TIME100 Next. Interestingly, Mehta had quit his job at Amazon after he found the work environment to be “slow and bureaucratic”. Today, Amazon has become one of Instacart's biggest competitors.

Jay Chaudhry, Zscaler

[caption id="attachment_4031" align="aligncenter" width="426"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups Jay Chaudhry[/caption]

Cybersecurity firm Zscaler was co-founded by 62-year-old Jay Chaudhry in 2007 and its two most popular products Zscaler Private Access and Zscaler Internet Access help provide secure access to locally hosted apps and external apps. It had an initial public offering in 2018 where it raised $192 million; in 2020 it purchased cloud security management startup Cloudneeti. Today, the company is listed on NASDAQ and is worth $28 billion.

Chaudhry, who owns 45% stake in the company, grew up in Panoh in Himachal Pradesh. As a child, he had no access to electricity and would study under the trees. In an interview with The Tribune, he said that would walk nearly 4 kilometers each day to attend school in the neighboring village. He went on to study at IIT-Varanasi before moving to the US for his MBA from the University of Cincinnati. Chaudhry then worked in sales and marketing at companies such as IBM, Unisys, and IQ Software for 25 years, before launching his own company. Today, Zscaler is the leader in cloud security, developing the world’s largest cloud-native security platform. Chaudhry’s estimate net worth of $13 billion has made him the ninth richest Indian in the world.

KR Sridhar, Bloom Energy

[caption id="attachment_4034" align="aligncenter" width="422"] Indian-American CEOs at the helm of Silicon Valley's most successful startups KR Sridhar[/caption]

Founded in 2001 by KR Sridhar, Bloom Energy worked in stealth mode before coming out in 2010. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company manufactures solid oxide fuel cells that produce electricity on site. It raised more than $1 billion in venture capital funding before going public in 2018. Its fuel cells are subsidized by government incentive programs for green energy.

Born in Tamil Nadu, Sridhar graduated in mechanical engineering from NIT, Tiruchirapalli 39 years back before moving to the US for his MS in nuclear engineering and PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He founded Bloom with the aim to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone. He initially led a project to build a device for NASA using solar power and water from Mars to produce oxygen. When it was canceled, he worked on reversing the process to use oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity instead. On his website, Sridhar writes, “The growing demand for essential electricity and the knowledge that the climate cannot sustain the status quo requires that we rethink how to shape this transforming global marketplace.”

RELATED READ: Meet the startups that are giving wings to India’s private space dreams

Reading Time: 5 mins

Madhukar Varshney: The US-returned innovator-turned-entrepreneur helps children problem solve

(November 30, 2021) If the Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum is right, 65 percent of students entering primary school will ultimately work jobs that haven’t even been invented yet. Then how does one prepare children for the future? It involves a farsightedness that Madhukar Varshney, founder of NimbleQ, has made a part of his DNA. The IT honcho imbues children with essential skills — creative thinking, communication, problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration. Technology is at the heart of many jobs, and understanding how to apply it to innovate and create able future generations is Varshney’s core strength. The idea, says the innovator-turned-entrepreneur, is to teach children to apply knowledge to solve real world problems and have a growth mindset. “Did you know only 2 percent of Fortune 500 companies have CEOs of Indian-origin?” he asks, adding, “This is because there is some flaw in the way we teach our kids. We focus on the math, but where is the creativity? Where is the proclivity to create and innovate?” [embed]https://twitter.com/HakimHabibulla/status/1418132814600433673?s=20[/embed] A holistic approach NimbleQ’s holistic skills development programme focuses on building the next generation of leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, and it was developed by the US-returned Varshney and his wife Shailey Motial, who handles brand

mbed]https://twitter.com/HakimHabibulla/status/1418132814600433673?s=20[/embed]

A holistic approach

NimbleQ’s holistic skills development programme focuses on building the next generation of leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, and it was developed by the US-returned Varshney and his wife Shailey Motial, who handles brand development and strategies.

What started as an after-school curriculum, now focusses on helping youngsters to innovate. “The idea is to get children to think independently like creators. While it is important to learn all things tech-related, it is also important that children know how to apply the knowledge, understand business, entrepreneurship, and money,” says Madhukar, who was in the US for 20 years thanks to the citizenship he was awarded under the Outstanding Researcher Category in 2009.

[caption id="attachment_16994" align="aligncenter" width="4898"] Global Indian Madhukar Varshney Madhukar Varshney with students during a NimbleQ class[/caption]

Raised in a very conventional family in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh), entrepreneurship didn’t even cross his mind. Born in 1974 to a father, who was a government contractor father, and teacher mother, Madhukar grew up believing that the route to success was through a US education. “Career choices then were either as doctors or engineers. I’d never thought about starting up. When I moved to the US, I got the opportunity to explore with an exposure to diverse cultures and professional experiences,” recalls Madhukar, who graduated in chemical engineering from HPTI, Kanpur, and then did a master’s and PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Arkansas.

Madhukar then worked at Cornell University as a research associate studying micro and nanomechanical cantilever-based sensors. A job at NABsys, a company which develops semiconductor-based tools for genomic analysis, came next.

The researcher turned educationist

During his career as a researcher, Madhukar published over 35 papers and owns three patents. Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, he decided to branch out on his own. In 2014, he set up his first company Forty-Five NE, a digital healthcare company that influences disease outcomes by empowering patients to get involved in self-care.

[caption id="attachment_16984" align="aligncenter" width="1065"] Global Indian Madhukar Varshney Madhukar Varshney with his wife and co-founder Shailey Motial[/caption]

He ran the Massachusetts-based company for two years. The Varshneys then began searching for something empowering in education. “We weren’t too happy about where the education system was headed. For instance, in India, students are not encouraged to question. There is no room for creativity, independence or leadership qualities. In the US too, though the system is different, there is still a loophole that needs to be plugged,” he tells Global Indian.

The seed was planted, and the couple moved lock, stock, barrel and family, to India and set up NimbleQ in 2017. Headquartered in Lucknow, NimbleQ is aimed at developing nimbleness of the mind. “They say that intelligence and capability are not natural talents; they are built by the flexibility of the mind. At NimbleQ, that’s what we aim to do: we encourage students to learn how to learn, question, focus, (even) fail and take in their stride and begin again,” says the founder of the so far bootstrapped startup.

Designed to teach

The NimbleQ experience is designed to teach kids to adapt, be flexible, question the status quo and adopt a holistic approach to life. “This is why business and entrepreneurship and understanding money are important aspects of the programme. So children are truly future ready,” he adds.

[caption id="attachment_16986" align="aligncenter" width="758"] Global Indian Shailey Motial Shailey Motial[/caption]

With programmes aimed at kindergartners to class 10 students, the startup has already been seeing some very positive results. For instance, a six-year-old student of theirs, won a Business Idea Hackathon for suggesting that energy be harnessed from Mars. “We don’t want our engineers to build a Taj Mahal. What’s the point of a Taj Mahal if it cannot be sold? The idea is for our engineers to innovate and design buildings that can be scaled and sold,” says Madhukar. So far, about 4,000 students have signed up since they started, with 80,000 plus hours of classes conducted.

The programmes are designed to treat students like adults, show them real time scenarios and what real jobs involve. After months of research, sit-downs with industry leaders, educationists, and researchers, Madhukar developed the programmes which today they are helmed by NimbleQ teachers (all engineers).

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlpvltyIF9M[/embed]

The startup has students in India, US and UAE. Plans are afoot to resume offline classes again, with expansion plans. “We’re also looking to raise funding to aid these plans,” says Madhukar, who is headquartered in Lucknow and always wanted to start small. "We’re not in it for the race.”

The father of two, loves to unwind with his children and encourages them to explore and question the world.

“At the end of the day, we put the student at the centre. We treat them like grown-ups. We don’t restrict ourselves to premium schools, we want to democratise education and also tie up with mid-size and small schools,” says the entrepreneur, who loves to sketch.

Follow Madhukar Varshney on LinkedIn.

Reading Time: 10 mins

Ashay Bhave: How this 23-year-old is getting “kicks” out of plastic waste, and is sold out

(November 27, 2021) "Don't just do it, do it right," puns the Thaely slogan, taking a dig at an international shoe brand. Rightly so, as Thaely sneakers are 100 percent recycled, and made from plastic trash. In fact, truth be told, CEO and founder of Thaely, an ethically produced ecologically fashioned sneaker brand, Ashay Bhave, is as honest, sceptical and idealistic in life as he is in deed. This, and a talent for art saw him create a niche with his vegan sneakers which he shrugs off – "This is just the beginning of greater things to come." Modest words. Interestingly, his first art installation at the Jameel Art Centre in Dubai, a show he curated too, got government attention, and he was given a UAE Golden Visa. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Thaely (@thaely.inc) Thaely has an ethos of sustainability as the 23-year-old Ashay upcycles plastic bags and bottles to create shoes. Named after the common place plastic bag's Hindi word for it, thaely, the shoes use plastic waste with cutting edge design. "We are the only company that uses plastic bags to make shoes. When you look at their aesthetics and design,

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Thaely (@thaely.inc)

Thaely has an ethos of sustainability as the 23-year-old Ashay upcycles plastic bags and bottles to create shoes. Named after the common place plastic bag's Hindi word for it, thaely, the shoes use plastic waste with cutting edge design. "We are the only company that uses plastic bags to make shoes. When you look at their aesthetics and design, you would never know that they are made from plastic," says the creator. Each sneaker uses ten plastic bags and 12 plastic bottles – an overall whopping 50,000 plastic bags and 35,000 bottles have been used so far.

The sneakers won the PETA's Best Vegan Sneaker Award 2021. Head honcho Anand Mahindra tweeted his interest in funding and buying these ecologically attuned sneakers.

This is awesome!
A startup in India 🇮🇳 is making these sneakers (a $70 billion market) are made of garbage (12 plastic bottles and handful of trash bags). And for $110, they will be shipped anywhere in the world.@Thaely_inc

pic.twitter.com/ogNwVCFhXY

— Erik Solheim (@ErikSolheim) November 17, 2021

Today, Thaely sneakers are sold out. Behind the minimalistic and soft leather shoe is a boy with a curly shock of hair forming a whimsical halo around his artistic head, with an endearing schoolboy drawl. He rattles off the science behind the shoes, fabric, and his depth is clear to see. The boy who studied at DY Patil in Navi Mumbai, comes from a Maharashtrian family - his mother Sheetal Bhave is a counsellor, and father Sameer Bhave works in Dubai at an oil company, and he has a younger sister.

The birth of an eco-friendly sneaker

Thaely was initially developed as a design exercise by Ashay using recycled material from waste at the Eureka competition during his final BBA entrepreneurship semester at Amity University (Dubai) in 2019. "I wanted to find a solution to the 100 billion plastic bags used each year that use 12 million barrels of oil which kill 100,000 marine animals annually," quips Ashay, who finished 12th and went to the Big Apple to study accessory design. A year into the course, unhappy with his progress, what work the alumni were doing, job prospects and the cost of the course, he signed up for a BBA in Dubai.

"I was doing a few design projects for fun - one was Thaely. Plastic bags are a huge problem, most marine animals confuse them for jelly fish. I experimented at home with different household appliances - irons and hair straighteners. I got familiarised with some industrial equipment during design school, and tried to replicate the tech used in t-shirt printing to form a texture called ThaelyTex with PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) used for coating, shoe bands, etc while the soles are from discarded tyres," he explains. With a rough idea of the fabric that he developed over two years; a prototype was made at a neighbourhood shoe repair shop. That prototype and design, he pitched along with a business plan at Eureka as proof of concept. Ashay won the competition, was spotted by a judge, Matteo Boffa, a Dubai-based Swiss social entrepreneur, who funded and mentored Ashay who was only 20 at the time. "I definitely needed guidance when it came to business and enterprise," says the designer who has since sold out his inventory.

Quote Unquote

"As soon as I heard Ashay’s pitch about Thaely I fell in love with the concept. Being a serial entrepreneur in the field of sustainability and social impact, I saw a great fit. The idea was great but the person behind was even better! The brand can compete with the giants of the industry. We have a real and concrete positive impact on hundreds of people in India," says Matteo Boffa, Social entrepreneur, Forbes 30under30, and co-founder of Thaely.

[caption id="attachment_16837" align="aligncenter" width="851"] Ashay Bhave[/caption]

Ashay identified Trio Tap Technologies, a waste management plant in Gurgaon for plastic bags. Then, the pandemic hit. All work came to a standstill. Beginning 2021, Bhave again started work and finally launched the recycled sneaker.

"It is difficult to create a sneaker with those specs, so we designed a process that is scalable and efficient. Thaely is a casual sneaker. I took inspiration from the many basketball and skateboarding shoes of the 80s – the design is timeless, minimalistic and easy to style. It looks like a leather sneaker," explains the designer, who started off as a freelance designer creating album art, packaging, animation, toys, etc. A name in Dubai already, he now wants to impress the rest of the world with not just products but also his art.

"The installation show was a pretty important point - it helped me become more established. I got government attention, and was offered a UAE Golden Visa. I had designed a fake toy with a packing and gaming console - it was basically critiquing world leaders acting like children and sort of playing with our lives," says the avant-garde thinker.

With funding, the second prototype was made, and the recycled "kicks" were on their way to make feet accountable and responsible. Thaely sneakers are currently sold at Level One, among the biggest shoe stores in the world at Dubai Mall, and online.

[caption id="attachment_16838" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Thaely Thaely's vegan sneakers[/caption]

Tapping the market

"We were sold out on all the shoes produced – 1,600 pairs with 500 pre-orders – mostly from Europe, some from America and Australia. India is not a very big market right now," says Bhave, who is grateful for the acclaim, and success, "It was my dream to be in design or a CEO of a fashion brand - now that it has come true, I am thrilled," says the eco entrepreneur who wants to diversify, and add more colours too (Thaely sneakers are in white, white-brown and white-blue, and pre orders of all-black).

Like other 20-somethings, sneakers are an appendage and lifeline – his, he says, are comfortable and function like regular shoes. They are different though, "We are 100 percent recycled, completely transparent on production processes, our shoes have a QR code, and we are cheaper than other sustainable sneakers at $99 (others are $150, etc)," adds the Global Indian.

[caption id="attachment_16839" align="aligncenter" width="771"] Thaely sneakers[/caption]

Proud parents, a sister who is a tad intimidated by attention, and impressed friends, Bhave knew they all had "pretty high hopes" (for him), and admits they expect much more now.

Mentor Matteo has been instrumental in giving Ashay a deeper perspective, "He is pretty young – 30, and (is) always inspiring me to stretch my boundaries," says Bhave who loves sci-fi movies, art and fashion.

Not many know that Ashay was a national level rifle shooter from sixth to eleventh grade in Mumbai, and even today loves going to the range in Dubai when he visits his parents. His larger aspiration is to make Thaely a lifestyle brand – clothing, furniture, other accessories – recycled and sustainable. Sneakers done, now it’s back to the drawing board to create more from trash.

Follow Thaely on Twitter, Instagram

Reading Time: 6 min

Meet Leena Pishe Thomas, the UN-invited speaker who works at mitigating climate change

(December 3, 2021) Sustainability campaigner Leena Pishe Thomas was the star speaker at the recently concluded World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) event at Geneva. As founder, Global Business Inroads, Leena was invited to speak about the role of IP in sustainable development and taking green innovation to international markets. Quite the expert on leveraging technology to provide sustainable solutions to mitigate climate change, adopt renewable energy sources, and life sciences, this wasn’t the first time Leena spoke at a UN event. Her first was at the Global Solutions Summit in 2018 in New York. [embed]https://twitter.com/leenapishe/status/1463002058370564102?s=20[/embed] What got Leena interested in this field? “Back in1990-2000, there were some truly innovative energy efficient solutions available – but not in India. That got me thinking - I was intrigued why there was no knowledge or action, considering for centuries, we had been following sustainable living practices. Why weren’t we developing sustainable technology?” she questioned. That led her towards sustainable solutions. Today, she is an expert working with governments and private entities the world over — the European Commission, US government, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka, apart from with some UN agencies. Her work includes cross border innovation collaboration between startups in Europe and India; facilitating collaboration for digital transformation, lead

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Today, she is an expert working with governments and private entities the world over — the European Commission, US government, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka, apart from with some UN agencies. Her work includes cross border innovation collaboration between startups in Europe and India; facilitating collaboration for digital transformation, lead green change and biodiversity projects. “Some of our biggest achievements have been in the spheres of biodiversity and landscape restoration projects in India as well as working with communities here to help digital access to set up sustainable processes for agro forestry product processing,” explains the girl, who was born into a family of entrepreneurs.

Starting in an industry at a time when sustainable business was almost unheard of in India, today, she is a regular face at UN events, introducing various stakeholders to the need to scale technology to mitigate climate change and achieve sustainability goals. Incidentally, she had appeared on BBC on these topics as well.

From Bengaluru to the world

The quintessential Bengaluru girl, chose to study science till high school before switching to a degree in history and economics at Lady Shriram College, Delhi. Determined, she even considered IAS. However, after graduation, she married her then boyfriend, Shibu Thomas. “I gave up an admission for post-graduation in the US, chose marriage,” she tells Global Indian.

Leena was 23 then, and she continued to study and work. International business fascinated her as did environment goals. She landed her first job with the Indo French Chamber of Commerce and Industry and also got her MBA from ICFAI, Hyderabad through distance education. Within a few months of marriage, Leena started up with SNL (1999) which focused on international business and environment technology at age 24. Shibu, then a restaurateur, became her angel investor.

[caption id="attachment_17130" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Global Indian Leena Pishe Thomas Leena at the WIPO event in Geneva[/caption]

Around this time, Leena also began consulting with the Alliance to Save Energy for United States Agency for International Development (USAID), working with state governments in India to transition to energy efficient solutions to cut costs. “We helped local municipalities work towards energy efficiency for municipal water utilities and streetlights,” she says, adding, “This was probably one of the most impactful projects we worked on as until then local governments didn’t have measures to ensure energy efficiency.”

She could have it all

In 2005, when Leena had her second daughter, she shut SNL and took a 1.5 year sabbatical. Her next role was with the Clinton Foundation, and it turned her perspective towards using technology for climate change mitigation. She was instrumental in starting and establishing Clinton Climate Initiative programmes in India. “I worked with the Foundation from 2007 to 2009 and it was everything I believed in. Motherhood also changed me in a big way. My ideas became clearer, and I became confident. It’s what gave me the push to launch GBI in 2009,” says Leena.

Incidentally, there was a time after her wedding when she had contemplated giving up her career altogether. “I’ve always been very family-oriented and didn’t mind putting my career on the back burner. It wasn’t easy juggling the kids, a home and a career,” she smiles, adding, “That’s when Shibu stepped in and convinced me to continue working. He showed me that I could have it all.”

Global Indian Leena Pishe Thomas

Winds of change

Setting up GBI with her own income, she turned the spotlight on her expertise. “The company has been focusing on discover (discover technology to showcase methods to the community), develop (develop new green tech), develop and then deploy this technology into the market,” explains Leena, adding, “I began GBI as a private sector company to make it a way of life, not just something that governments have to implement.”

She feels that sustainable living is two pronged: environmentally-friendly and lasting, and that electric vehicles are going to define the next decade for the world and India. “The focus is going to be on green mobility in the years to come. India is coming up with a lot of homegrown innovation in the EV sector. When GBI detected this trend five years ago, we began to support innovators working in the space.” GBI has now developed and launched an online portal for technology collaboration – www.globaltechinterface.com too.

On the path to success

Today, 12 years since its inception, GBI is a company that is scaled for growth. Two years ago, in 2019, they began going international, setting up offices in Europe, US and UK and project teams in Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Shibu, her husband, who co-founded GBI, is actively involved in managing the business aspect of GBI and focuses on the company’s international expansion.

[caption id="attachment_17131" align="aligncenter" width="606"] Global Indian Leena Pishe Thomas Leena and Shibu at GBI's Europe office in Bulgaria[/caption]

For Leena, her entrepreneurial instinct stems from her upbringing. Her grandfather Pishe Narayan Rao, who was orphaned early in life, would sell safety pins on the footpath in Bengaluru’s MG Road to survive. “He worked his way up, and soon set up his first store at that same spot. Today, PN Rao Suits is well-known across the country, and has branches in several cities,” she adds. Her father and mother too led by example. “My mother opened several doors for me, and encouraged me to try so many things. It helped me build the resilience to do a lot in a day and make it count,” says Leena, who loves to unwind after a long day by cooking and watching global cinema on OTT platforms.

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Reading Time: 10 mins

CONGLOMERATES: The Indian behind much of Oman’s infrastructure

(Our Contributor, May 6) Entrepreneur-turned-industrialist-turned-philanthropist Dr P Mohamed Ali hardly needs an introduction. Almost 50 years since he set up Galfar, the engineering firm, in Oman, Dr Ali’s business has spread across countries. But at the core of the conglomerate – with deep interest in construction, manufacturing, hospitality, real estate, education et al − is what Dr Ali says, “creating value”. With this vision, Dr Ali began working on a foundation that could inspire youths not only in Oman but also in his hometown Thalikulam in Thrissur, and in Kerala to pursue their dreams. Established in 1988, PM Foundation has been supporting hundreds of economically weaker yet meritorious students across the country through fellowships, scholarships and cash awards. Years before the government came up with educational loan, the foundation began doling out interest-free financial assistance to students. It has also facilitated tuition for civil services and other competitive exams in engineering, medical, chartered accountancy among others. Before leaving India for Dubai, Dr Ali worked with General Reserve Engineering Force, under the Ministry of Defence of Mizohill, now renamed as Mizoram, for three years. Unlike most of the people of his generation, Dr Ali wanted to do something on his

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Before leaving India for Dubai, Dr Ali worked with General Reserve Engineering Force, under the Ministry of Defence of Mizohill, now renamed as Mizoram, for three years. Unlike most of the people of his generation, Dr Ali wanted to do something on his own, and with that dream of entrepreneurship, he set foot in Dubai.

In an interview, Dr Ali, the first recipient of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman of the Government of India, said that he had sought the ethos of India to attain a global height through his initiative of PM International. While on one hand, Galfar constructed roads and modern buildings in an arid land of Oman to reshape its infrastructure, on the other his endeavours back home in India through MFAR created thousands of job opportunities in a wide spectrum from technology park to five-star hotels. In the process, the visionary could come up with India’s first producer of activated carbon and universities and schools, as well.

In early 2001, almost 30 years after Dr Ali began his journey as an entrepreneur, realized the need for empowering youths with proper education to remain relevant in the new millennium. With some like-minded people, he initiated the foundation stone of non-profit trust, Social Advancement Foundation of India (SAFI). It gave birth to SAFI Institute of Advanced Study (SIAS) in Vazhayur near Kozhikode in 2005 with Dr Ali as the current chairman (emeritus) of the board. This institute, in its undergraduate, postgraduate and research courses, reflects the vision of Dr Ali, who feels brilliance in studies can make a person excel in the work life too. If PM Foundation helps students aspire to be global Indian, SIAS takes care of them to turn the thoughts into action for a fruitful future.

Looking at the healthcare infrastructure in Kerala, Dr Ali – arguably the 12th richest Indian now – initiated medical assistance through PM Foundation and partner NGOs who would take care of the needy patients. At heart, Dr Ali is still the modest Indian who dreamed big and did bigger. “If you are fearless and honest in your action, you can conquer the world. You can do it with the attitude to gratitude, the principle of giving back to the society,” signs off Dr Ali.

Reading Time: 5 mins