Emergent Ventures

Emergent Ventures (EV) is a fellowship and grant program from the Mercatus Center that seeks to support entrepreneurs and brilliant minds with highly scalable, “zero to one” ideas for meaningfully improving society.

The winners of EV India are listed on Marginal Revolution: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth,  sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth cohorts.

To apply for EV India, visit the Mercatus website, click the “Apply Now” button, and select India from the “My Project Will Affect” drop-down menu.

For more information and to donate to EV, please contact us at  emergentventures@mercatus.gmu.edu.

Listen to the announcement podcast here. Read the press release here. 

Emergent Ventures India Grant Winners

2018

Harshita Arora is an Indian prodigy from Saharanpur. In addition to her work in the sciences, she co-founded AtoB, a start-up building a sustainable transportation network for intercity commuters using buses. During her time there, AtoB raised over $150 million in venture capital from investors such as General Catalyst, Bloomberg Beta, and Y Combinator (S20). She is currently a General Partner at Y Combinator.

2019

Himanshu Dhingra, an entrepreneurial Indian law student, received a grant to support his travel and internship at Project Arizona. He is currently Chief Operating Officer, India, at Liberty International, an organization promoting libertarianism worldwide. He is pursuing an MBA from the Technical University of Munich.

Namrata Narain received a grant for her work on “What happens to the ability of firms to write contracts when courts are dysfunctional?” She is currently Assistant Professor, Strategy & Innovation, Boston University Questrom School of Business. You can find her CV here.

Neil Deshmukh received a grant for general career support and to support his work on smartphone apps for helping Indian farmers identify, diagnose, and recommend treatment options for crop diseases (PlantumAI) and for helping the blind and visually impaired interpret images through sound (VocalEyes). He is currently the co-founder of Sola, a process automation firm. Sola recently secured $21 million in total funding, including a $17.5 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz (partners Kimberly Tan and Jennifer Li) in August 2025.

Dr. Paul Novosad, Associate Professor at Dartmouth, received his grant for creating the SHRUG database at Development Data Lab. Sam Asher, an associate professor of economics at Imperial College London Business School, is the co-creator of SHRUG. SHRUG is an ultra-clean geocoded database describing hundreds of dimensions of socioeconomic status across 8,000 towns and 500,000 villages in India. Everything in SHRUG is carefully linked, extensively vetted and documented, and ready for immediate application.

SHRUG has been downloaded over 50,000 times to date.

Samarth Jajoo, a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, received a grant in high school to purchase study materials for math and computer science, as well as tutoring. He developed a book-gifting project called read.gift. He is currently Head of Projects at PopVax, an Indian biotech company. You can learn about PopVax here.

Arun Johnson received a grant to advance his work in physics, chemistry, nuclear fusion, and for general career development. He is currently a graduate student of chemical engineering at MIT, focusing on green hydrogen production. He works in the Brushett group on novel electrochemical reactor architectures, aiming at systems roughly ten times cheaper than existing ones, and presented his work on transition-metal-mediated decoupled electrolysis in March 2026.

2020

Ashish Kulkarni, an economics professor at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, received a grant to support a podcast on asynchronous mentoring. His Substack EconforEverybody has over 1000 subscribers. He is currently Program Director at Genwise, an organization creating immersive educational programs for gifted students.

Shrirang Karandikar received a grant to support an Indian project to get the kits to measure and understand local pollution. He currently works on an educational project called Algoasylum, a startup dedicated to revolutionizing education through innovative AI-driven techniques.

Tejas Subramaniam received a grant for prospective work on disseminating information about the prevalence of sexual violence, the harm it does, and effective tools to reduce its incidence. He is a Stanford senior studying economics and math and has a forthcoming Substack called The Disagreement Theorem.

Amit Varma and Vivek Kaul received their grant for a podcast called “Econ Central.” Amit Varma is one of the most influential podcasters in India, and the winner of the Bastiat Prize in Journalism for his writing. He is the host of the iconic long-form interview podcast The Seen and the Unseen and the blog India Uncut on Substack. Vivek Kaul is a prominent journalist and writer covering finance and economics. His last book, “Bad Money: Inside the NPA Mess and How It Threatens the Indian Banking System,” was released during COVID-19. You can find his writings here.

Deepak VS has worked on traffic and communications projects. He also founded a college club called 42 Labs that eventually grew into a start-up company called Tilt, a shared mobility platform designed for Indian campuses but now in corporate parks, colleges, townships, and cities across India. Daksh Shah and Rachit Parikh are co-founders with Deepak VS, who received a 2020 grant for his work on traffic and communications projects and for founding 42 Labs, which grew into the shared mobility platform Tilt. Working primarily with electric bikes, Tilt is partnering with companies to help provide alternate mobility solutions to people who typically use crowded and unsafe public transport. Tilt has now expanded to over 500 communities across major cities in India. Tilt has also been funded by Y Combinator. Deepak also hosts Deepak Disagrees, a long-form podcast on various topics.

Hiten Patel, an electrical engineer interested in robotics, coding, and designing, and Harsh Patel received their EV grant to develop robot prototypes that they call ‘E-Bot: Arogya Sahayak’ to potentially support hospitals, hotels, airports, workplaces, etc., to assist with basic tasks while maintaining social distancing. Hiten is currently a STEM innovation engineer at Curiosity Gym, an experiential learning platform.

Nilay Kulkarni is a software developer, and he previously worked on a project to prevent human stampedes at the world’s largest gathering – the Kumbh Mela. His project’s implementation at the 2015 edition of the event in Nashik, with over 30 million attendees, led to the first stampede-free Kumbh Mela in the city’s history. Nilay has also spoken at TEDx New York about the project. He has worked on assistive technology for people with ALS, enabling them to control phones using their tongues. He received his EV grant for the tech development of the Mahakavach app, the official quarantine monitoring and contact tracing platform adopted by the state government of Maharashtra. The platform reduced the time required for contact tracing from 3–4 days to 25–30 minutes. He is the founder of Narad, a corporate intelligence platform for investment analysts.

John Wesley Manasseh is the founder of River Bend Data Solutions, a data science company with health care applications. He received an EV grant to create a platform for hospitals to provide X-ray and CT scan images and to use AIML to identify at-risk districts in Andhra Pradesh. He is also CEO at BigByte AI.

Mohammed Suhail Chinya Salimpasha dropped out of high school to work on finding new ways to quantify protein in serum applied to a faster diagnosis of malnutrition. He diverted his efforts towards COVID-19 to create India’s first multi-language COVID-19 symptom checker, which was adopted by some local authorities before the Government mandated an alternative. He is currently working on solving problems in containerizing applications, Enterprise Cloud, low-latency API communication, and 5G In Social Tech Democratization. He is working with Unbox Robotics and is also the Director at BPC Bioproducts Private Limited, a company which specializes in developing and commercializing bio-based, compostable materials.

Praveen Mishra started the Power of Youth when he was 16. It is a non-profit organization aimed at empowering rural students by providing mentorship and hosting competitions to highlight their potential. He has since been building a ‘YouTube of e-commerce’. He is the founder of ByBuy, an omni-channel retail platform, and he received his EV grant to help with this launch. He is currently the CEO of Tohands, which makes smart calculators for shopkeepers. It has a flagship AI-powered device, the Tohands Smart Calculator V5, which serves as an all-in-one billing and inventory management tool for small shopkeepers. Tohands helps process over a million transactions every day.

Raman Bahl is a 2012 Teach For India Fellow. He has worked over the last decade in different capacities to teach students, train teachers, create curricula, and create systems of teaching and learning in the Indian education system. Raman received his EV grant during the pandemic for creating a Voice-based Academic System for students in rural communities to enable access to learning at home, through mobile phones. He is the founder and director of Learning Initiatives for India, which focuses on creating a collective of youth teachers that supports children out of the education system.

Dr. Vidya Mahambare and Soumya Dhanaraj received a grant to support their work in labor market and migration distortions. Vidya Mahambare is a Professor of Economics at Great Lakes Institute of Management, working in macroeconomics as well as cultural and social economics issues. Soumya Dhanaraj is AD (Research) at Good Business Lab. She was previously an assistant professor of economics at the Madras School of Economics, working in development economics and applied microeconomics.

Vidyarthi Baddireddy, Utsav Bhattacharjee, and Kajal Malik are Indian entrepreneurs focused on the employability of graduating students in India. In 2019, they launched PickMyWork, a platform for onboarding gig workers and getting them to complete tasks for client organizations through a pay-per-task model. They received their EV grant for adapting PickMyWork as a local volunteer response system to emergencies like COVID-19 by using the platform to source, train, and deploy volunteers across various projects and locations. PickMyWork recently raised$500,000 and hosts over 1.15 million gig workers across 125+ Indian cities.

Vinay Débrou studied computer science and is a self-taught data scientist interested in psychology, data science, and new applications of network science for collaboration-generating contexts. Vinay received his Emergent Ventures grant to accelerate his project to build a network visualization/mapping tool (here) to catalyze cross-disciplinary expertise-sharing and collaboration in Yak Collective – an open, networked community of 300+ (and growing) independent creators, consultants, and researchers.

Onkar Singh received his first EV grant for his COVID-19 Care Jammu project. His goal is to develop India’s first open-source satellite. Onkar received his second EV grant to develop a high-efficiency, low-cost nano-satellite and to continue developing his open-source CubeSat. He has also been a Rise Fellow since 2023. He founded Apolink which raised $4.3 million in 2025. Apolink’s IPoS (Interoperability Protocol over Satellite), a 3U technology demonstration satellite, has successfully launched as of July 2026. Onkar is also on Forbes’ 2026 30 Under 30 - Transportation & Aerospace list. Apolink has also been backed by Y Combinator. 

Akash Bhatia and Puru Botla co-founded Sherlock AI (Infinite Analytics), a platform to help Indian state governments with mobility analysis to combat COVID-19. Serving as a general AI platform across different commercial industries, Sherlock AI lets users ask any question to identify demand, map journeys, build audiences, and coordinate activation across touchpoints, using an intuitive search experience.

Ajay Shah is an economist, the founder of the LEAP blog, and the co-author (with Vijay Kelkar) of In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy. He is also the founder of the XKDR Forum. He received his EV grant for creating a community of scholars and policymakers to work on vaccine production, distribution, and pricing, and the role of the government and private sector given India’s state capacity.

Angad Daryani is a social entrepreneur and inventor from Mumbai, and his goal is to find solutions for clean air at a low cost, accessible to all. His start-up Praan received his EV grant to build ultra-low-cost, filter-less outdoor air purification systems for deployment in open areas.

Praan’s new Praan Sanctuary project will begin deployment across 1 million sq. ft. of Superb Realty space, with the partnership expected to scale to 6 million sq. ft., which represents a $28.5M deployment of Praan’s AI-powered Sanctuary air infrastructure.

Chandra Bhan Prasad is an Indian scholar, political commentator, and author of the Bhopal Document, Dalit Phobia: Why Do They Hate Us?, What is Ambedkarism?, Dalit Diary, 1999–2003: Reflections on Apartheid in India, and co-author (with D Shyam Babu and Devesh Kapur) of Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs. He is also the founder of the ByDalits.com e-commerce platform and the editor of Dalit Enterprise magazine. He received his EV grant to pursue his research on Dalit capitalism as a movement for self-respect.

Meghraj Suthar is an entrepreneur, software engineer, and author from Jodhpur. He founded Localites, a global community (6,000 members from more than 130 countries) of travelers and those who like to show around their cities to travelers for free or on an hourly charge. He also writes inspirational fiction. He has published two books: The Dreamers and The Believers, and is working on his next book. He received his EV grant to develop his new project Growcify, helping small & medium-sized businesses in smaller Indian cities to go online with their own end-to-end integrated e-commerce app at very affordable pricing. He has also founded Gigabox, a quick commerce platform.

Rubén Poblete-Cazenave is a research fellow at the Department of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His work focuses on political economy, development economics, and economics of crime in India. Rubén received his EV grant to study the dynamic effects of lockdowns on criminal activity and police performance in Bihar, and on violence against women in India.

Swasthik Padma received his EV grant to develop PLASCRETE, a high-strength composite material made from non-recyclable plastic (post-consumer plastic waste, which consists of multilayer, film-grade plastics and sand) in a device called PLASCREATOR. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Hirepanda, an AI-driven recruitment tool, and TrashTrap, a cleantech start-up.

Fasih Zulfiqar is from Pakistan and was homeschooled. He was the #1 economics student on the Pakistan national exam. He received a grant for general career support. He recently graduated from Duke University and is an incoming PhD student at Princeton University. At Duke he has been a graduate researcher in analytical political economy working with Timur Kuran; their joint work on the political economy of belief and preference falsification has appeared in the Annual Review of Economics, and he has also published in the Columbia Economic Review and Stanford Economic Review. He is a Mercatus Bastiat Fellow.

Mishka Orakzai received a grant to support her thiscodeWorks project to make snippets of code more available. The product — a kind of Pinterest for code — continues to run out of Peshawar with Chrome and VS Code extensions and a community of contributors.

COVID Prizes

Barkha Dutt (COVID prize) is a journalist. Her YouTube media venture Mojo Story won a COVID prize for her reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and related crises in India. Dutt and her small team traveled across India to report from the ground, producing over 250 ground reports. Mojo Story currently has over 2 million subscribers on YouTube.

Rukmini Shrinivasan (COVID prize) is the founder and director of Data For India. She is an award-winning data journalist and won her first EV prize for her pandemic podcast, ‘The Moving Curve’. Her book, ‘Whole Numbers & Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India’, is award-winning. Data For India uses public data from the Indian government and multilateral agencies like the World Bank to produce research-backed data-driven insights and charts on socio-economic issues. You can subscribe to its free weekly newsletter here.

Anand Krishnamoorthi is the sound engineer for Rukmini S’s Moving Curve podcast. He has also been a sound engineer for many major Indian films. He won the National Award for Ponniyin Selvan.

The covid19india project is a website for tracking the progress of COVID-19 cases through India, and it is the result of a collaboration. 

1. The maintainer of the website is Jeremy Philemon (COVID prize). He is currently a design engineer on the AI team at Vercel, based in San Francisco, and holds a master’s in design engineering from Brown. He recently built a double-iframe architecture for sandboxing untrusted code in production, which has been adopted into the MCP Apps specification. He has also given a TED talk on the collaborative engineering behind covid19india, which peaked at roughly two million daily users.
2. Somesh Kar (COVID prize) worked on the code for the cluster graph in the COVID-19 India Project. He is currently an undergraduate student at Shiv Nadar University and is building Tensara, a platform for GPU kernel optimization and benchmarking. Tensara has grown past 1,300 users and 35,000 submissions across more than sixty CUDA, Triton and Mojo problems, with kernels compiled and profiled on real GPU hardware through a serverless pipeline on Modal, which now sponsors the project. He also built the website for the Mercatus Center’s 1991 Project and has been interning on internal infrastructure with the engineering team at Zerodha.

2021

Kiran Garimella, a computer scientist and assistant professor at Rutgers University, Aaditya Dar, an economist, and Vasundhara Sirnate, a political scientist, won a grant to create the India Violence Archive. They used machine learning and natural language processing to develop an open-source historical record of collective public violence in India over 100 years. They sought to create accessible and high-quality public data so civil society can pursue justice and governments can make better policies.

Abhinav Singh is a master’s graduate from the Behavioral and Computational Economics program at Chapman University’s Economic Science Institute. He received his EV grant to start Polekon, a platform that will host educational content and organize seminars on key political economy issues and build a community of young thinkers interested in political economy in India.

Anup Malani, Lee and Bena Freeman Professor at the University of Chicago, received a joint grant with the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and Prabhat Jha, Professor at the University of Toronto and the Centre for Global Health Research, to determine the extent to which reported excess deaths in India are due to COVID-19. Malani currently serves as Chief Economist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Baishali Bomjan and Bhuvana Anand are co-founders of Prosperiti, an independent research and policy advisory organization that champions constitutional, social, and market liberalism in India through data-informed public discourse. Prosperiti focuses on dismantling regulatory bottlenecks to individual opportunity, dignity, and freedom. Their grant supports reforms in state labor regulations that ease doing business and further prosperity and help end legal restrictions placed on women’s employment under India’s labor protection framework to engender economic agency for millions of Indians.

Naman Pushp co-founded Airbound. Airbound aims to make delivery accessible by developing a VTOL drone design that can use small businesses as takeoff/landing locations. Airbound has also created the first blended wing body tail sitter (along with a whole host of other optimizations) to make this kind of drone delivery possible, safe, and accessible. As of 2025, Airbound is a team of 50, has scaled production to one drone a day, flown 10,000+ km, and improved reliability by 35x. They recently secured an $8 million seed fund.

Jamie Martin and Sandeep Mallareddy co-founded The Queen’s English to develop a tool to help speak English. Indians who speak English earn 5x more than those who don’t. The Queen’s English provides 300 hours of totally scripted lesson plans on a simple Android app for high-quality teaching. Jamie is also CEO of English Quest, another tutoring company. Sandeep is currently a board member of The Queen’s English and is the global edtech lead at GSV Ventures in India.

Praveen Tiwari is a rural education entrepreneur in India. At 17, he started Power of Youth to increase education and awareness among rural students in his district. To cope with the COVID-19 lockdown, he started Study Garh with a YouTube channel to provide better quality educational content to rural students in their regional language (Hindi). He is currently an Associate Engineer at Tohands.

Prem Panicker is a journalist, cricket writer, and founding editor of peepli.org, a site dedicated to multimedia long-form journalism focused on the environment, man/animal conflict, and development. He received an EV grant to explore India’s 7,400 km coastline, with an emphasis on coastal erosion, environmental degradation, and the consequent loss of lives and livelihoods. You can find his writings here.

Shriya Shankar is a social entrepreneur and computer science engineer from Bangalore and the founder of Sitara Akka, which provides accessible STEM education to children from underserved communities. It focuses on improving learning outcomes for Class 10 students. She received her EV grant to develop an accessible ed-tech series focused on contextualizing mathematics in Kannada. Sitara Akka is continuing to expand its educational initiatives across Karnataka. Sitara Akka was recognized by Droupadi Murmu, President of India.

Vaidehi Tandel is an urban economist and lecturer at the University of Manchester. She previously taught at Henley Business School at the University of Reading. She is interested in understanding the challenges and potential of India’s urban transformation, and her EV grant supports her ongoing research on the political economy of urbanization in India. Her current work looks at the politician-builder nexus in Mumbai, agglomeration economies in India, and climate change and adaptation across cities in developing countries. She was part of the team led by Anup Malani that won the EV COVID-19 India prize.

Vishnuprasad Padinjaredath Suresh is a researcher and PhD student in Internet Studies at QUT in Brisbane, whose work focuses on tracking coordinated disinformation and political polarization. He is also a stand-up comedian.

Preetham Raja and Vinayak Vineeth received a grant for a semantic text analysis system based on graph similarity scores. The system (currently called the Knowledge Engine) will be used for perfectly private contextual advertising and expanded for other uses like better search engines, research tools, and improved video streaming experiences. Preetham Raja is currently a student at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Arun Iyyanarappan is an electrical and software engineer passionate about creating alternate systems for electric power consumption. He received his EV grant to build a cost-effective solar-powered house to show proof of concept for electrifying homes in rural areas at low cost. He is a software engineer at a Bangalore-based semiconductor company called Aura.

Hiya Jain is interested in using EdTech to make education equitable. She received her EV grant to travel to San Francisco and better understand the EdTech space. She has a Substack. Her editorial venture Revival Fund is working on new projects. She went to do graduate work at Columbia University.

Keertana Subramani received her EV grant to build SUVY Classes, a platform that vets and trains tutors for quality, and offers engaging, live classes for any learning need, and at twenty cents a day. She is currently doing her PhD at TU Delft in Tech Policy and is a nonresident fellow at MBR School of Government.

Sainadh Chityala is an engineering student. He received the EV grant to develop software to power self-driving cars in unpredictable and chaotic driving environments in urban India. He also works at Prime Intellect, a full-stack AI firm.

Shruti Karandikar received a grant for ‘Screens for the Unscreened’ to collect phones, tablets, and laptops and donate them to underprivileged students.

Siddharth Kanungo is a chemical engineer and founder of Primer, an interactive conversational learning platform for self-learners to learn subjects like mathematics, physics, and computer science that are usually offered in a university-level setting.

Tejas Sidnal is an architect and researcher from Mumbai. He is the founder of CarbonCraft, a design and material innovation start-up converting carbon emissions into building materials by fusing material knowledge of clean technologies with traditional techniques. He received an EV grant to reduce the curing process for Carbon Tiles from 28 days to under four hours for tiles that store captured carbon.

Storysurf, founded by Omkar Sane and Chirag Anand, is based on the idea that stories are the simplest form of wisdom and that building an ocean of stories is the antidote to social media polarization. They received their grant to develop a network of writers and a range of stories, between 6 and 300 words, in a user-friendly app. Storysurf now runs as a personalized writing program in which writers receive original weekly prompts, individual feedback, and a route to publication. Omkar Sane, an alumnus of the J.J. School of Art and a longtime teacher at the Xavier Institute of Communications, describes it as a school-meets-publishing house rather than a venture.

Faraaz Baig is a self-taught programmer and robotics engineer from Bangalore. He received his grant as co-founder and COO of Airbound, with Naman Pushp, which aims to make delivery accessible by developing a VTOL drone that can use small businesses as takeoff and landing locations. The team built the first blended wing body tail-sitter to make that kind of delivery safe and affordable.

CONTACT was founded by two engineers, Bevin A. and Ann Joys, as a low-cost, voluntary contact-tracing solution. They used RFID tags and readers so that consenting individuals could log their locations at shops, hotels, and educational institutions. The data were anonymized and analyzed to track mobility and develop better COVID-19 policy while preserving user anonymity.

2022

Abhilash Mishra, a Rhodes Scholar, is the founder and Chief Science Officer of EquiTech Futures. He trained as a physicist and holds an MPhys from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Astrophysics from Caltech. EquiTech Futures is a network of innovators from around the world using data science and AI to tackle societal challenges. EquiTech Futures recently narrowed 100+ applicants to six global finalists for its Rise Innovation Fund Challenge. These finalists compete for up to $10,000 to launch or scale their early-stage, social impact ventures.

Akash Kulgod is Chief Canine Comrade at Dognosis (co-founded with Itamar Bitan), where he is building tech that increases the bandwidth of human-canine communication. He received his EV grant for a pilot study in Northern Karnataka testing the performance of cyber-canines on multi-cancer screening from breath samples. He also has a Substack. Dognosis’ latest study showed that specially trained dogs can identify seven major cancer types (including lung, breast, and gastrointestinal) from breath masks with over 90% accuracy. Dognosis is currently conducting a large-scale Phase 3 clinical trial with 10,000 participants across 10 hospitals in India to test its AI-powered, canine-driven cancer screening platform.

Aniruddha Kenge is a student of industrial design with an interest in carbon-based materials, especially graphene. He received his EV grant to develop hemp fiber-based bio-composites in India that can replace multi-use plastics. He continues to work on decarbonization projects through his company Unkarbon.

Apurwa Masook is a structural engineer who co-founded and spearheaded India’s first Indigenous Student Rocketry Mission. He is the founder of Space Fields, a team of hustlers, engineers, and space aficionados working towards affordable access to space. He received his EV grant to support Space Fields’s efforts in developing a low-cost, high-performance green composite propellant to power the next generation of launch vehicles. Space Fields received $5 million in funding in 2025. It also recently opened a 42,000 sq. ft. integrated facility in Bengaluru, India. The company achieved a major aerospace milestone by successfully conducting a hot fire test of India’s first aerospike rocket engine.

SealXX is a bioplastic solution to replace single-use plastics based on the concept of biomimicry, and it is founded and run by teenagers across the world. At SealXX, they want to make everyday products by mimicking protein-based natural processes, reducing the need for plastic reliance. Here are the co-founders:

1. Chandhana Satishkumar is currently an undergraduate student at UNC Chapel Hill and part of a core team studying plasticizers in food.

2. Nithi Byreddy is currently a student at the University of Washington.

3. Roy Kim is currently at the University of Pennsylvania.

4. Nathan Park is currently a student at Vanderbilt University.

Gowtham Tummeda is a student interested in biology and programming and views biology as a software problem. He received his EV grant to build an end-to-end AI platform for biological data analysis. His larger ambition is to use the platform to model, design, and simulate changes to strands of DNA at the protein level using Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold. He is currently a software engineer at Motive and previously worked at Zoho.

Hemanth Bharatha Chakravarthy (along with co-founder Benjamin Hoffner-Brodsky) co-founded Jhana, a Bangalore-based artificial intelligence lab, and is interested in simplifying and democratizing legal processes and information, and in building alignment and ethics tools for back-checking deployed AI systems. Jhana is building a state-of-the-art, automatic legal search interface for lawyers and students. Jhana received $1.6 million in funding in 2024.

Nexteen is an innovation accelerator program for 13–19-year-old students with programs aimed at exposing students toexponential tech to work on global challenges. Here are some of their students:

1. Ayush Srivastava is a serial entrepreneur who likes to work on the operations of new start-ups to help them grow. He has helped operationalize several start-ups before Nexteen. He is currently Head of Revenue Operations at Metvy. He is a founding member of HireVC.

2. Anvitha Kollipara works on scaling, bringing international accreditation, and acquiring partnerships with companies such as Adobe for the non-profits she founded. She was named one of the top three teen change-makers by Forbes for her work with CareGood Foundation as its president. She is currently a student at Pomona College.

3. Karthik Nagapuri, a programmer and AI engineer, received his grant for general career development. He is the founder of Synapse AI, an ambient AI platform.

4. Harsh Vardhan Shukla is a YouTuber-turned-entrepreneur, completing his undergraduate degree in business development while working on the side on nanotech projects. He works on content production (videos) and podcasts. He is currently Growth and Revenue Head at Tohands.

Keya Krishna is a student at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, interested in the intersection of science, technology, and public policy. She received her EV grant to measure pollution exposures at a hyper-local level with a high level of spatial and temporal granularity, specifically focusing on the pollution exposure of school-going youth.

Mohammad Ruhul Kader is an entrepreneur and writer from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He founded Future Startup, a digital publication covering the start-up and technology scene in Dhaka with an ambition to transform Bangladesh through entrepreneurship and innovation. He writes about internet business, strategy, technology, and society. He is the author of Rethinking Failure: A Short Guide to Living an Entrepreneurial Life. He received his EV grant to scale Future Startup into a leading destination to learn about entrepreneurship, tech, and business in Bangladesh.

Raghav Gupta is the founder of EquiDEI, a crypto-fintech start-up. EquiDEI is a blockchain-based protocol designed to monetize unbanked supply chain assets of small and medium-sized enterprises in India, to provide low-risk liquidity options. He is also a visiting faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Snigdha Poonam is a journalist who writes about identity politics, income inequality, tech culture, and crime. Her first book, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World, won 2018’s Crossword Award for nonfiction. She received an EV grant to travel across India for her investigative work on scams and fraud in the contemporary Indian political economy. Her book Scamlands: Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud that Preys on the World was released in October 2025.

Tushar Khandelwal is a former investment banker-turned-social entrepreneur. He founded Sigma91 – a career accelerator for ambitious teens – and built a community of over 400 highly talented teenagers. He currently runs Basil, a talent & executive search firm.

Samarth Bansal is a 28-year-old independent journalist in India. He writes The Interval, a fortnightly newsletter. He received his EV grant to merge his two interests – developing AI platforms for journalism and serving the news at higher speed and lower cost. He also leads “The Whole Truth,” a brand to rebuild food transparency.

Michael Slade received a grant to build an app for Marginal Revolution University.

2023

Abhishek Nath received his grant for LooCafe — a safe, hygienic, and accessible restroom for everyone. He seeks to ensure that no city is more than a kilometer away from accessing a safe public toilet, providing youth easy and safe access to hygienic urban sanitation. LooCafe now has over 350 units across 10 cities in India. As of 2026, LooCafe has crossed the 400-unit milestone nationwide, and in 2025 Nath launched ReFlow Toilets, a district-level sanitation initiative built on Bio-Circular Resource Technology. The company reported roughly ?33.6 crore in revenue for FY2024–25, and Nath has since been named to the Asia One 40 Under 40 and FICCI’s 50 Most Influential Under 50 lists.

Aadesh Nomula is an engineer focused on cybersecurity. He is working on a single-point cybersecurity device for Indian homes and small-scale factories. His other interest is philosophy.

Aditi Dimri and Saraswati Chandra co-founded Cranberry.Fit to develop a virtual menstrual health coach to break through the traditional silence and apathy regarding painful periods and menstrual health. Their grant supports the development of the virtual coach to help manage menstrual symptoms with the help of a personalized habits plan. Cranberry has since grown from a virtual coach into an end-to-end women’s health platform tackling chronic pain — period cramps, PMS, and hormonal migraines — by pairing data and behavioral science with a line of clinically vetted products. The team has grown to roughly 26, and the founders now co-host a women’s health podcast, Berry Nari.

Aditya Mehta is an Arjuna Award-winning professional snooker player. He received a grant to set up the ACE Snooker Foundation to teach and promote cue sports in India. He is currently employed at Indian Oil Corp.

Amandeep Singh is a 22-year-old inventor and entrepreneur interested in machine learning and deep learning. He is building ‘TikTok for India’, a short video-sharing app that allows people to edit and share videos with the world, create communities, and deliver authentic video content.

Ankur Paliwal is a queer journalist and founder of queerbeat, a collaborative journalism project to cover the historically underserved LGBTQIA+ community in India. Over the last 13 years, Ankur has written narrative journalism stories about science, inequity, and the LGBTQIA+ community. He received an EV grant to build an online community and newsletter alongside queerbeat, to help transform public conversation about LGBTQIA+ persons in India. queerbeat has since become an award-winning media and research venture, and in 2024–25 launched a Hindi-language fellowship with The Third Eye — backed by the High Commission of Canada — to mentor queer writers and bring these stories into regional-language newsrooms.

Arsalaan Alam is a web developer, machine learning enthusiast, and aspiring rationalist. He got his Emergent Ventures grant to continue building Aquastreet, which consists of a hardware device that can be attached beneath a boat, after which it takes in audio of fish’s voices and converts the audio into a MEL frequency and then performs machine learning to classify the fish species, which is then displayed on the Aquastreet mobile app. He is now working on a new start-up venture.

Arvind Subramanian is a sailor from Chennai and a former product manager at The Hindu. He won his EV grant to enable his (and his team’s) participation in the 2022 J80 World Sailing Championship in Rhode Island, USA. He is working towards building and scaling the niche sporting scene in India. He is now building Peakst8 club and organizes yearly festivals for athletes.

Aurojeet Misra is a biology student at IISER Pune. He received his EV grant for his efforts on a radioactive tracing system to detect and locate forest fires. He hopes to test a prototype of this system to better understand its practical feasibility. He is interested in understanding different scientific disciplines like molecular biology, public health, physics, etc., and working on their interface. He is currently working on his master’s thesis at the Technical University of Denmark.

Divas Jyoti Parashar is a climate entrepreneur from Assam. He founded Quintinno Labs, a cleantech company driving the electric vehicle revolution by developing power banks for EVs. These compact and portable devices that fit in your car’s trunk aim to reduce range anxiety and offer emergency relief to EV users in developing countries that lack a charging station network. He is also working on an urban-mapping initiative in Guwahati. Quintinno demonstrated and delivered the first commercial unit of their 2kW portable power station to the Government of Assam. The unit will be deployed in disaster relief efforts in rural Assam. Quintinno has since raised roughly ?65 lakh in equity-free grants, showcased QUINT at the Advantage Assam 2.0 Summit (2025), and earned recognition in the Startup Maharathi Challenge. He is preparing to launch QUINT Mini, a 1500W portable power station.

Divyam Makar received a grant for Omeyo, a platform to connect local pharmacists, which aims to provide a large inventory to users with all the needed items, along with being super low-cost and interactive. They aim to deliver medicine to their users in as little as 20 minutes. He is currently the founder of Mindpop, an AI platform which turns nonfiction books into 90-second visual stories (now live on Google Play).

Govinda Prasad Dhungana is a former assistant professor at Far Western University, Nepal, and a doctoral candidate at Ghent University, Belgium. He is a public health researcher and co-founder of the Ostrom Center, and he designs and implements high-impact HIV/family planning programs in marginalized communities. His EV grant was for piloting the community-based distribution (using Ostrom’s Design Principles and behavior change models) of a new self-injectable contraceptive.

Kalash Bhaiya founded Fun Learning Youth (or FLY), a nonprofit that employs cohort-based mentorship by volunteers in their localities. She received her EV grant to help reduce middle-school dropouts within underserved communities. She is currently doing her bachelor’s degree in applied engineering at the University of Toronto. FLY has mentored 1400+ students with 35+ volunteers in 14 Indian cities/villages. FLY has since built Shikshak, an AI-powered multilingual tutoring assistant that serves students in low-connectivity parts of India.

Keshav Sharma works at the intersection of design, technology & marketing. Augrade, his deep tech start-up, is an AI+AR platform to streamline the creation, editing, validation & visualization of 3D models at scale. Augrade is expanding its AI platform Dreamspace, training foundational models for the construction sector, and scaling operations. Sharma has since relocated to San Francisco, and Augrade — now a team of roughly 19 — is building Dreamspace into an AI spatial-computing platform generating manufacturing-grade CAD models for heavy industries such as space, automotive, and construction.

Kranthi Kumar Kukkala is a serial entrepreneur and technologist from Hyderabad. He received his grant for a health care device — HyGlo — a non-invasive anemia diagnosing device for young girls and women. HyGlo is similar to a pulse oximeter. He also founded Corzix, an AI platform to measure patient flow. Corzix was named a SLINGSHOT 2026 Top 250 Global Startup.

Kulbir Lamba is a researcher and practitioner interested in understanding the start-up landscape and received an EV grant for studying the evolution of DeepTech start-ups in India. He is currently doing his PhD at IIT Jodhpur and is a Professor of Practice at BML Munjal University.

Navneet Singh Choudhary is an entrepreneur, and his journey started when he was 21 with a food delivery app for trains and buses across 70 cities in India. He received his EV grant to develop LAMROD, a mobile application-based platform to manage trucking and cargo fleet operations in one place.

Nikhil Vijayvergiya and Ankita Vijayvergiya founded BillionCarbon to work on solving two problems that plague India — soil degradation and managing biodegradable waste. At BillionCarbon, they are mining nutrients from biodegradable waste to convert it into liquid biofertilizer. Their EV grant is to execute proof of concept with pilots, field trials, and technology validation. Nikhil and Ankita also founded another company called NatureHealers, a climate ed-tech platform. In 2024, BillionCarbon won the Production Category Award and Overall Winner title at the Growing Further Awards for its pioneering precision food-waste-to-biofertilizer technology. The venture has since drawn international recognition — a seed award at the UN ESCAP Feminist Finance Forum, a win at the BRICS Women’s Startup Contest, and selection among the Bayer Foundation’s global women-empowerment winners — and partnered with Europe’s Greenman Group.

Ray Amjad is prototyping scalable tools for finding and supporting the lost Einsteins and Marie Curies of the world — young people with exceptional math and science ability from under-resourced backgrounds. He received his EV grant to help him find collaborators. He graduated from Cambridge, where he filmed many educational videos. Amjad has since relocated to Tokyo and founded 21 Dreams, an app studio; he now creates videos on agentic engineering and AI agents.

Sandhya Gupta received an EV grant to help create an army of female math educators helping students enjoy math while charting a career pathway for themselves in STEM fields. She is the founder of Aavishkaar, an institute that educates K-10 teachers to become better science and math educators.

Srijon Sarkar is a researcher interested in mathematical oncology and applied rationality. He received his EV grant to study cancer systems, particularly epithelial/mesenchymal plasticity through a lens of mathematical models and statistical algorithms. He is currently an undergraduate student in applied mathematics and statistics at Emory University.

Shubham Vyas is co-creator of “Conversations on India,” a multi-platform media venture to help shape the Indian political and economic discourse landscape. He is also founder and CEO at FiFlo, a quick commerce AI agent.

Soundarya Balasubramani is the author of Unshackled, a book that discusses ways to reduce barriers immigrants in the US face. She also built an online community where immigrants can congregate, get guidance, and help each other. She has also recently written a novel called 1000 Days of Love. Since Unshackled — which her EV India grant helped fund — Soundarya has built unshackled.club, an online community for talent-visa aspirants, and in 2025 convened the Open Atlas Summit in San Francisco, billed as the largest gathering of high-skilled immigrants in America.

Srinaath Krishnan received his EV grant to work on Zephyr, a start-up making credit scores universal and mobile, to enable immigrants to qualify for financial products using their international credit history. He currently works as a junior manager at Hinduja Housing Finance.

Sujata Saha is an Associate Professor of Economics at Wabash College, Indiana. Her primary research interests are in International Finance and Trade, Open Economy Macroeconomics, and Financial Inclusion. She received her EV grant to study entrepreneurship and economic development in Dharavi.

Vedanth Ramji is passionate about research at the intersection of math, computer science, and biology. He received an EV grant to develop deeper insights into AMR research and collaborate with his team at the Big Data Biology Lab at QUT, Australia, where he developed software tools for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research. He is currently an undergraduate student of math and computer science at Stanford University. At Stanford, he co-developed argNorm, an open-source tool for standardizing antimicrobial-resistance gene annotations, and was a Y Combinator Summer Fellow.

Venkat Ram Reddy Ganuthula is Assistant Professor of Technology, Human Behavior and Organizations at SME, IIT Jodhpur. His interests span disciplines such as Artificial Intelligence, Behavioral Science, Economics, Evolutionary Biology, Neuroscience, and Organization Science among others.

Aamna Zulifqar is a BSc Mathematics and Statistics student at the University of Warwick and received her grant for general academic and career development.

2024

Anagha Rajesh received an EV grant to build a bacteria-driven DNA nanochip (BioCompute) to enable next-generation computing and storage. Before this, she spent four years building and scaling Yours Mindfully, a mental health non-profit that impacted over 10,000 people. BioCompute is now scheduled to relocate to the US. BioCompute — backed by Emergent Ventures and gradCapital — has raised over ?5 crore, including from Nikhil Kamath’s WTFund (where Anagha beat all but eight of 1,500+ applicants) and 1517 Fund, became the first Indian lab to write and read digital data in bacterial DNA, and completed its move to San Francisco in 2026.

Arpit Shukla is a 25-year-old social entrepreneur and researcher from Varanasi. He received his EV grant to develop and test his low-cost AI-based bone conduction hearing aid for those with hearing loss and disability. The device is programmed to prevent the loss of voice data and has active noise cancellation.

India’s International Linguistics Olympiad Team 2023

1. Anshul Krishnadas Bhagwat is a language and linguistics enthusiast. He speaks over 9 languages fluently (English, Hindi, Konkani, Marathi, Kannada, Portuguese, Spanish, German, French) and is learning many more. He won an honorable mention in the 20th International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria. He is now a national coordinator for the Linguistics Olympiad and is completing his bachelor’s at IIIT Hyderabad.
2. Faraz Ahmed Siddiqui won a silver medal in the 20th International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria. He now aims to popularize linguistics in India. He also enjoys studying and teaching astronomy and physics. He is currently a student at IIT Kanpur and is a part-time Research Fellow at SPAR Research.
3. Animikha Dutta Dhar is passionate about mathematics, linguistics, and problem-solving. She received her EV grant to participate in the 20th International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria.
4. Diya Agrawal is interested in biology, law, and linguistics. She received an EV grant for applying to colleges in the US and to participate in the 20th International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria. She is now a student in Bioengineering and Political Science at MIT.

Atul Singhal and his co-founder Sudhanshu Singh received their EV grant for scaling their start-up Cuvette, which helps connect students from small towns in India looking for internships and jobs in the field of software development to employers. Cuvette has had over 2.5 million users.

Ganesh Yakara is a social entrepreneur and the founder of Samskar Electronics. He received his EV grant to develop the “Samskar Toy,” an interactive device to educate young children about sexual abuse. Samskar Electronics recently obtained a Design Registration Certificate from the Patent Office, Government of India.

Gautham Pasupuleti is the CEO of Biodesign Innovation Labs in Bangalore. He received his EV grant to further develop and scale RespirAID, a patented medical technology that offers a safe, affordable, and reliable alternative to manual ventilation. Biodesign is active across over 50 hospitals and recently signed a strategic Letter of Intent (LoI) in July 2026 with the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) to co-develop AI-powered and translational biomedical solutions.

Hardeep Gambhir is interested in improving education and the future of humanity. He received his EV grant for general career development and to take a gap year from university to build his education/community initiative called The Residency, a home for the ambitious. He recently co-founded Internet Cinematic, which brings people together to use AI to make films. He is also co-founder of Local Host, a VC firm.

Parth Verma is a mechanical engineer and the founder of Bakz4ever. He is working on Carbon Bank Technology, a 2-in-1 climate solution for low-cost Direct Air Carbon Capture with Long Duration Energy Storage, to support and stabilize a 100% renewable grid. He is also a beVisioneers Fellow. The venture, now branded CarbonBank™, remains bootstrapped — no equity raised to date — and is laying the groundwork for pilot deployments through academic and industry collaborations.

Rahul Sagar is Global Network Associate Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi. He built Ideas of India, a new database that indexes every English-language periodical published in India from 1800-1950. Over 150 researchers have tracked down and indexed these lost publications, resulting in 300,000 entries from over 400 periodicals sourced from 175 libraries worldwide. Rahul’s EV grant will support a hunt “off the grid,” sending out teams to manually search in libraries that only have paper records of their holdings, in the hope of uncovering endangered archives. He is currently writing a new book.

Shankar Sri and his company Sputnik Brain received a grant to build a nonsurgical neural interface to democratize access to happiness through the brain’s serotonergic circuits to initially solve the issue of treatment-resistant depression. He eventually hopes to create a suffering-free human civilization and has received awards and grants from the UN, Samsung Electronics, and IIT Madras. Sputnik Brain has since placed Top 3 in Samsung and IIT Delhi’s Solve for Tomorrow from more than 18,000 applicants, showcased at the IOC–Samsung “Together for Tomorrow” pavilion at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and joined BITS Pilani’s Conquest 2026 healthtech accelerator.

Shashank Aswathanarayana is a 34-year-old music technologist, percussionist, and assistant professor at Ahmedabad University. He received an EV grant to travel across Southern India to build a complete acoustic image of Hindu temples. Here’s his acoustic analysis of South Indian temples.

Shivaganesh Gaddam is the founder of Zeni5, a Gen-Z neobank, offering a convenient platform to help students manage their payments and benefits, introduce them to financial literacy, and reward them through digital gold cashbacks on every purchase. Zeni5 has since evolved into a financial-education platform teaching real-world money skills through comics — reaching over 100,000 students, with deployment planned across 5,400 schools. Gaddam completed the Stanford Seed Spark Program in 2025.

Shweta Dalmmia is the founder & CEO of Climapreneur. She received her EV grant to scale her podcast, through which she is bringing forward insights on the climate start-up and nonprofit ecosystem and presenting opportunities for entrepreneurs. She is also co-founder at Para Energia.

Abhishek Sethi is the founder of gradCapital, which funds and incubates outlier students by providing them $40,000 to scale their backyard science projects. He is a graduate of BITS Pilani and IIM Ahmedabad. gradCapital is on Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia and has raised over $10 million.

Akshita Sachdeva and Bonny Dave are co-founders of Trestle Labs, an Assistive Technology company to make education and employment digitally inclusive for everyone against language, literacy, and print-disability barriers like blindness, low vision, and dyslexia with their AI-powered patented technology solution, Kibo. They received their EV grant to help scale Kibo, which helps users listen to, translate, digitize, and convert to audio any kind of printed, handwritten, and digital content across 60 global languages, including 13 Indian languages. Recently, a college in Ludhiana adopted the Kibo system for visually impaired students. Trestle Labs has empowered over 100,000 individuals.

Bhagyashree Prabhutendolkar is the founder and director of Empower, a youth-led media outlet that exists to spark critical conversations among young people. She is currently a Communications associate at the Baret Scholars program.

Harshil Naik is an aerospace engineer who, along with his co-founder Kanao R, started Contineu, India’s first AI-enabled construction intelligence platform (using existing CCTV grids and drone feeds) to help drastically reduce decision-making times and material waste on sites due to inefficient communication loops. In May 2025, Contineu raised a $1.2 million seed round led by SenseAI Ventures with Piper Serica — roughly ?12 crore raised in total, including an Entrepreneur First pre-seed — grew to a team of about 30, and was named to YourStory’s Tech30 list of India’s most promising start-ups of 2025.

Karthik Palakodeti writes and runs a podcast on animal welfare for a blog he created to unpack the key policy questions in the field. He has also represented India at the World Schools Debating Championships for the past four years. He is currently completing his Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Krishna Saproo is a BS-MS student at IISER Pune and founder of Maunitva Nirakaran. His research studies the impact of music on the cognitive behavioral system and explores the efficacy of Sangeetha Chikithsa, an ancient Indian therapeutic technique using music, in addressing mental health concerns. He is also working on a neurotech company, NeuroXOHRD.

Manu Rewal is an award-winning Indo-French filmmaker. He received his EV grant to help write and produce a thriller featuring themes of rule of law and freedom. His films have been covered by the press.

Rabeea Rasheed is an educator and STEM curriculum developer from Lahore and received her EV grant for general career development. She is currently an APAC representative at Space Hero and Research Associate at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science.

Ravindra Guravannavar, a computer science researcher and a former faculty member of IIT Hyderabad, and Dr. Shashikant Kulgod received a grant for Pratibha Poshak, a transformative talent search and nurture program aimed at identifying gifted students in the age group of 14-16, from remote, underserved rural areas and impoverished urban neighborhoods. Pratibha Poshak onboarded their fifth cohort in 2026 and a total of 1100 students in 2026.

Sandeep Jaykumar is an electrical engineer interested in complex adaptive systems. He received his EV grant to develop HubScout, a service to improve discoverability of information on the web using a market mechanism and a more transparent ranking mechanism.

Rnjai Lamba is researching and developing a product that creates a noise-free environment around oneself. Previously, he led more than a hundred engineers and served as the CTO of a Series B Mexican FinTech.

Spencer Schneier is a start-up founder based in Bangalore working on Commenda.io. He aims to make starting a business anywhere in the world as easy as deploying software. His project, Sling, is an incubator running out of his office, and he received his EV grant to create additional workspace for deep tech and nontraditional founders based in (or looking to relocate to) Bangalore. Commenda was rated as a high performer on G2 in Spring 2026.

Sriram Subramanian is one of the founders of Clever Harvey — a platform to help Indian students realize their study abroad dreams. Clever Harvey has awarded over $6.7 million in scholarships to students for the 2025-26 intake.

Vasav Trehan is a tech influencer with over 257,000 followers. He is the founder of technifyedofficial, which bridges the tech education gap. He wants to democratize tech education, and through his channel, he is helping students upskill with zero-price courses, zero-price certifications, internships and scholarship opportunities, and interview preparation to be able to secure a better future.

Akshin Makkar received his grant for building a drone-related application to help farmers with ground-weed problems in an agricultural setting. He is currently a project manager with Mercor.

Amanjot Singh, Sehaj Pasricha, and Badal Panchani received their EV grant to move to Bangalore and co-found Wayfarers Space, their start-up which aims to create a social environment for those on unconventional paths.

Ayush Chauhan, a young entrepreneur, was awarded an EV grant to expand a multi-device charging station system to improve electricity access in underserved areas in rural India.

Divyanshu Dembi is an antitrust lawyer and writes at Impatiently Curious. He received the EV grant for his podcast Jack of all Knowledge with people doing interesting projects in the fields of law, policy, arts and technology.

Indraneel Bankapure is a journalist and Indologist from Kolhapur, Maharashtra. His organization Virasat: Indian Heritage Initiative hopes to introduce the wonders of Indian culture to the world. He received his EV grant to develop a machine learning tool which will help identify and recreate sculptures in their original glory. He is also co-convener at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. Here is his YouTube channel.

Junaid Ahmed is the founder of WalkingPal — the world’s first walking buddy app — with a mission to change the way people cover their last mile, by making walking more fun and the preferred way to commute. WalkingPal was recently selected for a fellowship at the Residency, a Dubai-based organization.

Lakshay Taneja is an innovator and entrepreneur with a background in blockchain and AI. He received an EV grant to develop his project aiming to harness ocean and tidal energy to generate electricity. He is currently working on cross-border customer support at Decentro, a fintech platform.

Madhulash Babu is an entrepreneur and electronics engineer and the founder of Edodwaja. He received his EV grant to develop flowbus/lab on wheels to bring the latest technology to schools allowing students to have hands-on STEM lab experiences. Madhulash was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2026 list for his social innovation and youth empowerment work through the Edodwaja Foundation.

Moksh Soni is an innovator from Mandi, Himachal Pradesh. As a teenager, he made an electrolyzer by stripping a bus tire for rubber and cutting up some old steel plates from his mother’s kitchen. He received his EV India grant to design a relatively smaller electrolyzer, in a lab, and hopes to produce greater yields of hydrogen.

Nikhil Garg is a high-school dropout working as a software engineer for the last four years. He received his EV grant to develop his start-up ByteCube Tech. ByteCube currently has more than 100 clients across 15 industries. He is also working on Advisely, to help students who wish to study abroad. Nikhil is currently building Zodiac, an agentic AdTech platform helping emerging brands in India compete through data-driven decisioning and automation.

Ryan Nadar is an aerospace engineering student and received his EV grant for his research on ion batteries.

Samay Sanghvi, a self-taught engineer from Mumbai, received his EV grant to develop gliders to generate electricity from high-altitude winds, at his start-up Alteon Energy, which aims to generate 7.5Mw/h with just $12m (about 4.5x cheaper than solar in India). Alteon Energy is also working towards building a high-endurance airplane that can fly for 417 days at a time without landing. Samay’s work was also recently featured in a documentary.

Sriram Kuchimanchi is a social entrepreneur and the founder of Smarter Dharma. He received an EV grant to build India’s first data-driven open platform for sustainable materials and solutions which can help accelerate the decarbonizing of the building industry from the design stage. Smarter Dharma recently partnered with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Global Buildings Performance Network (GBPN) to launch a multilingual, location-aware green materials platform.

2025

Aakash Agrawal is a neuroscience and AI researcher who investigates the neural mechanisms that enable fluent reading. He aims to leverage his research and develop gamified cognitive tasks to help children improve their reading skills without adult supervision. He founded AlphaKoj, a platform that turns textbooks into fluency games. He has also been a learning scientist at EkStep Foundation since 2025.

Ada Choudhry received an EV grant to build AI supply chain platforms under the mentorship of Shell executives. She is an undergraduate student at Boston University and is a visiting undergraduate scholar at Harvard.

Aditya Kedlaya received his EV grant to develop prototypes of carbon capture modules through his start-up. He founded Matterak Technologies to design, develop and deploy products related to decarbonization including carbon capture, infrastructure for carbon-neutral fuels production and energy-efficient hardware. He is focused on developing mechanical, thermal, gas handling hardware products, subsystems with focus on indigenization for space, defense and energy sectors.

Adon Banker is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at Chatrabhuj Narsee School, Mumbai, with a major in Computer Science. His project, the Jewish Virtual Museum, aims to create a lasting legacy for the Bene Israel community in the history of India. His project was recently a finalist in the Changemakers World Cup.

Aishwarya Das Praveen is the co-founder of Dirac Labs, a spin-off from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which focuses on developing an alternative to GPS using quantum sensors. In August 2026, Dirac Labs raised a $1.8 million pre-seed round led by TitletownTech — the Microsoft–Green Bay Packers venture fund — to prototype its diamond-based quantum navigation sensors, with non-dilutive support from NOAA, the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum, and the Mercatus Center. Aishwarya serves as the company’s COO.

Akash Kumar Seth received his grant for freeCodeProjects.org, which helped potential students become job-ready under the mentorship of experienced developers, free of charge.

Druhin Lamba is a BS-MS student in Mathematics and Computing at IIT Roorkee. He received his EV grant for education and career development.

Jayesh Buckshee Rohatgi received his grant for an educational start-up, Dialogue Dynamics. Targeting top independent schools globally, Dialogue Dynamics focuses on the four most critical sub-skills of communication: presenting viewpoints, strategic questioning, identifying misinformation, and mastering persuasion. He is currently part of a cohort at Kickstart Global, a UK-based talent incubator.

Khushi Mittal received an EV grant to take a gap year from the University of Alberta in Canada and move to Bangalore to work on her projects related to aerospace and build a hardware community with the Wayfarers group. She is the founder of Aspera, an aerospace company that is building pilotless, fixed-wing amphibious aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water and flat land to compete with maritime shipping costs at speeds 20 times faster. Here’s a trailer for an upcoming documentary on Aspera. Founded in June 2025, Aspera Industries raised roughly $750,000 later that year and was named among Inc42’s manufacturing start-ups to watch in June 2026; the company is prototyping long-range autonomous cargo aircraft aimed first at Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Aspera was also featured in a documentary.

Manas Goyal is an impact finance entrepreneur and founder of AllAsia Net Banking, a platform dedicated to providing accessible and seamless banking solutions. He received an EV grant to develop a new, innovative model that simplifies access to unified banking solutions. He is currently an investment banking analyst at JPMorgan Chase and has a master’s in finance from MIT Sloan.

Suryesh Kumar Namdeo is a Senior Research Analyst at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, working on biosecurity policy and science diplomacy projects. He received his EV grant to support his research and conference travels in biosecurity policy in India. He also serves as an expert committee member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Susan Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow and Co-Founder of XKDR Forum. Susan aims to help litigants in India get more predictability about how their legal cases will progress in Indian courts.

Sworna Jung Khadka is an ESG entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Stalwart International Private Limited, an agro start-up that leases unused government-owned lands and non-agricultural but arable lands for the production of cassava and drought-resistant crops. He is a law student at the University of London.

Ayush Majumdar, originally from Calcutta, is a writer and translator currently translating the works of Rabindranath Tagore.

Ari Dutilh is a 19-year-old entrepreneur, community builder, and photographer. This grant is to help him continue his work on UltraRice, a project to solve malnutrition in India by using ultrasonic treatment to create cost-effective, nutrient-scalable rice. He also runs multiple other organizations.

Chetan Kandpal works in computer science, cognitive science, and now neuroscience, and his research delves into human social dynamics, particularly how information transmission and normative assumptions are influenced by the presence of agents in multi-agent environments. Chetan received the EV grant for the opportunity to present his work on social dynamics at MIT. He is currently doing his master’s at IIT Kanpur.

Deepika Gopal, Balaji Bangolae Lakshmikanth, and Dr. Lakshmi Santhanam are co-founders of Renkube, a deep-tech solar start-up to lower cost and increase safety. The EV grant supported Renkube’s efforts in creating a Fire Prediction and Prevention solution for rooftop solar installations, aimed at preventing fire accidents and improving overall safety. Renkube’s only equity round remains its 2022 seed (?2.4 crore, led by CIIE.CO); per Forbes India, total funding — equity plus grants — stands at roughly ?5 crore, and the company has since joined the Third Derivative and Halliburton Labs climate accelerators.

Digvijay Singh is building large-scale diagnostics (LSDs) at Drizzle Health to eliminate epidemics by testing large volumes of food, water, and eventually air in real time.

Manoj Ramaiah received his EV grant to build Ariima DeepTech Circle, a talent cluster connecting postdocs and PhDs with industry, start-ups, and investors for translational research. Manoj is passionate about the history of science, particularly Asian and Indian, and dedicated to introducing first-generation graduates to start-ups. Ariima has helped onboard 5 universities and facilitated the renewal of 40+ patents across multiple global jurisdictions.

Munna R. Shainy is a neurotech enthusiast specializing in developmental and affective neuroscience. He received an EV grant to attend the COGNESTIC 2024 Summer School at the University of Cambridge. He also engaged in a personal part-time pursuit learning ML/DL for neuroscience, with projects on GitHub.

Akash Kumar, Yash Bhardwaj, Shruthi Badri, and Neil Shroff are co-founders of Basedcon, which hosts conferences on unpopular but significant ideas in Indian tech, culture and society. The grant supports global expansion and micro-grants connecting ambitious Indians worldwide.

Nithilan Ravikumar received a grant for general education and career support including participation at the International Physics and Philosophy Olympiads. He actively pursues research in physics, explores the future implications of AI, and holds cybersecurity certifications.

Parth Patel holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and is passionate about robotics. He received an EV grant for career development and is currently applying to graduate programs.

Rajsuthan Gopinath, along with Shanjai Raj, received an EV grant for building end-to-end legal AI agents through their start-up Airstrip AI. Their project developed an intelligent AI business lawyer democratizing access to legal resources. Rajsuthan has also founded a company called Intraplex, an Enterprise AI platform. Shanjai is currently Chief LinkedIn Growth Officer at Postking AI.

Rakshita Deshmukh is a PhD student in Neuroscience at IIT Kanpur, studying the impact of N3 sleep on adaptive decision-making and anxiety using EEG. She received her EV grant to present her research on N3 sleep’s effects on anxiety-induced learning at MIT.

Sachin Pachorkar is a professor specializing in entrepreneurship and corporate governance. He founded Project Bandhan, generating tribal employment through bamboo crafts, and established Kumbhathon to address logistical challenges of the Nashik Kumbh Mela using technology. He received an EV grant for STEM education initiatives in rural and tribal schools.

Ramya Prakash received her grant to pursue electronics and robotics and for general education and career development.

Shreepoorna Rao is the founder and CEO of Arctus Aerospace, building unmanned airplanes for zero-infrastructure earth observation. Planes fly at 45,000 feet for 24 hours at a stretch and payload capabilities range from 100 to 250 kg. He received his EV grant to build a UAV with a 5-meter wingspan. In November 2025, Arctus raised a $2.6 million pre-seed round led by Version One Ventures with South Park Commons, gradCapital, and angels including Balaji Srinivasan, and in 2026 unveiled its AX1 aircraft, flying at 20,000 feet with ten-hour endurance. Shreepoorna was also featured in a documentary.

Soni Wadhwa teaches literature at SRM University, Andhra Pradesh, and curates PG Sindhi Library, a digital archive of post-partition Sindhi literature in India. Her research explores the development of Sindhi literature, within Indian literature more broadly. She contributes regularly to Asian Review of Books and Digital Orientalist.

Sumuk Hegde received a grant for developing an automated beach-cleaning robot that detects, segregates, and disposes of waste.

Surya Maddula got his grant for developing an open-air active noise cancellation system through his start-up Whisperwave. He is currently completing his bachelor’s in business administration from IIM Bangalore.

Tamzid Rahman is a social entrepreneur dedicated to eliminating child mortality caused by blood shortages in Bangladesh. He received an EV grant to develop and scale BloodLink, a peer-to-peer blood donation app and database. He is the founder of BornoAI, an AI tutor for K-12 students in Bangladesh.

Tanish Patare is a high school student in Mumbai and has won consecutive gold medals in the Science Olympiad Foundation’s National Science Olympiad. He received his grant for general career development. He also writes on Substack.

Tithi Paul, a master’s student in Environmental Pollution Management (Ecotoxicology) at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, develops algorithms using zebrafish fin patterns to assess water safety. She received an EV grant for travel to present her work at international conferences.

Varsha Korimath is a National Tinker Champ member and a Pratibha Poshak scholar. She has authored a book, conducted tinkering workshops, and participated in the ATL Tinkerpreneur Bootcamp. She received an EV grant to support her STEM education and general career development.

Zubin Sharma, a social entrepreneur, founded Project Potential in rural Bihar. His EV grant supports research into innovative talent identification and acceleration strategies for high-poverty regions with limited resources and institutional support, particularly outside India’s tier-1 cities. Project Potential has reached over 900 villages in India. Zubin is also a Fellow at N/Core, an organization investing in select founders of early-stage nonprofits.

Advik Kapoor received his grant for Exerton, to help builders get started with their dream projects. He is currently working on Recess, a project to connect homeschooled kids. Recess has helped over 300 families.

Adwait Dandwate received his grant for Vardhishnu, a platform to create learning spaces for vulnerable children. Vardhishnu recently welcomed Cohort 7 (2026–28) of its Anandghar Fellowship, onboarded over 12,000 students, and scaled its Dronacharya program across Uttarakhand.

Ambreen Deol is an aspiring surgeon who has rotated at Cleveland Clinic, Stanford, Mount Sinai and UAB. She received her grant for travel and general career support. She recently published a study on “Assessment of Factors and Deterrents Influencing Medical Students in Pursuing a Career in Surgical Disciplines: Gender-Based Perceptions from a Teaching Hospital in India” in The American Surgeon journal.

Anjali Jayaraman received a grant for Repay Smart, which uses economics and gamification to help young adults make smarter financial decisions. She also writes on Substack.

Amruth Ravindranath is a neuroscience researcher and received his grant to develop cognitive assessments and AI models that personalize mental health chatbots to each person’s unique cognitive fingerprint. He founded a company, Rogue42, and has been doing projects at the neuroscience-AI intersection.

Arjun Khemani received his grant for the Arjun Khemani Podcast and to work on his writing. His latest book Lords of the Cosmos (with Logan Chipkin) is out now. He regularly writes on Substack and has over 2000 subscribers.

Vibhuti Bafna, Enya Dumitru, Aliya Mamadfozilova, and Julian Drotkiewicz received a grant for Waste2o, turning agricultural waste into potable water. Vibhuti is also part of the Operations Team of Teen Research Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the goal of becoming a strong community of passionate teen researchers. Enya is currently with the Youth Stem initiative in Spain. Aliya is currently doing her bachelor’s in chemistry from UC San Diego. Julian is also a mentor at the Youth Space Organization.

Ishan Khire received his grant for Rural Analytics, to make rural development data more accessible for researchers. He is currently a student at Georgia Tech.

Jhillika Trisal (with Falguni Shrivastava and Souvik Ghosh) received her grant for building Cognitii, an AI?plus?human learning platform for children with special needs; the grant scales pilots and the personalization engine. In 2026, the three of them made Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia. The company expanded its operations into a new base in Hyderabad.

Kaustubh Bankapure received a grant to create an online learning model of applied theatre education for Indian educators.

Shaunak Agarkhedkar is an espionage writer on Substack and a novelist. He received his grant to write novels challenging myths about stray animals.

Kavish Garg, studying math and philosophy at Stanford, received his grant for conference and travel support.

Nikitaa Sivaakumar received a grant to develop Wonder Yonder, interactive visual aids for high school science teachers. Wonder Yonder is actively publishing educational resources and design insights focused on artificial intelligence literacy for children, alongside ongoing nature and science communication projects.

Piyush Jha, founder of Vasudeva Innovations, received his grant to turn wastewater into clean energy while earning carbon credits. Vasudeva Innovations recently secured a runner-up position at the Youth Co:Lab National Innovation Challenge 2026, won a non-dilutive grant and pilot placement at IKP Knowledge Park, and continues scaling its bioelectrochemical wastewater-to-energy technology. He is currently doing his bachelor’s from IIT Madras.

Ria Khurana, along with her co-founder Tanmaya Gulati of RNT Health Insights, received their grant to develop medical devices detecting early-stage gastrointestinal cancers. RNT recently secured a second US FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for its esophageal cancer detection tool. Ria and Tanmaya are currently medical students at Government Medical College, Chandigarh.

Riddhi Jain received her grant to build Trackboons, a psychological guidance and career counseling platform that integrates mental wellbeing with career direction to foster lasting personal growth. The organization offers private counseling, career assessments, parenting support, and institutional workshops, aiming to destigmatize mental health care. Riddhi is currently finishing her bachelor’s in business administration with a focus on finance and statistics from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Saket Sinha, an accomplished bansuri virtuoso with more than seventy students worldwide, received his grant to move to Mumbai to expand his flute academy.

Akhil Reddy K received his grant for Livestockify, to develop solar-powered IoT sensors for real-time poultry disease and health monitoring. He was recently selected to participate in a challenge hosted by the United Nations Development Programme. Livestockify secured official pilot backing and partnership with the Animal Husbandry Department of Andhra Pradesh.

Dev Patel received his grant to expand his method combining machine learning and geophysics to detect and forecast floods across Indian villages. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Brown.

Avhijit Nair received his grant for HydroPlas Tech, to produce graphene from waste plastic. He was formerly an engineer at Wells Fargo.

Harish Ashok received his grant to build a Valkyrie, a multi-purpose rover. He is currently building an AI system called Markov, for computers to use computers, which also got selected as a Y Combinator company. Markov recently launched the largest open-source dataset of gaming data for computer use, with 500+ hours of gameplay screen recordings.

Kaviraj Prithvi received his grant for uDot, to build a tactile display enabling blind students to study STEM.

Keya Shah received a grant to develop a prosthetics solution in Bangalore.

Saurabh Chandra, Pranay Kotasthane, and Khyati Pathak received their grant for Puliyabaazi Hindi Podcast, to expand and develop articles and video formats in simple, conversational Hindi. Pranay is Chairperson of the High-tech geopolitics platform at the Takshashila Institution and is the author of three books. Saurabh is the CEO of Ati Motors, an autonomous robots company. Khyati is a writer and cartoonist.

Mohil Ahuja received his grant to develop a low-cost algae-based air purification system addressing indoor pollution. He is currently interning at Barclays in Pune and is completing his Bachelor’s in Technology from Plaksha University.

Pragyaan Gaur received his grant to build technology to reduce industrial sulfur dioxide emissions. He is also a fellow with beVisioneers.

Prashansa Tripathi is a doctoral student at IIT Jodhpur and received travel and conference support to attend the cognitive neuroscience skills training program at Cambridge University.

Rain Rejius received his grant for TRIPd, to develop a wearable revolutionizing personal temperature control through thermoreceptors. He is also a beVisioneers fellow.

Rakshith Aloori received his grant to build desalination machines solving the water crisis. He is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Reivanth Kanagaraj received his grant for ColourCryption, to create low-cost anti-counterfeiting solutions using fluorescent inks. He is a doctoral graduate in Physics from Bharathiar University and a technical advisor at Cosmo Crawler, a company focused on building reusable launch vehicles for space. He is based in Coimbatore.

Sanjay Ganguli, a freelance wildlife photographer and filmmaker, received his grant to acquire equipment for documenting wildlife stories from India.

Vishrant Dave, Ayush Ranjan, and Prateesh Awasthi are students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and co-founders of Armatrix, which focuses on building hyper-redundant robotic arms for inspection and maintenance in hard-to-reach and hazardous industrial environments. Armatrix recently secured $2.1 million in funding in a seed round.

Wajih ur Rehman received his grant to develop an aerosol-technology-based solution to curb air pollution in Pakistan. He is currently an Assistant Professor at COMSATS University, Islamabad.

Tawheed Rahman, a high schooler, received his grant to build a low-cost prosthetic robotic arm.

Aadhithya D, Adithya Sakaray, and Steve Aldrin received their grant for Recruitr AI, to automate video interviews using AI. Aadhithya D and Adithya Sakaray are now working on Vakyam AI, a multilingual text-to-speech model that supports over 8 Indian languages. Steve is currently a software engineer at HackerRank.

Aaron Rego received his grant for Rightful, to help Indian families recover unclaimed financial assets. He is currently working with an advertising company called Words & Colors.

Anushka Punukollu received her grant for SucroSoil, to repurpose sugarcane waste into hydrogels combating soil erosion in rural India. She is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo.

Deev Mehta received his grant to develop a rover making farming autonomous.

Khyathi Komalan, a student at Caltech majoring in math, received her grant for career development, and to support her research applying category theory to everything from quantum physics to social relationships.

Krupal Virani received his grant for general career development. He is currently working at the founder’s office at HomeMate Smart and is doing his Bachelor’s in Technology at Nirma University.

Mihir Maroju received his grant for Open Blood, to build an open-source blood donation platform connecting blood banks nationwide. He is currently working on “Your AI Slop Bores Me,” a platform to address AI slop. It has received over 280 million views in a month.

Prakyath Gowda received his grant to develop a lightweight and efficient electric vehicle battery.

Rajendra Bagwe and Sudhir Sarnobat received a grant for HowFrameworks, to help Indian SMEs unlock sustainable growth through a learning portal.

Rushab M received a grant to develop a jacket controlling body temperature for outdoor workers.

Sajal Deolikar received his grant for Rhygen, a company developing hybrid powertrains for commercial vehicles improving mileage and reducing emissions. They successfully tested their prototype HEV bibtya_1.1 in 2025.

Shwapno Rahman received his grant to develop low-cost computers for people living below the poverty line.

Soumil Nema, co-founder of NeoVes, received his grant to develop stem cell therapies treating neurological disorders like stroke and neuropathy. He is currently a PhD candidate in Biology at Tsukuba University, Japan.

Uddhav Gupta received his grant to develop Therophonobot, a speech therapy application for children with special needs. He is currently a high school student at DLF Public School in New Delhi.

Samarth KJ, a civil engineering student at IIT Madras, received a general career development grant. He is currently a data scientist at Meesho, an e-commerce platform.

Vatsal Hariramani received a grant to develop a smart and affordable neonatal incubator for remote terrain.

Yash Darji, an engineering student, received his grant to kickstart an experimental rocketry community in Ahmedabad. He is currently technical head at the experimental rocket community team at the Vishwakarma Government Engineering College (VGEC). As a part of the 2026 Teknofest Rocket Competition, the VGEC team is among the top 30 teams selected globally in the A4 International category, targeting an apogee of 12,811 feet.

Habel Anwar received a grant for furthering his physics Olympiad preparation, and working on advancing his physics knowledge and research. He also engages in science communication on Instagram and has over 33,000 followers.

Ansh Saxena received his grant for Aquanode, to build an AI-native cloud helping teams deploy and train models with lower costs. Aquanode is a platform that lets you discover, manage, and migrate workloads across GPUs on 10+ cloud providers. Aquanode now aggregates over 1,600 GPUs across 69 regions from multiple cloud providers, with paying users and several hundred sign-ups.

Joy Agrawal is a student at the University of Chicago and received his grant for general career development. He is currently a RISE Fellow under the Rhodes Trust.

Dhruv Bathla, founder of Ezbeat, received his grant to build a copilot preventing cardiovascular disease through early risk identification.

Dhanush Bakthavatchalam received his grant to build fully automated AI-driven factories for metal fabrication.

Avani Agarwal received a grant for Synthera, to accelerate personalized medicine using AI-powered drug discovery. She is currently doing her bachelor’s at UC San Diego.

Kumari Anushka received her grant for RAD-Scan, to build a citizen-led biomarker testing system for radiation and heavy metal exposure.

Mateo Escalante received his grant for Horus Prosthetics, to develop machine learning models generating perfectly fitting prosthetic leg sockets. He is currently working on a new start-up venture.

Mohammad Mahean Hasan, studying at Minerva University, received his grant for travel and general career development. He built Oasis, an open augmented reality cloud that maps the physical world as a living canvas.

Nikhil Kashyap, a high school dropout, received his grant to build an affordable robotics kit and visual coding platform making STEM education accessible across India. He is additionally pursuing other fellowship projects.

Prince Rawat received his grant for Falken Aerospace, to build autonomous cargo UAVs for logistics. He is currently on a personal career pursuit.

Rashi Bhavsar received her grant for Algaevity, to develop an all-natural, bioluminescent, zero-electricity mosquito-killing device. She has been working on her project since 2024.

Rishi Rathi received a grant to develop a marine carbon dioxide removal solution. He is currently working on a new start-up venture at the intersection of nature and engineering.

Rounak Banerjee received his grant to develop affordable technology for converting standard wheelchairs into electric wheelchairs.

Sushan Bhattarai received a grant to map archaeological sites linked to the Khasa-Malla kingdom across the Himalayas. He’s also a writer.

Syed Irfan Ahmed received his grant to develop non-invasive devices monitoring posture in real time.

Aditya Gupta received his grant to develop a breath diagnostics tool screening for complex gut disorders non-invasively. He is a recent graduate from IIT Hyderabad.

Adnan Abbasi, the founder of Thothica, received his grant to add an archive reader to make rare historical texts accessible using AI-powered translation. He is also an independent part-time AI consultant.

Bharath H G received a grant to build a robotic system safely cleaning manholes remotely.

CEDA (Center for Economic Data and Analysis) at Ashoka University received a grant to build the Economic Enterprises Tool, to integrate datasets delivering harmonized indicators across India’s enterprises.

Dheemanth Reddy BS, CEO of Maya Research, is focused on bringing frontier AI to the public. He is also a fellow at the Bangalore-based South Park Commons, a VC firm. Maya recently raised $1.9 million from South Park Commons.

Farraz Mir received his grant for a bioinformatics automation project saving researchers time and lowering barriers to entry.

Jnanendra K S received his grant to convert vintage cars to EVs in his automotive mechanic shop.

Kunjpreet Arora received a grant for Angirus, to transform plastic and industrial waste into waterproof, low-carbon bricks. As of 2025, Angirus has deployed over 400,000 units of its flagship product, Wricks, nationwide.

Namrata Rajagopal received her grant for Exception Raised — a grants program to enable India’s AI research ecosystem through funding, community, and mentorship.

Ritisha Sethi, a high schooler from Lucknow, received her grant to develop Qubit Quest to help learn quantum computing through gamification.

Sankalp Shrivastava, a self-taught developer and entrepreneur from Bhopal, received his grant for general career development. He is currently an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Residency.

Saransh Duharia received a grant for Zeratron (formerly Garudakshak), to build a smart drone detection and neutralization system for civil use. He is currently doing his master’s in technology from IIT Bombay.

Sarthak Pandit received his grant for building a wireless drone recharging system to eliminate manual battery swaps. He is currently finishing his Bachelor’s in Engineering from Amity University, Noida.

Vrinda Borkar received a grant for Wingrow Agritech, to develop agricultural markets for small farmers. She is currently a Fellow at the Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship - IIT Bombay.

Yasmin Qureshi received her grant for travel and career development. She is currently a Management Executive at Biziverse.

Jainul Abedin received his grant to scale Abyom SpaceTech, and develop India’s first reusable rocket and commercial rocket engine testing facility. Jainul made the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 India. Abyom SpaceTech successfully completed a hot-fire qualification test campaign for India’s first fully indigenous reusable liquid rocket engine (the BSE-II).

Vasisht Dilip received his grant for Seric Steel, to turn iron ore mining waste and crop residue into steel without fossil fuels.

Tanuj Pandya received his grant to build gloves that bring realistic touch to XR devices.

Utkrisht Singh Chauhan and Yash Chavan received their grant for InTacht, to speed up and reduce costs for edge and private AI systems.

2026

Adithyan Madhu, an independent researcher, received his grant to study early writing systems, applying computational linguistics, pattern analysis, and structural methods to the Indus Valley script. Adithyan has continued publishing independent research on the Indus Valley script, including newer work on seal iconography and glyptic art (via SSRN/Zenodo/academia.edu) that builds on his cross-civilizational, computational approach.

Aparajeet Shadangi received his grant to explore conceptual approaches to cosmic expansion and dark energy while continuing his formal academic preparation in cosmology.

Kevin Gibson, a student developer, received his grant for Crsynk OS, a Python-based operating system integrated with an AI assistant and focused on lightweight user interfaces and accessible computing. He is also developing WiseChat AI and an AI Voice Engine. Crsynk OS, his AI-powered operating system, is now used by “thousands” of users, and he is continuing to build related products (a voice engine and conversational assistant) under the Wise AI umbrella.

Vaishnavi Dilip received her grant to identify fire-resistant plants native to Indian ecosystems and plant them strategically as natural firebreaks in fire-prone areas.

Prince T. Philip, an independent cybersecurity researcher and product architect focused on high-impact, future-facing risks in modern software systems, received his grant to build a security audit tool that surfaces vulnerabilities and design assumptions missed by traditional scanners.

Michaela Cross, a writer and content creator, received her grant for Rose Chasm, a video project on the history of India and its relationship to America and the wider world.

Vivekanand Bhat and Rijesh Panicker received their grant for Pathika, to create immersive, augmented, multilingual onsite guided tours for heritage monuments across India.

Devanarayan received his grant for Open Horizon Observatory, a small open-access observing setup that produces and freely shares real astronomical data. He is developing low-cost workflows for time-series photometry and open data sharing for students and the public.

Roshan Kumar Gupta, a computer science undergraduate, received his grant for TARS, a deterministic, physics-aware machine-learning pipeline for exoplanet discovery using TESS data. He aims to reduce false positives and identify physically credible habitable-world candidates in noisy observations.

Yajan Adhikari, a materials researcher, received his grant to build an operating system for digitizing and scaling the management of recyclable materials.

Pranet Khetan received his grant to develop a novel, low-cost architecture for refreshable tactile graphics supporting STEM education for visually impaired students.

Karthik, a space engineer, received his grant to research the use of remote sensing in agricultural insurance.

Alexander Hogeveen Rutter, an energy expert, received his grant for analysis and advocacy of least-cost resource adequacy planning and other market-based measures in India’s power sector.

Akshit Arora, an Engineering Physics student at IIT Delhi, and Bhavey Sehgal, a BITS Pilani student, received their grant for NeuroBridge. It uses eye tracking, computer vision, and AI to predict intent, giving people with ALS fast, confirmation-based speech instead of slow letter-by-letter eye typing, at a fraction of existing device costs.

Cartoonist Sumit Kumar and Vivekananda Roy Ghatak received their grant to advance their animated series Aapki Poojita and produce short, animated sketches and redesign and relaunch the famous Bakarmax webtoon platform.

Progyan Das received his grant to develop fault-tolerant systems capable of using consumer devices for large-scale foundation model training.

Yash Chitte, an MBA student, received his grant to build a wall-climbing robot that autonomously cleans glass facades.

Khushi Jain, an aerospace engineer, received her grant for NadirX Space, to build space-grade test infrastructure and hardware-in-the-loop systems that enable reliable testing of advanced space technologies and support future interplanetary missions.

Rishit Kapoor, an AI/ML researcher and engineer, received his grant for Periscopic Labs, which turns systematic reviews into living, AI-native infrastructure that keeps scientific claims traceable, verifiable, and continuously updated.

Koushik Das received his grant to build an explainable clinical decision-support system that helps primary-care doctors interpret complete blood count reports and detect anemia patterns more quickly and safely.

Shashank Sanjay, a medical student, received his grant to develop an affordable coronary stent.

Abrar Shahid, a systems designer using AI to reduce accessibility gaps, received his grant for Project Lumen AI, to build an AI translation layer connecting external eye photographs with retinal fundus scans and make eye-disease diagnosis easier.

Aryamman Bhatia is part of the team building HackerFab IITB, an open-source student-built chip microfabrication lab. He received his grant to build what he hopes will become the world’s cheapest fabrication tools and to inspire bottom-up contributions to India’s Semiconductor Mission.

Yashi Garg received her grant for Neurosole, a smart shoe designed to detect and prevent diabetic neuropathy. She is also a poet and emerging entrepreneur focused on purposeful innovation.

Fahad Hasin received his grant for the Kerala Growth Series, articles and policy memos to improve economic growth in the state. He thinks of the project as publicly building “the M document” of today.

Shafquat Aman, founder of NexuSelf, received his grant to build an AI wellness platform syncing women’s nutrition, workouts, hydration, and menstrual cycles to drive 2x adherence and lasting health outcomes. The company is a Delaware C-Corp in beta with users across the United States and India.

Kevin Wilson, founder and director of Tala Education, received his grant to scale play-based music pedagogy programs that train teachers and turn early childhood classrooms across India into spaces of creativity, inquiry, and joyful learning.

Yogesh Ostwal and Ayush Ranawade received their grant to build a generative AI model for discovering novel oncolytic viruses.

Priyansh Kumar, from Delhi, received his grant to work on an autonomous aerial defense system.

Gowtham Y is an instrumentation, electronics, and chemical engineer. He received his grant to work on synthetic fuel production, starting with cooking gas, at large scale using solar power.

Yash Mandlik received his grant to create a decentralized hostel network for solo and budget travelers, empowering every house to host the world.

Khush Mahajan received his grant to build a hyper-personalized AI storytelling app that helps kids grow curious. He is focused on learning by building consumer AI products and turning those lessons into useful tools.

Suraj Tripathi received his grant for Xorbital, a space-based solar power system that collects sunlight in orbit and wirelessly transmits clean energy to Earth, aiming to provide 24/7 power for defense, disaster response, and remote regions.

Jenil Gandhi, founder of Avinya Vegan Leather, received his grant to develop 100 percent compostable, plant-based vegan leather made from agricultural waste, reducing crop burning and animal cruelty. Avinya Vegan Leather was selected among the Top 20 (from Top 50) startups nationally at the UNDP Youth Co:Lab National Innovation Challenge 2026 and attended the Regional Immersion Bootcamp at T-Hub, Hyderabad. Jenil continues to develop compostable plant-based leather from agricultural waste.

Tanay Lohia received his grant for Mandrake Bioworks, which is building what he hopes will be the world’s smallest and most efficient gene editors for breakthrough cures, crops, and more. Mandrake Bio (Mandrake Bioworks) raised~?16 crore (~$1.9M) in a pre-seed round in July 2026, co-led by Activate and Antler, with Spectrum Impact, DeVC, and angel investors including Vijay Chandru and Paras Chopra. Earlier in 2026 the startup won the global GEM × Adaptyv RBX1 Protein Design Competition at ICLR 2026 in Rio de Janeiro — its AI-designed protein was the only entry among 12,000+ submissions to receive the competition’s highest “Strong” rating. Co-founded with Dr. Kutubuddin Molla (ICAR), the eight-person team is validating its first gene-editing enzymes in the lab.

Krishna Kant received his grant to develop a novel type of quantum dots for applications in science and technology.

Vaibhav Dabas received his grant to develop a smart ramp for train boarding.

Anindyadeep Sannigrahi, founder of LiteFold, received his grant to build infrastructure for drug discovery. The platform helps researchers iterate on experiments faster and move findings to the wet lab with greater confidence.

Chitra Singh, a visual computing graduate from MPI Germany, received her grant to build an AI copilot that streamlines radiology imaging workflows. She has spent a decade building and scaling imaging AI at deep-tech startups and GE Healthcare.

Shreyansh Diwakar, from Jhansi, received his grant for the 1825 Fund, a micro-grant initiative offering equity-free capital to ambitious young builders and hackers across India.

Aditya Jha, founder of Workithm, received his grant to build an AI-powered system designed to protect attention rather than merely manage tasks. He is focused on the future of human-AI collaboration, especially deep work and cognition.

Jeya Kalis, from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, received his grant to develop AI for scientific discovery by exploring combinatorial possibility space.

Chetan Bhattacharji, a journalist and climate communications consultant, received his grant for Earth Chakra, where he writes and produces videos and a podcast that place science, solutions, and experts on air pollution, climate change, and sustainability center stage.

Nithish Kumar, 26, received his grant to build the computational layer for portable nuclear fission reactors to power the next frontiers of humankind.

Sparsh Agarwal, a tea planter based in Darjeeling, received his grant for Alter Magazine, a Works in Progress-style monthly publication featuring new writing on science, technology, and progress from South Asia.

Roumak Das, a grade 11 student from West Bengal, and Samik Goyal, a 12th grader from Patiala, received their grants to travel to the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence 2025 in Beijing, where Roumak won a gold medal and Samik a silver medal. Roumak’s grant also supports his college applications, and Samik’s grant supports SPOI, dedicated to teaching informatics to school students.

Ishaan Gangwani received his grant to develop InkVell, an AI-native LaTeX editor, and to support his travel to the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence 2025 in Beijing. InkVell was accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2026 batch and raised ~$1.4M in pre-seed funding from investors including Charlie Songhurst, Pareto Holdings, Pioneer Fund, Amplo VC, and an a16z scout fund. The company registered in San Francisco and its AI-native LaTeX/writing platform is now live. Ishaan also won a medal for India at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) 2025.

Ronald Abraham received a career development grant for Veeraa, to build a crowdfunding and growth platform for India’s community leaders.

Tristan Wagner received his grant to explore low-cost autoinjectors for treating anaphylaxis and snakebite envenoming in India.

Michael Grasa received his grant to test a transparent, falsifiability-first approach to decoding the Indus Valley script, releasing versioned overlays and open datasets for replication or refutation.

Jasraj Budigam received his grant to develop CapNav-Lite, an adaptive AI navigation system that personalizes power-wheelchair control to each user within minutes on everyday hardware.

Mannat Kaur, a freshman at Stanford University, received her grant to continue developing research on wastewater recycling and its integration into the built environment and low-carbon housing.

Vineela Upadhyayula, Hari Krishna Upadhyayula, and Phani Madhav Upadhyayula received their grant for NeuraEase, to build a wearable-driven AI detection and management of acute dysregulation events in neurodivergence and neurological disorders, including autistic meltdowns. NeuraEase was incorporated as Brain Morph Technologies Pvt. Ltd., with all three founders as directors; the team describes it as a predictive neurotechnology platform translating physiological signals into early warnings.

Arnav Kumar and Gavneesh, co-founders of Vyobha Aerospace, received their grant to build regional eVTOL aircraft with fractional ownership at the cost of a car.

Aditya Raj Chopra, a high school senior, received a general career development grant.

Ansh Mishra received his grant to build reliable and accessible bionic prosthetic hands.

Vasu Dubey received his grant to build a machine-learning-based medical device for speech restoration in laryngectomy patients.

Snehadeep Kumar, 21, received his grant for Nebula Space Organisation, to build ultra-low-cost Earth-imaging CubeSats and a global imagery platform that makes space data accessible to everyone. Nebula Space Organisation’s flagship SABHASAT project — India’s first low-cost gamma-ray-burst-detecting CubeSat (a 3U nanosatellite) — reached prototype milestones with a targeted 2026 launch. The work earned recognition from ISRO (2024 National Space Science Symposium), and showcases at the International Astronautical Congress (Milan) and the European Astronomical Society. Snehadeep, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, has joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Uttam Singh and Ayush Das received their grant for Nakshatra Maps, to help people navigate indoor and outdoor public spaces with dynamic hyperlocal interactive maps, AR navigation, and smart emergency evacuation. Nakshatra Maps was formally incorporated (Nakshatra Mapping Solutions) and incubated at the Innovation Centre, MIT Manipal, with additional co-founders.

Mankaran Singh received his grant to build frictionless human-robot interaction for machines operating in human-centric environments.

Sommaiya Angrish, an alt Hindi-pop musician, received his grant to work on his third album, rooted in his personal healing journey. Sommaiya released a new 2026 single (“AJNABEE”) as part of his ongoing album work, continuing to build a Hindi-language catalog, and has 155K+ streams on his most popular track. Here’s his Spotify profile.

Achyut Tiwari received his grant for GeoLiquefy, an AI system forecasting earthquake-related soil liquefaction from geotechnical data for engineers, insurers, and risk assessors. GeoLiquefy has a published patent, early pilot interest (e.g., APS Hydro Pvt. Ltd.), and coverage in Swarajya Magazine.

Devayan Das, a biotech undergraduate, received his grant to develop dissolvable tissue culture nutrient blocks that simplify lab workflows and turn lab prep into a plug-and-play process.

Ayush Kale, a materials engineer, received his grant for EarthSprint Solutions, to transform agricultural waste into low-carbon, high-performance cement blocks.

Mohd Fahad Eqbal received his grant for Chakraswap, to scale an affordable battery swap network for e-rickshaw drivers.

Satyamedh Hulyalkar received his grant to develop a LoRa-based self-healing mesh network for agricultural and monitoring use cases.

Shivam Parashar received his grant for GreenScore, to build an industrial effluent monitoring system combining machine learning and IoT to keep Indian rivers clean.

Anand Unni received his grant for Nayaneethi Policy Collective, to develop a public policy curriculum and a community of public policy thinkers and analysts in Kerala, and strengthen the demand side of public policy.

Asit Singh, founder of Syngi, received his grant to develop sub-angstrom optical MEMS sensors for next-generation semiconductor lithography.

Rishabh received his grant to build a platform for real-time updates from Delhi courts, making judicial activity easier to track and understand.

Hari and Naveen received their grant for Archgen AI, an agentic ecosystem connecting legacy EDA tools with AI workflows for semiconductor chip design. Archigen is in the Fall26 Batch of Y Combinator. 

Shubh, 18, received his grant to scale robotics using world models.

Sarthak Ahuja received his grant for Hypertensight, a smartphone-based system for detecting hypertensive retinopathy, now deployed in over 18 Indian villages. His project was also published in the International Journal of Computer Science and Engineering in 2024.

Michaela Talwar received her grant for AltShows.com, an artist-run ticketing and discovery platform for India’s alternative arts ecosystem.

Avyukt Jindal, 16, received his grant to develop a nonlinear operator framework and pursue related work in condensed matter and other fields.

Anirudh Anilkumar, 29, and AV Surya Vardhan, 26, received their grant for Fe-rry, developing IoT-enabled modular point-of-care diagnostics for blood testing anywhere.

Bhanvi Kumar, a fourth-year Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering undergraduate at IIT Kharagpur, received her grant to study cellular reprogramming and cancer cell-state transitions.

Samanvya Hooda received his grant for nuclear strategy research in the Indo-Pacific using Mandarin sources and quantitative methods.

Pradyumn Chaudhary received his grant to build a low-cost, customizable augmented-reality prototype for practical use.

Jay Handa, 16, received his grant to build SMAC (Swing Match AI for Coaches), an AI-powered golf swing analysis platform for coaches.

Sajeeva Ratnam Nepala, 28, founder of Helen Bikes, received his grant to develop a series-hybrid pedal system for the first fully electric hubless bicycle.

Hitendra Singh, cofounder of Spantrik, received his grant to develop reusable rockets, including the Leapfrogger demonstrator; he has built and flown over 100 high-powered rockets.

Avi Mohan Kumar Shuklaa, 17, received his grant for a solar-powered AI elephant deterrent using seismic and radar sensor fusion, already field-deployed in Jharkhand.

Surya Uthkarsha, 14, received his grant for Flake AI, infrastructure that converts websites into editable designs and reflects changes in the underlying codebase.

Kritarth Agrawal received his grant for Sakshya, an AI-powered document-intelligence platform for India’s compliance and regulatory ecosystem.

Tejas Pugalia, 13, received his grant to advance his research on the Ramanujan-tau function and prepare for the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Arnav, 17, from Navi Mumbai, received his grant to build a $200 diagnostic pen intended as an alternative to a $3,000 Parkinson’s scan.

Arjan Chaudhary, 15, received his grant for GGameChamps, which structures competitive-gameplay data for analytics and AI use.

Satadru Chakrabarty, Ph.D., received his grant to develop an affordable multiplexed point-of-care diagnostic using de novo antibodies for liver-function testing in rural India.

Varun Bajpai received his grant for the Biological Data Network (BDN-04), a bio-integrated communication architecture exploring human muscle tissue for data transmission.

Semil Vaghasiya, 24, received his grant to develop sensor-free, 3D-printed hoof pads that use wear-deformation to predict equine injuries.

Kanukant Om Gupta and Mansi Gupta received their grant for Clearquik, to make customs clearance in India simpler, more transparent, and legitimate.

Parth Anand, 15, received his grant for research on temporal hallucinations in large language models across Western and non-Western domains. His paper was accepted for an oral presentation by the Society for Study for Artificial Intelligence and Simulation Behaviour XTAI symposium.

Shadman Sakib received his grant for youth development, communication, practical career guidance, and accessible learning initiatives in Bangladesh; his content reaches over 160,000 subscribers.

Sk Reezaal Arafat, 16, received his grant for Project SATARK, a decentralized agricultural fire-interception grid combining AI, IoT sensors, and a local response network in rural West Bengal.

Manan Gupta received his grant for Artemis, a proactive AI layer that lets users control their digital life through a phone call.

Srijal Dutta received his grant for ZSMC Co., an independent research initiative working across emerging technologies and engineering.