The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Bangalore, one of India’s first TiE chapters, announced its new Governing Board comprising 14 Charter Members, led by Madan Padaki as its President.
The Governing Board also elected Co-Founder & CEO of GiGa (‘Giving Indians Global Access’ Innovation Center) and former Executive Director TiE Boston Geetha Ramamurthy as the chapter’s Secretary, along with former Deputy Head Startup Karnataka as well as entrepreneur, policymaker and startup evangelist Sathyanarayana B V as the chapter’s Treasurer.
Other Board Members include Suryaprakash Konanuru, Joy Rajan Cheruvathoor, T R Anand, Priya Chetty Rajagopal, Kanika Radhakrishnan, Suryanarayanan A, Venkatesh Kumaran, Sanjay Anandaram, Naganand Doraswamy, Jawahar Bekay and Ravi Gururaj. Vijetha Shastry continues to lead the TiE Bangalore Secretariat as its full-time Executive Director.
The new Board’s focus will be to build on TiE Bangalore’s existing initiatives, strengthen the ecosystem connects with government, corporates, investors & academia, and ensure that voices of the entrepreneurs are amplified at the policy level.
Commenting on his election as President of TiE Bangalore, Madan Padaki said as someone who had benefited immensely from the TiE Bangalore network during the early stages of his entrepreneurial journey, he believes that TiE Bangalore adds tremendous value to entrepreneurs, by creating a nurturing ecosystem that is always supportive of their growth journeys.
“In this new role, I am fortunate to get an opportunity to pay it forward to every entrepreneur in the TiE network,” said Madan Padaki.
He also highlighted that the organisation will work at the intersection of tech and social entrepreneurship with a focus on agriculture, health, skills and education, rural commerce, financial inclusion, etc. and will expand TiE Bangalore’s reach to enable entrepreneurs across all non-tech sectors to grow, with a specific focus on women entrepreneurs.
“We also believe that entrepreneurial mindset is a critical 21st century skill and will work on scaling up the TiE Young Entrepreneur (TYE) programme to reach all schools & colleges in Karnataka, especially in the rural hinterlands. This will enable more of our youth to create local ventures that can generate jobs,” he added.
TiE Bangalore played a pivotal role in Madan Padaki’s entrepreneurial journey when a few years out of college, he co-founded MeritTrac as India’s first skills assessments company which was subsequently acquired by Manipal Global Education.
He has been a longstanding Charter Member and Governing Board member of TiE Bangalore since 2010. A social entrepreneur working at the intersection of entrepreneurship, rural communities, and youth, he is presently leading 1Bridge, a village commerce network, as its Founder & CEO.
Madan Padaki is also Co-founder & Managing Trustee of Head Held High Foundation (a non-profit that aims to create abundance by youth transformation), Co-founder of Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), an alliance that galvanises the ecosystem on igniting a mass entrepreneurship movement, an angel investor in several start-ups and is also a Strategy Advisor to UNICEF India for the YuWaah initiative.
Ravi Gururaj, outgoing president of TiE Bangalore said over his two terms starting 2017, the TiE Bangalore board worked diligently to nurture and strengthen the start-up ecosystem across Karnataka and Bengaluru city.
“We have engaged closely with corporate partners on numerous knowledge sharing, business connects, mentoring, and innovation initiatives, with the Government of Karnataka on path-breaking startup initiatives including the very successful Elevate Grant initiative, supported the scale-up of our highly impactful IoT Forum, helped give roots to student entrepreneurs via the TiE Young Entrepreneur (TYE) Initiative and rolled out new global initiatives such as TiE Women,” said Ravi Gururaj.
He said he is delighted to hand the baton to Madan, a passionate, energetic, and successful entrepreneur and believe he is ideally qualified to lead and grow TiE Bangalore chapter’s impact in new sectors and innovative initiatives.
Founded in 1999 as one of India’s first TiE chapters, TiE Bangalore has played a pioneering role in fostering the entrepreneurship ecosystem, by actively promoting, mentoring, and helping start-ups scale.
It was fortunate to have Nandan Nilekani as the Founding President and in its 22 years of existence, has been ably led by passionate entrepreneurs like Dr. Sridhar Mitta, Pradeep Kar, SR Gopalan, Naganand Doraswamy & Ravi Gururaj.
With an active network of over ove 100 Charter Members and over 400 Associate Members, it has engaged with over over 5000 entrepreneurs over the last few years through various initiatives.
The organisation is supported by key partners and annual sponsors like Lowe Innovation Labs, Western Digital, Intel Startup Program, SAP, Cisco Launchpad, Societe Generale Silicon Valley Bank, Microsoft, ABinBev, DERBI Foundation, Mouser Electronics, NABARD, STPI and active support from Karnataka Startup Cell, KTECH among others.
