Dr. Ananthavalli Ramesh

Associate Professor

Alliance School of Business

Dr. Ananthavalli Ramesh is alumnus of NITT and IITM. She has interdisciplinary domain expertise from engineering design, new product development, healthcare research to technology management. She has more than a decade of industry experience with Royal Enfield, GM, Volvo and Caterpillar. She is a trained six-sigma blackbelt and accelerated by sis-sigma council as a trainer. She has designed the curriculum for developed the curriculum for Mahatma Gandhi National Council for Rural Education for the rural MBA programs. Dr. Ananthavalli Ramesh is certified technical writer for Clinical Evaluation Report – medical devices. She coined the term ‘Concept Exploration Process’ as part of her M.S. (by Research) program at IITM to facilitate new product success. She worked closely with hospitals to deploy patient-engagement (patient centric care) as an outcome of her doctoral research at IITM.

Dr. Ananthavalli Ramesh nurtures technology-enabled entrepreneurship skill development to students and provide FDP to develop institute level entrepreneurship ecosystem.  She had worked on multiple government projects and implementations like RAMP, CSR projects. She has accumulated 11 years of experience in teaching and 10 years of experience in industry.

Faraz Moosa

Angel Investor | Startup Mentor | Advisory Board Member

Faraz Moosa is a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor with over 18 years of experience in supporting, mentoring, and investing in early-stage startups across diverse sectors. He is the Chairperson of the Board at Songbird Ventures, an early-stage incubation and investment firm that backs high-potential startups with capital, strategic mentorship, and long-term business support. He also serves as Director at Prudence Innovations Pvt. Ltd., the parent company behind Startups Club, now rebranded—a vibrant community platform that has a community of over 20,000 entrepreneurs from Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities across India. Through this initiative, Faraz has played a key role in grassroots-level ecosystem development and startup community building. In his international work, Faraz has collaborated with the E-Residency Program by Government of Estonia for over three years, helping over 200 Indian startups register and explore opportunities in Estonia’ s thriving digital economy. He has also worked with the Government of France through the Hello Tomorrow initiative, serving as an Indian advisor and connector for deep-tech and innovation-focused founders seeking global visibility and partnerships. Alongside his work with Songbird, Faraz is the founder of Leads & Feeds LLP, a consultancy offering end-to-end support for entrepreneurship—from idea validation to growth strategy. Under Leads & Feeds, he also actively partners with universities across India to mentor student entrepreneurs and develop campus-based startup ecosystems. Serving on the Advisory Board of SAMA Foundation, he supports nonprofit and social development initiatives with strategic insight. Having invested in 0-2 years early-stage startups, Faraz brings a founder-first approach rooted in sustainability, innovation, and long-term value creation. Widely respected for his people-centric leadership style, Faraz believes in empowering teams through emotional intelligence, trust-building, and clarity of purpose—bridging the gap between vision and execution for the next generation of changemakers.

Prof. Nagaraja (Naga) Prakasam

Author, Angel Investor, Mentor, Fund Advisor

Nagaraja (Naga) Prakasam is a versatile and passionate leader with 3 decades of global experience (decade in the USA, rest in India). Retired at 41, enjoys as a Farmer Growing startups across the country. Being a lead angel investor, invested in 33 start-ups in 65+ rounds, lead 16 deals in which Uniphore become Unicorn with 120x return, served 12 boards, seen 8 exits, 3 write-offs.

Author of “BackToBharat – In search of a sustainable future” book that addresses the present economic dilemma for Indian entrepreneurs and consumers, looking at the past and present situation of both India and the developed world to find a way forward. BtB received the prestigious GLF-WWF Honours Book Award 2024 at the Green Literature Festival.

Professor of Practice at Alliance University, teaching a unique multidisciplinary immersion course titled Solving for Bharat. The course is designed with 80% field engagement and 20% classroom learning, with Back to Bharat—his own book—as the primary text. The course reimagines education by focusing on experiential learning and real-world problem-solving across India. As an adivisor to Vice Chancellor curating India’s first Ph.D VISTA program to create multi-disciplinary Ph.D towards converting research into venture creation.

Spearheaded Impact thinking in Indian Angel Network and co-founded IAN Impact.  His personal mantra is “Start-ups should focus on India’s strength – People, Problems, Tech (PPT)”.

Lead Uniphore that was rejected by 25 investors, served its board 6 years, with his Angel touch today it has achieved $2.5B valuation giving 120x return.

Balaraju Kondaveeti

Co-founder & CEO, BodhBridge Education

Mr. Balaraju Kondaveeti holds an M.S. (Entrepreneurship) degree from IIT Madras. As part of his M.S. (Entrepreneurship), he founded a company in 2006 and holds 2 patents (granted) in the area of Internet Security. Mr.Balaraju won the National Budding Innovator Award in 2009 from Govt of India. Mr. Balaraju won the Best Student Plan Award in the Business Plan Conclave Organized by PAN IIT Global Conference 2008. Mr. Balaraju has served as a consultant on two large projects at IIT Madras. In 2009, he co-founded a company, BodhBridge Education, which was incubated at IIT Madras. As part of BodhBridge's journey, they helped more than 5 Lakh students through Career Guidance programs, Campus Placement Preparation programs, Career Development, Career Assessments, Teacher Training programs, Certification Programs, Competitive Exam preparation, etc. BodhBridge's clients include Pearson, The Hindu, Times of India, CII, Govt. of Telangana, IIT Madras, Amrita University, Careers360, various NGOs, and the Punjab and Tamil Nadu Governments.