over 9 years ago

Meet our Jury Panelists for Opportunity Hack 2016, Chennai

Sriram V. Ayer
Founder, NalandaWay Foundation

Sriram Ayer, in his earlier assignment, worked as the Head of New Initiatives for a leading technology firm in Chennai from 1998 to 2004.Personal experiences during the 2002 Gujarat riots however, motivated him to set up Nalandaway Foundation. As Founder & CEO of the organization, Sriram believes in using the power of the arts to change the way education is perceived and delivered to children from low-income groups in India. He was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2006 and ranked among the ‘Top 50 Social Entrepreneurs in India’ by Outlook magazine. Also the recipient of the ‘Architect of the Future’ Award by Waldzell Institute in Vienna, Sriram is currently involved in the full-time management of NalandaWay Foundation. His interests range from theatre, music and literature to history and fiction-writing. Sadhana Somasekhar

Sadhana Somasekhar is Founder Director, CEO & MD of Zeus Career & Performance Coach Pvt. Ltd. She has over 26 years of experience in the IT & ITES industry managing global workforces in the corporate sector and as an established Entrepreneur. She is an accredited leadership coach, mentor and business consultant.

She has several accolades to her name including Best Woman Entrepreneur Across Sectors- Dun & Bradstreet’s Leading SMEs of India and SME Awards (2013-14), Woman Leader for Innovation- 5th Annual Woman Leaders of India summit (2014) and NASSCOM Special Recognition Award (2010) : Innovation and D&I

M.K. Sudarsan
Head, Outreach Programs at Cognizant

Sudarsan who fondly goes by the name “Sudo” has been in the IT industry for over 20 years. He has extensive experience in managing business relationships, portfolios & delivering IT programs for large retail and healthcare businesses. He led the Innovation & Outreach Initiatives for Cognizant’s Healthcare Business unit and currently heads the Operations of for their Outreach program. He started an NGO that provides volunteering opportunities to engage with children of government schools. His current focus is on pro-bono volunteering and bringing skilled professionals together, to contribute to social causes through their core-competencies.

Ramesh Parthasarathy
Platform Engineering Lead at FreshDesk

Ramesh Parthasarathy heads platform engineering group at FreshDesk, Chennai. An ex-PayPalian, Ramesh has progressive experience in diverse technology areas including ecommerce, payments, platform, infrastructure etc. He has been a Technology Architect for various products in his experiences with Sun Microsystems, eBay and PayPal. He has consistent track record of delivering highly performant, highly scalable software systems.