april 14, 2018

emerging markets summit

as global markets shift, so should the way you do business

South Asia - Technology
"Building for the Next Billion Internet Users"

Internet penetration and use has rapidly increased in India and other South Asian markets over the past 2 years. This has been driven through global trends of cheap smartphones, and cheap mobile Internet access driven through new entrants and competition. India alone has 400M internet users and is expected to add ~500M more users over the next 5-7 years, with significant increases in Internet usage across the board. What does this opportunity look like and how should global and Indian companies alike build relevant solutions for these users? Further how can they take advantage of government efforts in enabling a suitable online infrastructure


PEEYUSH RANJAN

VP, Google - Next Billion users

  • Peeyush Ranjan is Vice President of Engineering at Google, leading the Next Billion User initiative for the company. Peeyush has led teams in R&D and has also lead Google's Enterprise related engineering efforts worldwide. Before Google, Peeyush worked as VP of Infrastructure at Airbnb, CTO at Flipkart, and CVP Engineering at Motorola Mobility, a division of Google. Peeyush holds degrees in Computer Science from IIT Kharagpur and Purdue University, and MBA from University of Washington.

SHAMIR KARKAL

Entrepreneur in Residence, Omidyar Network, Former Head of Open API Initiatives at BBVA

  • Shamir is a software engineer turned finance and banking expert. Prior to joining Omidyar Network as an Entrepreneur in Residence, Shamir headed Open API initiatives at BBVA. Shamir also Co-founded Simple, an online banking services startup based in Portland, Oregon. He is also an active volunteer with iSpirit Foundation - evangelising the IndiaStack. Before Simple, Shamir was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. specializing in strategy consulting for financial institutions in Europe, the Middle East, and the US. He has a bachelor's in computer science, a master's in information technology, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

RisHI JAITLY

CEO, Times Bridge, Former VP, Twitter Asia-Pacific, Middle East and North Africa

  • Rishi Jaitly is the CEO of Times Bridge, Asia's largest investments & partnerships firm bringing the world's best ideas to India. Capitalized by India's largest media company, the current portfolio of Times Bridge includes Airbnb, Coursera, Houzz, Mubi, Thrive, Uber, Vice and other world-class tech and media ventures eager to realize their India, Asia and global opportunity. Jaitly is the former Vice President, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa for Twitter, where he built and led the teams which took Twitter into the region's high-growth emerging markets.
  • Earlier in his career, Jaitly was the Managing Director of Twitter India, the Head of Public/Private Partnerships for Google India, an aide to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and a Director of the Knight Foundation and College Summit. He is the co-founder of India Voices, Michigan Corps, Kiva Detroit/Flint, the BMe Community & Citizen Millennial. A former Trustee of Princeton University and Commissioner of Higher Education in New Jersey, Jaitly lives in Chicago and splits his time between the US & Asia.

RAGHU BETINA

Clinical Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

  • Raghu Betina, Clinical Assistant Professor of Operations Management and Entrepreneurship, teaches Application Development. Previously, he was Instructor & Managing Partner at The Starter League in Chicago, specializing in beginner-focused programming education.
  • Prior to that, Betina was an entrepreneur and an investor in southern India. He successfully built and managed technology companies, but only with great difficulty due to a lack of technical skills. He returned to the US to learn how to build software himself, and discovered that it is possible for beginners to become productive quickly as a student at The Starter League.
  • You can read more about the MBA-specific programming course he designed here, or watch a talk he gave about his own path to programming here.